Pattern Spotlight: Madelyn’s Fogline Shawl

Hi! Fuzzy Social Media Maven, Madelyn, here! I’ve been working away at what has quickly become one our new favorite patterns to recommend in the shop – Brienne Moody’s Fogline Shawl (which also comes in a sweater version Melissa tells me she’s eyeing)!

Worked with no increases or decreases, and using just knits, purls, slip stitches and some very basic color changes, the Fogline is large, colorful, eclectic, squishy soft, and never boring.

I grabbed six skeins of Farmer’s Daughter Juicy DK and two skeins of Feederbrook Entropy DK in the following colors for this one:

• 2 skeins of FD DK in colorway ‘Bear Gultch’ (and I had a little bit of scrap yarn leftover)
• 1 skein of FD DK in ‘Bitterroot’ (I had a good bit of scrap leftover)
• 1 skein FD DK in ‘Dumplin’’ (I had absolutely NONE leftover)
• 2 skeins FD DK in ‘Theresa’ (a small amount leftover)
• 2 skeins of Feederbrook Farms Entropy DK in ‘Oxidation’ and ‘Spectrum’ (I had almost none leftover)

Really, any colors will make a beautiful piece so don't worry if the exact colors can't be matched!

Here’s what I love about the Fogline:

• This one is perfect for beginner’s; in fact, if you love seeing all the colorful, fun, and whimsical projects going on at the Goat, but feel intimidated by their difficulty level (or if you’re like me and feel like your brain just can’t take on anything complicated after the last year and half of collective stress we’ve all experienced) this might be the one for you!
• It would make a great second project (or even a first project if you’re adventurous!)
• Once you have the hang of it, you don’t even have to refer to the pattern.
• It’s great for those looking to try colorwork for the first time, which was the case with me! “That’s not hard at all,” I kept saying. And now I feel like a whole new world of possible projects has opened up for me.
• While it’s approachable nature makes it good for beginners, this project’s color changing yarn and slip stitches will delight even advanced knitters! When I got to the parts where I was working with the Feederbrook in three out of the six sections of the wrap, I felt like couldn’t wait to see what color would come next! Just like magic!
• Perfect for car knitting, knitting while talking with friends, TV watching or podcast listening. I got nearly half of this done while in the car on a trip to North Carolina this summer and listened to a lot of true crime podcasts during that time.

A tip on using Feederbrook:

Feederbrook is like painting with your yarn – you can always choose the colors that end up next to one other.

If you’re pulling from your ball as you go along and see that the color it’s starting to change into isn’t what you want to come next in your project, you can use what we (grossly, yes) call the “spit trick.”

You cut the yarn you're working with where you want the color to stop, and keep pulling from the ball until you hit a color you DO like, then join the two back together into one seamless strand by first pulling and splitting the yarn’s two plys apart. Then yes, you do spit into your hand (which does feel wrong the first time you try it!) and roll them together to create friction. In the end, it's like nothing ever happened, but you get to skip over any color you don't want!

I did this three times throughout working on my Fogline, anytime I hit on yarn that started to look green. I liked the color, just not up against all the pinks and purples I was working with.

Here’s a YouTube video for a much needed visual on how the "spit trick" works.

Overall, I can’t can’t wait to style my Fogline with overalls in the fall and use it as a lap blanket or wrap while at home in my drafty hundred-year old house in the winter.

I'll leave you all by sharing my greatest challenge while knitting this one - keeping it away from my watchful yarn-eating cat!

Hope you all enjoy! x

Madelyn