Around the beginning of 2014 and through mid February, I came down with the flu and had bronchitis twice! Needless to say, I didn’t feel like doing much other than watching TV, reading, and sleeping. On the other hand, while I didn’t feel like crocheting, for some reason I didn’t mind knitting at all (glad I can do both!) and ended up making two small pieces, one of which I describe below.

Beautiful Wreck Inspired the Lichen Shawl

One of the books I read was Beautiful Wreck by writer and knit designer, Larissa Brown. If you like time-travel romance novels and Vikings, this is the book for you. It’s beautifully written, with well-developed characters and a riveting plot set in 10th century Iceland that kept me turning pages well into the night.

When she released the novel under the Cooperative Press  imprint, Larissa gave away several patterns inspired by the novel, one of which was the Lichen Shawl. I really liked it and thought it would be a small enough knitting project that even I, who hadn’t picked up the needles in a while, could manage.

Lichen, a kind of fungus that grows on rocks, trees, and walls, comes in a multitude of varieties, but I think the above photo shows a nice representation of the kind of lichen that might have inspired Larissa’s shawl design.

Easy to Knit, Difficult Block (At Least for Me)

I thought this pattern would be somewhat challenging to knit, what with all of the swirls and the lacy effect. But it was actually pretty easy, consisting mostly of the stockinette stitch, a row of yarn-overs, some binding off, and a decrease row in the pattern repeat.

Blocking the piece, on the other hand, was a lot harder! And you really have to because stockinette stitch edges tend to curl under. Moreover, you want to stretch the stitches out to create the lacy effect. But because I used acrylic yarn (I have loads of it in my stash), wet blocking was out of the question.

I needed a source of heat, to lightly melt/soften the fiber, but not too much that I ended up killing the fabric. I opted for a steam iron, an ironing board, and a thick towel covering the piece so I wouldn’t totally melt the acrylic. I pinned a section of the shawl at a time to the ironing board, covered it with a thick washcloth, then pressed with the steam iron.

This method worked fairly well, except that you can’t press down too hard on the towel. I thought covering the piece with the towel would protect the fabric, and it did, to a degree. Thankfully, you don’t notice where I pressed down a little too hard (the fabric looks a little too shiny), and from that point forward, I used a very light touch with the iron.

I HIGHLY recommend knitting this shawl with wool or a wool blend so you can wet block it and to pin it out completely. The pattern provides a thorough explanation of how to do this; I didn’t follow the instructions only because I didn’t have a suitable blocking board. However, if you have a steamer and want to try it with acrylic yarn, blocking should be a piece of cake.

An Easy Knitting Project That Produces a Lovely Result

Now that I’ve taken a second look at photos of the shawl on Ravelry, mine could probably use a little more blocking. If it turns into a Christmas gift, I’ll take the time to block it properly.

If you want to try the pattern, you can find it HERE . The shawl can be knitted in either Aran or DK/heavy-fingering- weight yarn (instructions are provided for both). And Beautiful Wreck is available as a Kindle ebook on Amazon.com (aff).