BUBBLY BLOSSOMS SHAWL
The Bubbly Blossoms Shawl by Stephen West was one of the 2023 Westknits Yarn Along exclusive patterns. The Yarn Along (YAL) is a yarn club/subscription that gave you a mystery box of yarn and an exclusive pattern to knit for three months.
I didn’t subscribe to the YAL, but when the Bubbly Blossoms Shawl was released as an individual pattern this past November, I was really excited to knit it.
This shawl combines the bubble stitch, with unique slip stitch sections to resemble flower petals. There is also a large border with crescents and garter stripes to tie everything together. This shawl had elements I’d never knit so I was excited to get started planning my yarn.
PLANNING
I read through the pattern to check yarn requirements and think about what colors I wanted to use. This shawl requires four skeins of fingering yarn (430yds/393m) and uses US 3 (3.25mm) needles.
Most shawls I’ve knit in the past use US 5 or US 4 needles, and I really like the drape and feel using that gauge. So with this shawl requiring US 3 needles, I was expecting a slightly more dense fabric. Also with this shawl using just four skeins of yarn, I thought the shawl might be smaller than I’m used to.
There is the option to make a larger border in the pattern, but with a callout to be mindful of achieving the recommended gauge to ensure there was enough yarn.
Size Modification + Bubble Stitch
I don’t like to stress too much about gauge with shawls and didn’t want to have to start weighing my yarn to see if I could finish a row again, so I decided to increase my colors/skeins.
I thought that if I had more yarn, I could rotate color placement throughout and not have to worry about running out of a certain color. But even without having to worry about colors, I still wanted the shawl to be larger, so I also planned to add a second bubble stitch section just before the border.
YARN
Because the Bubbly Blossoms Shawl was part of the YAL, most of the shawls in Ravelry used the custom dyed kits created for the pattern. The shawl looks beautiful in the warm pink/orange/yellow, but I wanted to do something different.
I already knew I needed more than the four colors to compensate for my color swapping strategy, but I also needed enough yarn to accommodate my additional bubble stitch section.
I chose a variety of blues and greens with different textures since I really love the feel and look of a fluffy yarn.
- Fairy Godmother – Merino HT Fingering: Moon Drake Co.
- Super Hero – Melted Baby Suri: Qing Fibres
- Stone – Kumo: La Bien Aimee
- Baby Green – Merino HT Fingering: Moon Drake Co.
- Neon Sherbet – Mohair Silk: The Wandering Flock
- Hint of Mint – Mohair Fluff Lace: Zakami
- Skinny Dip – Sock: Hedgehog Fibres
- Wish – Sock: Hedgehog Fibres
Color Assignments
I was really excited with all the colors I’d chosen for my Bubbly Blossoms shawl. Even though I had eight different colors, I planned to use the lace weight yarn either alone, held double or together with fingering weight yarn in different sections which would give me even more options.
I planned on using my colors however I thought they would look best as I knit. I didn’t want to commit to anything except for using the Melted Baby Suri Super Hero as the MC in the slip stitch sections. This super bright royal blue is electric and the texture makes it extra special, so I wanted it to shine in these sections.
BUBBLY BLOSSOMS SHAWL KNITTING EXPERIENCE
Cast on + Bubbles
I cast on with my US 3 needles and a 50″ cable. I was really enjoying picking colors as I went and seeing my palette knit together.
I had never knit the bubble stitch before, but I was familiar with it from watching one of Stephen West’s tutorial videos and knitting a similar stitch in the Shawlography Shawl.
Ripping Back
I realized I missed dropping a stitch for the last bubble a few colors back. I noticed that my stitch count was off, and I added in a random increase to try and fix it. But it wasn’t until I got through the next bubble section that I realized my bubble drops weren’t lining up. This wasn’t a pattern issue, I just misread one of the repeats and then tried to sneak in an increase to fix it.
This pattern builds off the previous section in a way that it would be obvious if there was an error. I was pretty bummed about it, but grateful that I wasn’t further along in the pattern. I insert a new needle as a lifeline just beneath my error and I ripped everything back.
Stitch Marker Counting
I had been carrying my colors along the faux icord edge on the side, so my yarn was still attached ready to knit again. To help me keep count more easily and track my pattern, I placed stitch markers every 25 stitches.
I keep my stitch markers in place and then count the stitches on either end to calculate a quick total. I’ll add in new markers as the edges grow beyond 25 stitches, or recount and place new markers after an increase row.
Slip Stitch Petals
With this new section, I was excited to incorporate the electric blue Super Hero color. Its fluffy texture is so soft and nice; I love adding it in as a special surprise.
Because the suri is so thick and fluffy, I only used non-fluffy sock yarns as the in between rows. I really enjoyed this section and watching the design grow.
Slip Stitches
With this slip stitch section, I used three colors like written in the pattern. I didn’t love knitting this section because the slip stitches carried for so many rows that the pulling was a little uncomfortable. And because it’s basically a stockinette section, it would curl/roll in on itself. I liked the look of the stitch and knew it would look super cool once blocked, but it wasn’t the most enjoyable to knit.
Second Slip Stitch Petals
With the second petals section, I was happy to bring in the melted baby suri again. This color is so striking and the fluffy texture makes it even more special. I followed this section as written until the last two MC rows so that I could set up for my modified bubble section.
Bubble Section Addition
To prep for the additional bubble section, I started by measuring the Slip Stitches section. I wanted this bubble section to be similar to the length of that section.
I also measured the largest bubbles from the beginning of the shawl. Since the bubbles grew larger in that initial section, I wanted to use that large size bubble throughout this new section.
With that information, I calculated that I wanted my new bubble section to have 5 large bubble rows. And because I didn’t want to have to mess with any increases in the middle of this bubble pattern, I added in 50 increases into that final MC row of the Slip Stitch Petals section. I recently watched the Westknits Workshop on top-down shawl design which helped me understand how to use increases to maintain or change the shawl’s shape.
I knit the stockinette rows of the bubble stitch a then placed a stitch marker on the center stitch of the row. This let me map out where/how I wanted to knit the bubble/drop stitch on the next row.
It was really fun to knit this section because I was excited to see how it would look. I used part of the same color pattern from my initial bubble section. Once I was done, I was really happy with how it turned out.
Crescents
Once my bubble section was done, I was nearly at the stitch count to make 16 crescents. But since the original Bubbly Blossoms Shawl had an odd number of crescents (13), I decided to increase my stitch count so I would have 17 crescents.
I knit the final drop stitch row in the MC to close out the bubble section, then a row of slip stitch dots. Then I added 39 stitches on the next MC row to get my counts to line up with the pattern, and then knit the WS purl row. Because the crescent pattern is a repeat, I was back on track with the pattern instructions and ready to add my border.
This border is very similar to the Briochevron shawl which I’d knit before, and also incorporated into my “combination shawl”. So I was already familiar with adjusting for different stitch counts.
Border Stripes
I like the look of a lace weight transition color and a fingering weight stripe so that’s what I started planning for. I used the Neon Sherbet as the MC and then started knitting the stripes with my fingering weight yarns.
Because my rows were a lot longer with the addition of my bubble stitch section, these stripes took up ~23g of yarn. I started running out of yarn for the pattern I had planned. :/ Instead I made three total stripes in any fingering weight yarn color that had at least 25g.
I-Cord Bind Off
I wanted to use the MC – Super Hero for the icord, but I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough yarn. I made another yardage calculator spreadsheet and estimated the yardage I’d used with 25g of fingering weight yarn from the border stripes. I figured that the icord is equivalent to three rows (as with the stripes), so I weighed my melted baby suri to calculate if I had the necessary yardage. According to my calculator, I had more than enough!
Because I had a lot more yarn, I decided that I could also go up a needle size to US 4 for the bind off. I am always mindful to not bind off too tightly and I prefer using a slightly larger needle whenever possible.
My shawl was looking great and I was really excited to finish. But in my excitement, I knit for too long and with poor form, and I injured my wrist again. 🙁 I had to take a break from knitting which is always a little sad, but I’m not trying to have a more serious or permanent injury.
Finally, I was able to knit again and I could finish this shawl!
Finishing
I had been weaving in the ends as I knit, but I still had a lot of long tails left. I usually would weave them in before blocking, but I was eager to block and see my all those slip stitch sections open up.
I washed my shawl is a cool bath with one pump of soap and squeezed out as much water as I could before rolling it up gently in a large towel. I laid my Bubbly Blossoms Shawl out on two sets of blocking mats to dry and it was still larger.
Once my shawl was dry, I used a darning needle to weave in the longs tails and then snipped the ends with scissors.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I am so happy with how this shawl turned out. It is extra special because I added that additional bubble section and I’m really happy with the modification. I think it looks pretty and balanced.
I love the colors. I don’t really have any blue shawls and I love how the Super Hero color is so vibrant and really makes the Bubbly Blossoms pop. Overall, I really enjoyed knitting this shawl. The pattern was well-written and the design is beautiful.
Check out my Ravelry page to see my other projects and what I’m working on next.
