When I saw the previews of Stephen West’s Painting Bricks Shawl I immediately thought of butterflies!  

Do you see it?  It felt kinda crazy coincidental to me that he should come up with a “butterfly’ shawl just when butterflies were a strong part of my current personal imagery. Not even coincidental, but actually significant.  And since I don’t actually need anywhere that near that amount of justification for purchasing a new Stephen West pattern, I pre-ordered it — of course.

And then I went stash diving (which means I started sifting through the yarn I have on hand to see if I had anything suitable for the project).  I thought maybe I would find a good dark color yarn in the right weight for the lattice part — and then pick colors for the bricks.  But I could not find the right kind of dark yarn — either it was the wrong weight or there wasn’t enough or it just didn’t spark me.  

And then I remembered a project that I had decided was not working out and was planning to “frog” (in knitter jargon that means to pull out all the stitches and wind the yarn back into balls — because you “rip it” back, “rip-it, rip-it” like a frog croaking).  It  was a shawl using an intriguing stitch pattern that utilized one main yarn and a collection of different color yarns. Perhaps…?  I pulled out the project.  It was the right weight and there was plenty of yarn for the Bricks shawl.  And the Canon Hand Dyes yarns were beautiful.

Tho not at all what I had envisioned for my “butterfly” shawl!  

Instead of a dark lattice, I would have a pale lattice — with a host of stunning blue bricks! Well, okay, why not?  It would be gorgeous — an ethereal butterfly!  It kinda blows my mind — a complete reversal of my original vision, but why not?  So I am going for it!  I can hardly wait to see it happen 🙂

My pattern became available today — so I can dive right in now.  So excited!  It is like this yarn was just waiting for this project.  Coincidence? Significance? I think of it as a lovely Spring blessing.