I always have a problem photographing scarves and shawls. If they are stretched out to their full size, they are quite small in the picture, but if they’re just draped somewhere, you can’t see the shape of them.

I recently finished a shawl and had just that problem. I took it with me on a snowshoe hike in the hope that I would find a cool place to take the photos. Plus I like multitasking.

The pattern is ‘Rio‘ by Drops Design and it’s the same as this shawl. I had a little bit less than 200g of super-duper soft Teetee Primavera, a merino wool and silk mix. I didn’t even think about the fact that this yarn would not be enough. I just started to knit. I cast on a little bit less stitches than in the pattern. When I was almost done, it became clear that I did not have enough yarn. Because this shawl is knitted until you run out of stitches, it can’t just be ended where you run out of yarn.

Oh well, I thought, I’ll get another ball or two. Hah, little did I know but this yarn had been discontinued. All I could find online were some really dark colours. No thanks. I had no option but to start over, with even less stitches. I cast on another 10 stitches less. I thought that would leave me with plenty of yarn. Towards the end, I started to drip cold sweat and you know what? I finished the shawl with 15cm of yarn spare. It’s like I planned it (which, of course, I did!).

The striping is done completely randomly without any planning. I just winged it. The shawl measures about 185 x 32 cm. I like it being so long but shallow.

This building is by a lake but I’m not sure what it is. Someone’s little hideaway? A shed? It’s by a lake and there are no roads leading to it. During snow-less time it’s difficult to get to it because the lake is on one side and swampy forest on the other. My guess is that it’s someone’s fishing cottage and they arrive by boat. There are other buildings too, one of which is probably a sauna. Finns always have a sauna. Whatever this building is, it had some big nails on the wall in almost perfect places for my shawl. I like the weathered look of the wood, too.

Perhaps you’d like to see a few more pictures from the snowshoe hike. This place is walking distance from my house. I tend to spend more time on this lake when it’s frozen than I do when it isn’t. It’s easier to walk on it in winter than around it in the summer.

This cute green building must be the loo. I could imagine this loo looking even prettier in the summer when it’s the same colour as all the leaves on these birches.

This is an always unfrozen bit of the lake, and it’s where a river starts. When it’s colder, it looks brilliant with steam and the water edges are full of ‘ice flowers’.

And this is looking the other way from the same spot. And yes, it’s the said river. There are two ramshackle bridges leading to nowhere. They are quite scary because you really don’t want to fall into the river in winter. Or even in the summer, come to think of it.

It’s the time of year we call spring-winter. It’s not properly winter anymore, but it’s not spring either. It’s totally on its way though.

Happy knitting!