I have a love for Zauberball, which is a delicious German ball of wool from Schoppel Wolle. They are crafted in delightful colorways and have fantastic slow color changes that rather appear to evolve as opposed to switch colors. Just after Christmas, i took a gift certificate my awesome Hubby bought me to the local yarn store and bought my first Zauberball... in cranberries. Is it not a most delicious color?
I fawned over it and smooshed it to my cheek many a time and then made not one but two lovely pairs of socks from this beautiful and machine washable wool. I loved the color and feel of it so much, i went back to my LYS and picked up another Zauberball. They had a few colors there but the one that was prettiest to me was still the cranberries colorway. Since i had two pairs of socks already, i was at a loss for what to knit in it.
This led me to log on to faithful Ravelry... the website and online community for yarn artists, knitters and crocheters from all over the world. I searched their extensive database of patterns for specific patterns people had knit from Zauberballs and discovered Wingspan. (note that the pattern link will only work if you are a member of Ravelry, which is free to join and this pattern is also free). I thought the pattern by maylin Tri'Coterie Designs was lovely and looked like good fun so i thought i would give it a go. I also noted that there was a knit along group going on in the forum there on Ravelry for this particular pattern. I cast on gleefully and checked back daily to see how others were doing with their patterns. There were some absolutely awe inspiring versions and they all looked so different. This pattern can be knit in different sizes, with different gauges or textures. It really is versatile.
I decided to make one wingspan with 90 st cast on and 16 st increase
patterns AND a 60 st cast on with the 14 st increase pattern. i only had
enough yarn to go to 7 triangles on both (knit the smaller one to 7
first and then the larger one… they happened to work out to the same
number) i then knit the 4 rows of each and cast off all of the edge on
the smaller wingspan minus 36 st. i then did a 3 needle bind off
overlapping the end of the larger wingspan with the remaining st. on the
smaller one, binding them together… then finished the remaining cast
off.
Here is how it looked right off the needles. Pardon the poor lighting as it was 9 pm when i finished and the only light source was CFL.
Here it is once blocked. I decided to pull the points a bit and really accentuate the fractal look of the finished piece. I love how it appears to fly like some abstract bird.
I love my Wingspan and will be knitting up more of these. While the first change from triangle 1 to triangle 2 threw me for a bit of a loop, once i figured that out (and it was simpler than i was making it), i no longer needed to even read the pattern. It is quite intuitive and a good fun knit!
