What the Fade?!

Hold up, did this just become a knitting blog? Because I seem to only write about my knitting lately. Maybe it's because I've been sewing repeat and/or easy sewing patterns and idk if you guys are interested in my no frills sewing. Are you? If so, I'll make more of an effort to write about them.


In exciting knitting news, here is my What the Fade shawl for the Drea Renee Knits Mystery Knit Fade Along. Yeah, I joined in on another MKAL, I think I'm addicted. It is so so so fun doing mystery projects, you guys. I picked out six colors that blended in together (and by "picked out" I mean I bought a kit of five yarns and then added the pink one from my stash) from Republic of Wool, one of my very very favorite indie dyers of all time. I love speckled yarn, especially when blending between two colors.


I started the MKAL on August 31st and finished it on October 7th, which is power knitting for me. Fingering weight yarn takes forverrrrr to knit (I may or may not have mentioned this on my blog recently 😉) and I am pleased with how quickly this went from strands of yarn to a legit shawl. It might have went faster if I wasn't messing up the brioche so many times. There was some ripping back, and by that I mean I restarted this thing five different times, which was annoying. At first.

Sidebar: I recently watched this video by Jocko Willink and it really really pumped me up. Go watch it and come back here when you're done, it will take 2 minutes and 19 seconds of your life.

Did you watch it? Messed up your brioche stitches and had to start over? "Good." Niece aggressively tried to lick you and you dropped a bunch of stitches that you don't know how to pick up? "Good." I'm changing my mindset in knitting and sewing and life. I hope you'll join me.


Anyway, this is my first two color brioche project and it was extra fun with the color fading/melting. The pattern is exclusively brioche and garter, so once you get the hang of doing brioche it's an easy one to memorize and the color changes kept it interesting. Andrea made incredibly helpful video tutorials that were the only reason I even knew what was going on. That's not to say that her pattern isn't well written, it is, but I really needed the visual help to learn two color brioche. So, thanks for the well made and well written MKAL, Andrea!

The cool thing about thing about this is that it's completely reversible and you don't have to worry about an "ugly" side showing, yes!!!! And compared to my last "fade" project weaving in the ends was not bad at all. The end pieces were a cinch to hide in the brioche legs and into garter edges. I'm all about quick and easy end weaving 👌


There were instructions for optional tassels on the three corners, but I'm not about that life right now and can always add them if I change my mind. Overall, I'm really really happy with the finished product. I've got another huge shawl and life is awesome. Now comes the fun part of planning my next knitting project 😊

Thanks for reading! And remember: "good."