Askews me shawl!

My first attempt at Brioche stitch. I've been eyeing Stephen west Brioche stitch mania designs for a long time but was somewhat discouraged by my lack of knowledge.
It took a lovely day at Yarn Story, Bath to finally master Brioche. The tutor Renee from East London knit was very patient with me - I was developing a bit of a fever which didn't prevent me from travelling to Bath but significantly dimmed my brain power..
I chose Askews me shawl as I've seen some amazing FO's. But decided of using stash so chose lots of 4 ply  weight sock yarns to be knitted with a 3.25mm circulars.
My work was slow as I was conscious not to have mistakes which I knew were very difficult to amend in this particular stitch.

The fun bit was to choose the combination of yarns for the dark and light sides. I used a lot of hedgehog fibres speckled sock yarn for the light side and some dramatic, clashing, bold choices for the dark side. My colour choices raised a few eye brows with my knitting group ladies and family but I feel that it all pieced together in the end and now I have a pretty unique grown-up shawl to cherish.
 

Dubai Shawl!

I held the shawl photo in my Pinterest for couple of years. It reminded me of a popular middle eastern type of head and neck cover usually worn by Arab men. perhaps without the tassels :)

 The Dubai shawl can only be purchased as a printed Danish book collection 'Around' by Susie Haumann. There is no English translation as far as I know. Luckily for me I happen to know a dear knitter who speaks Danish fluently and helped tackle the way of increasing stitches in the shawl. The chart is really self explanatory.

I used the original yarn for it, double held Isager Alpaca 1, a soft alapca lace in light gray and French blue. The cast on to the shawl took few days, there are a lot of stitches to cast on and I wasn't happy with how big the shawl was so eliminated about a quarter of the stitches and also change the cast on border to a garter band to prevent it from curling. The shawl is still very big and incredibly warm with all that fair isle.

I wish I had mastered the holding of two yarns in one hand when fair isle knitting so instead it became a slow labour of love. and the results are indeed so worth it.