The first time I saw Diana's Fly Me To The Moon I wanted to knit one too. I've been waiting for the release of the pattern ever since. I was finally able to get to it after finishing the sweater last week. The pattern of this shawl is called Fly me To the Moon, designed by Diana Rozenshteyn (aka deenulya on Ravelry.)
The name of the shawl was just so perfect for the time. It was Chinese Moon Festival last Monday. The day to celebrate Autumn. The most famous myth that associated with this day was long ago everything was peaceful and abundant in the kingdom of middle earth. There lived a famous archer Hou Yi and his wife Chang Er. One day, instead of a single sun, 10 suns rose up to the sky. The rivers soon dried up, all the vegetation died from the sweltering heat, and people lost their harvest. Hou Yi brought out his bows and arrow and began to shoot down each of the suns. After he shot down 9 suns and was aiming at the 10th one, Chang Er stopped him and said, "We still need one sun for things to grow, and for lives to go on." Therefore, one sun remained in the sky. Because of his act that saved the people, he soon became the ruler of the kingdom. However, over time he turned into a tyrant ruling with supreme power. Chang Er was so disappointed at what her husband had become that she was terrified at the thought of her Hou Yi taking the elixir of immortality he had in his possession and continue on as a tyrant for eternity. One day she decided to steal the elixir. She then took the elixir herself to prevent her husband from ever able to snatch it back. Suddenly she found her body lighter and lighter and she began to float away. She ended up flying up to the moon and had resided there ever since. Every full moon you can see the shadow of her in the moon. "Flying to The Moon" was just the perfect shawl to knit to celebrate the holiday.
I looked through my stash and found nothing that was suitable. Well, I do have some Malabrigo Silky Merino, the yarn that Diana used, in stash , but I did not have enough skeins to make the shawl. Knowing that even with ordering more I for sure would end up with yarn of complete different dye lot, I decided to dye up some yarn myself. I could tell that silk/merino blend was truly the right yarn choice for this pattern as it was called for in the pattern, so I ordered Silk and Ivory from Dharma Trading CO (I believe you can also find the same yarn at Catnip Yarns under Carrera) and dyed it with logwood purple that I had gotten from Botanical Colors last year. I wanted a very pale lavender color for the shawl, and the yarn turned out just that.
I thoroughly enjoyed knitting the shawl. I love the design. It was very addicting for me to knit the cable stitches. I knitted without using a cable needle, so it went very fast. I didn't even slip stitches off the needle to hold in hand like some instructions for cable needle-less method. I just slipped the stitches back and forth from one needle to another. The instruction of the pattern was very clear and easy to follow. The built up of the pattern was very intuitive. The cable stitches turned outere just gorgeous with the silky yarn. I loved knitting the shawl with this yarn. I couldn't stop knitting at all. This morning I showed it to Paul, he immediately said, "wow, that is very ethereal and those stitches look like little wings." Considering it was not a lace pattern but rather, a cable pattern, it was amazing that the word ethereal would be associated with cables. What a great design.
Because my gauge was different, the yarn was listed as fingering, but it actually was closer to sport weight, I knitted two extra repeat of the main stitches, and 2 extra rows of the border stitches. Still, the shawl came out smaller than the pattern, it's only 60" wide, but I was running out of yarn so... It was knitted with US #4 needles and BO using US #6 needles. I love, love, love it. It truly was an enjoyable knit with a wonderful result.
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