KAL -or- To Follow a Mysterious Arrow

Copyright: Ysolda Teague

It has been an intense week here at the Treehouse! It was the first week of my exam period, with two more weeks to go. So a lot of studying and working on papers and essays has been going on here. In the meantime books have been coming in for the new semester and the pile has reached a worrying height. Although you can never have to many books, and although many of these books I would have loved to read in my spare time, it’s always a bit disconcerting when your pile of  “work”-reading is to large to fit on your bookshelf.

Perfect timing for some distraction to come along! Distraction presents itself in the form of a new exciting project:
A Mystery Shawl Knit Along by Ysolda Teague! 
She did one of these last year, and I had wanted to participate in that one but it never happened because similar to this time, it was during the annual January exam period, so exams and essays ruled my life.

It has been a while since I participated in a Mystery KAL. Ysolda’s formula follows a ‘choose your own adventure’ format. For the duration of the knit along you get two clues, every week, from which you choose one. The result is 32 possible combinations. This is such an exciting innovation from Ysolda. I loved last year’s shawls so much that I’m confident that I’ll like this year’s design as well.

The instructions don’t come with a recommended yarn, it just says to use fingering yarn. There are instructions provided in case you want to use more than one colour. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve changed my mind about which yarns to use and how many colours.  From what I read in the KAL group gradient yarn packages are very popular this year. At the moment I’m still torn between two options: the blue combination of Old Maiden Aunt (pictured above) or the combination of these Welsh yarns pictured below. I guess I’ll see what inspiration hits me when the pattern arrives in the mailbox.