This year’s Brown Sheep Spring Mystery Knit Along has wrapped! Now it’s time to reflect on the beautiful finished Spring Meadow Shawls that knitters shared to our Facebook Group and on Instagram.

First, we want to thank all of the knitters who participated in this year’s MKAL. The Spring Meadow Shawl utilizes 4 different colors of Cotton Fleece (or Cotton Fine, if knitters wanted to make a shawlette). So, it was very fun seeing all the different color choices knitters made. And it’s always exciting to watch new colors emerge with each clue!

We’d also like to congratulate the two winners of this year’s MKAL. It was extremely difficult to choose a winner… so we didn’t. We let a random number generator take care of that!

Olya Mikesh’s Spring Meadow Shawl created a unique experience for knitters to pick and choose from a variety of Cotton Fleece/Fine colors and see how they would play together. Our spring shawls are, unsurprisingly, inspired by spring. So when we chose colors, we focused on hues that conjured brightness and blooming, florals and warm weather.

Each of the above kits (still available for a limited time here!) inspired a feeling of spring, whether it was fresh blooms, a soft pink sunset, or the appearance of cherry blossoms. Cherry Blossom Jade was literally pieced together after an early spring walk through my neighborhood:

 

This year, we saw A LOT of knitters choose their own colors for the Spring Meadow Shawl (you can see our alternate color suggestions here). Let’s take a look at how each of the clues revealed the color story of the Spring Meadow Shawl!

 

Clue #1

Using just colors A and B, the first clue of the Spring Meadow Shawl focused on garter stripes interspersed by a leaf-like lace section. It was an easy and fun introduction to what would become a very colorful shawl. And it was really interesting to see how knitters’ different color choices worked up!

Clue #2

The second clue of the Spring Meadow shawl introduced Color C. Olya’s mosaic design was easy and effective. Doesn’t it look like a new spring bloom sprouting from freshly tilled earth? The marriage of the garter stripes and the mosaic certainly gives that impression!

Clue #3

The third clue in the MKAL introduced the long-awaited Color D. Color D’s overall effect in the Spring Meadow Shawl was greatly influenced by the other colors chosen. Worked with both Colors B and C, Color D featured heavily in Olya’s floral mosaic design. It was a joy to see the flowers begin to grow between the grids of garter stitch rows!

 

Clue #4

 

Clue #4 was the final clue of the Spring Meadow Shawl MKAL. The last clue featured a broad band of floral-inspired mosaic in Colors C and D, finished off with a delicate lace pattern and picot bind off. Here is where all of the colors really came together, and each knitter’s unique palette came to the fore. We loved seeing the color choices we built for our kits—you never know how the colors will look together until someone actually knits them! And we really loved seeing the colors knitters put together themselves. It gave us some inspiration for future color combos!

 

 

Our winners provided the following Spring Meadow Shawls. Lovinglifeat46 on Instagram (AKA, Rachel) knit THREE different versions:

 

 

Karen Shefsiek knit a Spring Meadow Shawl in Cotton Fleece’s range of lemony yellows and oranges (Banana, Celery Leaves, Sunflower Gold and Wild Orange, to be exact):

We hope all of our knitters enjoyed this year’s mystery knit along! Olya Mikesh’s wonderful Spring Meadow Shawl is a delightful colorful knit suitable for beginner to advanced knitters. And it’s still available to download for a limited time for those who wish to make a cool cotton-blend shawl for the summer!

 

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