Stephen West is a remarkable up and coming designer and while I hope someday he starts designing garments, for now I am content to follow his explorations of scarves in all manner of shapes, sizes, and being.  When he announced his Official Shawl club, I was delighted and immediately subscribed.  What was not to like?  The first pattern arrived on my birthday!

Jamie and I have been knitting this together and it has been a great adventure.  FIRST:  Use the stitch markers.  Do not try to be brave, they are there for a reason and even I, theHumanLoom, needed them.  SECOND:  This stitch pattern is awesome and lends itself to all kinds of future variations.  I can hardly wait to finish this so I can do some swatching.  THIRD:  Mr. West would benefit from some technical editing.

It would be nice to know the precise yardage needed…he knit it…he knows the answer to this question.  This was not for a yarn company.  Come on..come clean with the info!

After the first two bind off rows, some total stitch counts would have been most welcome ( 35 stitches remain after set-up rows 1-3, then Rows 1-4).  I can figure out the rest but give me a bone here and something to build on.  After each four row repeat (not including bind off rows,) there is an increase of 16 stitches.   It would have been delightful to know that after the first bind off, three stitches remain on the Left Hand Needle before the first marker — otherwise this becomes an enormous crap shoot.  I counted after each bind off row 1-2 and then built the total stitch counts for each succeeding section from there.

Jamie and I both loved the idea of successive smaller central shark’s teeth and since we had 465 yards we pushed for a fourth tooth (so the first tooth has 10 center pairs of eyelets, the second has eight center pairs of eyelets, the third has 6 center pairs of eyelets and our fourth has 4 center pairs of eyelets).  We are also going to let that fourth and last tooth blend right into the final K1P1 rib edging.

I LOVE THE TOP BORDER that Mr. West created for this shawl.  Highest Kudos for that!  I do not believe there is any other designer or pattern that has been so creative and imaginative to accomplish this feat with a shawl knit from the top out and down.  I am sure other designers will be taking their cue from this and attempting to do variations on this now that Stephen West has finally broken through this barrier for us.  Thank you Stephen West.

Overall, I give a Six Sheep (out of six) Salute to Mr. West for this pattern.  I do suggest to all knitters that you go to Kinko’s and enlarge it 300%.  So nice to be young Mr. West.  Charting would be a welcome addition to future patterns; but I feel (other than the lack of stitch counts) overall, Mr. West got the job done in the space he gave himself.  Well Done and I look forward to your future ideas.

This is Summit Yarn Studio signing off and wishing you all the best of all possible best days!

loads of love, Mary Ellen and Summit Yarn Studio