Welcome to the Elliot Shawl Knit Along!

The Elliot Shawl is the knitted companion to our beloved Olivia Shawl that was created as part of our Tunisian crochet collaboration with Toni Lipsey of TL Yarn Crafts. You all loved Olivia so much that you wanted a knit version, and Tricia has delivered! 

This project is perfect for knitters including beginners, as well as crocheters looking to learn how to knit! It is engaging yet meditative and celebrates color, craft and community. Life may get meshy sometimes, but letting our brains and bodies settle into a rhythm allows us to knit it out!

Pattern

The Elliot Shawl is a knit companion pattern to our Olivia Shawl that was part of our popular Tunisian crochet collaboration with Toni Lipsey! There are two color variations included in the instructions - a five-color option and a two-color option. 

You can purchase the pattern here on michiganfineyarns.com and add it as a project on Ravelry.

Materials

Our team has curated kits of Koigu KPM and KPPPM in a variety of color palettes for the five-color shawl design. Exact skeins will vary from those shown, but all will be hand-selected to coordinate and exemplify the theme!

In addition to your yarn, you will need US size 3 (3.25mm) circular needles with a 32" cable. Exact gauge is not critical for this project, but please create a gauge swatch if you'd like to match the measurements provided in the pattern. You may require a different needle size to achieve a similar result.

You'll also want to have a tapestry needle, scissors, tape measure and removable stitch marker on hand for this project.

Schedule

The Elliot Shawl KAL will run from December 4th through January 31st. We will get together on December 4th at the shop to cast on and have a couple of check-ins along the way.

Community

Join in or follow all of the activity on Instagram and Facebook! We will also be chatting in our private MFY Make Along Facebook group!

If you'd like to gather with us in person, we will be gathering on Thursday, December 4th to cast on together, and we have Community Stitching on Tuesdays from 6:00-8:00pm as well as Fridays from 2:00-4:00pm and you can drop in anytime.

Assistance

If you want to participate but are new to knitting or any of the elements along the way, consider signing up for a BYOP Bundle or Quick Help session! These are great opportunities to work with our instructors to learn a new skill or navigate a challenging portion of the pattern!

We will also have an Elliot Shawl workshop at the shop on Saturday, January 17th.

Tutorials

We also have a number of video tutorials available with tips and tricks to help you work through your project. Below are some that we think may be especially helpful for this project!

• Stockinette Stitch
• Garter Stitch
• Slip with Yarn in Front and Yarn in Back
• K2tog Decrease

Designer

The Elliot Shawl pattern was designed by our very own Tricia Miranda-Hartsuff! As a professor, Tricia has been instructing students for more than twenty years. At Michigan Fine Yarns, she combines that in-person and online instructional experience with her passion for yarn and knitting, which she’s been using as her mindfulness practice since grad school.

Tricia's favorite projects are ones that teach a new skill, or introduce a new “must have” knitting notion for that occasional retail therapy. Find her in store or online, and she’ll help you show off your knits so others can see the joy and peace they bring you!

The Story

Tricia was gracious enough to answer some questions for us about how the Elliot Shawl came together. Here's our interview!

MFY: What inspired you to design the Elliot shawl?

Tricia: The MFY x TL Yarn Crafts collaboration! First of all: Toni Lipsey’s Olivia Shawl design is gorgeous. Whether crocheter or knitter, you see Olivia and you want to know more. Since I organized our collab with Toni, I had early access to the design, so from the beginning of the Olivia CAL, I was immediately inspired to create a knit version of the shawl. Just for funsies. And as our knitters' FOMO from the experience grew, they really almost started to demand it.

Truthfully, my first design was…well, it’s a whole other shawl that you’ll see later. 😉 But the world seemed to be getting messier and messier, and this final pattern reflects that. As Elliot progresses, it gets meshier and meshier, and then you have to just knit it out. Remembering to breathe with each stitch helps too.

The final Elliot was created after I had a fun evening with Swaran and Divya just playing with colors from the Koigu wall, and choosing the five original colors together (a palette of grays and purples). I took a luxurious few days around the 4th of July to just sit with those inspiring colors, and then to relax and knit it out. And within a few short days the Elliot prototype was knit up, the pattern was written, and it went out quickly for tech editing and test knitting. It was a magically quick process, and I'm so excited to finally be sharing our labor of love with everyone!

MFY: Can you tell us the story behind the Olivia and Elliot names?

Tricia: It’s actually a bit serendipitous: Toni was in the middle of binge watching Law & Order SVU when designing Olivia, and my husband and I were binge watching Law & Order Organized Crime as I started Elliot. In the long-running Law & Order universe, Olivia and Elliot were longtime partners in SVU, and Organized Crime is the SVU spinoff focused on Elliot. I knew (the shawl) Elliot’s name before I finished knitting up the foundational section.

MFY: Which yarns would you recommend for the Elliot shawl?

Tricia: I probably shouldn’t play favorites, and any fingering weight yarn will drape beautifully with the boomerang neckline, but Elliot was absolutely designed with our famous Koigu wall in mind. The people have spoken and the people want lots and lots of color. And our Koigu friends deliver color in their delightful KPM/KPPPM 50g skeins that absolutely DARE you to play with lots of color.

That being said, sometimes folks can be intimidated by TOO much color…and sometimes you’re on a budget but you still want something special… So for some gorgeous hand-dyed tonals with lots of yardage, I’d recommend Malabrigo Sock…it’s sooo good. You can pick that one special skein of Malabrigo Sock that you’ve been eyeing (extremely variegated works great as your main color!), then a more tonal solid, and ta-da, you’ve got enough yarn for the two-color version, and it’s gonna be gorgeous.

MFY: What is it about these stitch patterns that make Elliot so special?

Tricia: At MFY we’re super conscientious about keeping things accessible. I wanted Elliot to be beginner-friendly, yet offer enough interest for more experienced knitters. The boomerang shaping keeps you from getting bored at each end of the shawl, but there’s enough repetition that you can still get lots of relaxing stitching time in. And our Elliot KAL isn’t timed for you to rush through and make it as a gift for someone else (though you totally could, it’s actually a pretty quick knit!). We’re hoping that this will be the project that you pick up through the holiday season as you take some time for YOU.

As you work on your project, we would love for you to share your progress by tagging us on Instagram and/or Facebook @MichiganFineYarns and using our project hashtags: #ElliotShawl #MFYElliotShawl #MFYWhenLifeGetsMeshy #MichiganFineYarns and #MFYkal.