Winter Knitting Bay’s Edge Shawl Pattern

Today I finally decided on the seven colors I would use to knit the Bay’s Edge Shawl pattern. I had been searching for a rectangular shaped shawl to knit.

It took me days to decide which blue-green shades of yarn to use. Then there were the two contrast colors. The main color was an easy choice as I wanted something with a bit of a gradient and not the plain white shown in the pattern. I wanted colors to represent ocean and beaches I see near my home.

The Bay’s Edge pattern suggests a gradient yarn collection (find it at Miss Babs) to make buying easier, but I wanted to choose my own colors! The ripple effect evokes waves of water so I chose blue-greens and blues with one tan (sand color) and a peachy-pink to add a bit of color to offset the blues.

At Miss Babs I added many colors to the “compare” section, then deleted them, and added more. I think I went through every single 2-ply toes yarn shown! The only color which is the same as one in the collection of yarn used in the sample pattern is Sea Oat. I chose to exchange their blues, green and purple with shades of blue-green.

My main color yarn will be “Life Begins” which is a Yummy 2-Ply wild iris (non-repeatable color way) in light blue-green with some speckles – See the big skein below. I needed one skein in 400 yds. My yarn arrived November 1st – how exciting! I love those little gifts they always include, and the yarn is super wonderful! Look at those colors…!

shades of green yarn — Yarn colors for my shawl project

Miss Babs offers smaller skeins of Yummy 2-Ply Toes with 133 yards each, and I needed 6 of those to complete the “waves” in the pattern.

Here is what colors I ended up choosing: (a “wild iris” color is non-repeatable, one of a kind dye lot).

“Sea Curtain” (Wild Iris)
“Mount Kootaloo”
“Black Watch”
“Sea Oat” – tan / beige
“Picuri” (Wild Iris) – pink
“Aquarius”

I would have liked the two darkest greens to be more of a contrast, but buying yarn online makes it difficult to see everything together. The “Blackwatch” color way is really beautiful and I’d love to knit something using that color again. It looks a lot more green than blue in reality. The photos at Miss Babs look very blue, which mine was not.

Beginning the Shawl Pattern

It took me three tries to get this shawl’s “cast on”. If you have ever knit a triangle shawl, you probably know how that weird beginning goes. You must know how to “pick up and knit” stitches. I suspected it would give me trouble and I expected to have to re-do. I finally had it looking okay and got on a roll. I can see the pretty little triangle shape emerging!

Miss Babs yarn is so pretty with slight variations in color throughout.

knitting the Bays Edge shawl — Beginning the shawl

Now it is January and I am finishing up this shawl. Once I did the bind-off on the first edge, I fell in love! The I-cord bind off looks so nice. Once I completed the second half and needed to do the bind-off again, I had to look it up to refresh my memory.

Today I wove in the ends and washed the finished shawl. It is blocked on Knit IQ mats, and in the process of drying in the spare bedroom. The pattern was easy to follow and fun to knit. I really love the way it turned out. The yarn colors I chose were meant to represent the colors of the sea. Shades of blue-green from light to dark are mixed with a row of beige for “sand” and “pink” for seashells.

Bays edge shawl in ocean colors — Blocked and drying – the Bay’s Edge shawl

My Notes on Knitting the Bay’s Edge Shawl

Notes: Beginning this shawl is a bit tricky. Watch a video about how to pick up stitches and knit them, if you have never done this. You must know how to SSK and M1R and M1L. I placed markers for each 19 stitch set on the making waves rows just in case I ended up off with my count at the end of the row. I could easily go back and count 19 stitches in each section to see where I was off. Many of the rows were simple knit across, which could easily be done while watching TV. The I-cord bind off takes time, but is worth it.