If you've worked some of my patterns you'll know that I'm a strong proponent of short rows. They are an incredibly useful tool for providing shaping, building form and fitting to function. I'm also a big fan of using them to play with shape both 2d and 3d.

So it's no surprise that I was excited to be asked by Woolly to contribute to their short row colourwork book. The stitch dictionary is wide and varied with some really interesting short row motifs. It was a little hard just to settle on one! In fact I very nearly incorporated 2 but wanted to ensure that at least this design stayed simple.

The inspirations I was drawing from for Tidal were very much the crashing of waves, and the flow of water as it comes up the beach. With each section of the short row motif representing high and low tide and flood and ebb tide in between. The way that the short rows are built gives a beautiful undulating effect that is very remniscent of this ebb and flow, So this particular motif could not be more perfect.

Designing the way that the short row pattern sits along the long edge of the shawl is very purposeful, I wanted to have the motif wrap around the shoulders and neck. When worn wrapped tightly I envisioned the waves of short rows sitting prominently in ripples. This would not have worked when knitting the long edge first, hence the decision to start from what in finishing works out to be the tip of the bottom edge. 

Now that it's soon to be out in the world, i'm very excited to see everyone else's version as each section of the motif is such that you could make colour changes easily. I adore the Malabrigo colours and was really happy with how the contrast played out here, though i'm especially curious to see how a soft sandy to deep blue gradient would play across the shawl with the colours changing for short row motifs.