A while ago, Lana Grossa posted a collaboration request on their Facebook page. I got very enthusiastic and I applied. The request was to make or design something using their Lovely Cashmere yarn. I accepted the challenge and started to work on a shawl. The result is a new shawl pattern called ‘Cashmere Hugs’.
About the Yarn
The Lovely Cashmere yarn is a collaboration between Lana Grossa and Lala Berlin and is a mixture of 60% cashmere, 15% merino wool and 25% polyamide. It’s a very fluffy, soft and warm yarn. I picked the colours Erika, Dottergelb, Lachs, Hellblau and Jeansblau for my project. Quite a bit out of my comfort zone I have to admit!
Designing the Shawl
I experimented with knitting and crochet and after making several swatches I decided to knit with the yarn. I found that when using it in a crochet project I would lose too much of the beautiful airy texture of the yarn. I also wanted to focus on texture in my design. For each of the five colours, I chose a specific textured stitch pattern. A soothing amount of garter stitch included!
The Finished Shawl
Cashmere Hugs in its original version was born! It’s a generously sized, triangular shawl and I love it!
There was one thing that was bothering me… Cashmere is a luxury yarn which means that it is a more expensive material to work with. Together with Lana Grossa I decided to make another version…
The Merino Version
The Lana Grossa yarn collection is quite substantial so finding a more affordable alternative was not very hard. We settled on the Landlust Merino 120 yarn. This yarn is a knitted thread consisting of 94% GOTS certified merino wool and 6% polyamide. The knitted thread makes that this is also a lightweight and airy yarn. For the merino version of the shawl, I chose several blue tones and a neutral greyish one. Colour collections keep changing all the time and in this case, it means that some of the colours I used are no longer available.
It is really a joy to knit with the Landlust Merino 120 yarn! I needed to go down one needle size, but the texture is just as lovely!
This one flew off the needles, so to say! And if I’m honest… this is my personal favourite.
Cashmere Hugs Pattern
The pattern for the Cashmere Hugs shawl is available on Ravelry and it includes the instructions for both versions of the shawl. You’ll find all details here on my website as well.
I really liked playing with all of the different textures and stitch patterns and it’s so interesting to see how similar and yet how different both versions of the Cashmere Hugs pattern turned out…
Which one do you like best?
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