It’s been a bit of a strange time, friends. For both the wider world and the small one in my head.
Frogging Light of the Valkyrie in May 2024 threw me for a loop. After that I just… stopped. Stopped writing. Slowed knitting. And then it had been nine months! I’ve been thinking about how we go through seasons, as humans, and perhaps this was a season of hibernation.
Looking back, though I never mentioned it (because it’s dull) I was quite poorly from March to May, culminating in testing positive for Covid just after my birthday. 2024 was a tough shift, in some ways.
Anyway, knitting slowed but never came to a stop. I visited Amsterdam in June, and I hit up Hooks and Yarn (before I travel, I look on Google Maps for yarn stores – anyone else?) and what a lovely experience!
I felt really welcome, we chatted about yarn, and the owner made G a coffee and sat them down at a table to the back of the shop, so they could do their own thing while I browsed. There was tons of different yarn to choose from, all in my price range, and naturally I ended up taking something right from the top end of that range: Yeti in black, at €25 a skein. Easily the most expensive yarn I’ve ever bought, and I took three of them with the intent of making the long-bookmarked Otter’s Wake (Ravelry link) by Leslie Weber. It was a significant purchase, and I regret nothing. It is softer and smoother and more beautiful than I can adequately describe.
It feels an appropriate project for a comeback. ‘Wake’ in the pattern name refers to the angled wave in the river behind a swimming otter. But can’t it also refer to the reawakening of my interest in knitting and sharing again? Of course it can.
I cast on on the 11th of June, and it took me at least six weeks to make. It didn’t progress at pace, despite it being simple. I even took it on a long car journey, to no avail. It was too simple, I grumbled… but then I didn’t want to do anything complicated, either. And, as always, slowly but surely the pattern ate all the yarn and I had a finished shawl.
I wear it every day, and any time people find out I made it (which is any time I can wrangle it in to conversation), they’re amazed. It’s a simple knit, but very effective.
This is Otter’s Wake (Ravelry link) by Leslie Weber. I used 466m (three skiens) of Yeti yarn in black, on 3.5mm needles. I did 27 repeats then a partial repeat to use up all the yarn.
