Pattern Release—Clair de Lune

Six weeks just shot by like a bullet train—it’s time to release Clair de Lune!

We’re following the usual drill today—pattern & ebook info and giveaway instructions are down at the bottom, so if you want to skip the customary ramble, do so with my blessing. (Though rambles are known for their lovely scenery…)

The Story

I’m inordinately proud of this design; I’ll say that right now. Unlike Nuit d’etoiles, which was a fest of the nerdy and the somewhat impractical, Clair de Lune is the closest to a utilitarian design I’ll likely ever get. And it’s still pretty.

The practicalities came in later, though; fair warning. Initially I spent a good bit of time mulling over Clair de Lune by Gabriel Faure. Before I go any further, I ought to mention that this is not the famous Clair de Lune that everyone knows. That Clair de Lune is by Claude Debussy; but I like Faure’s better. Sorry, Debussy.

Faure’s take seems quite old-school on the surface—flowy, melodic, and with a discernible rhythm. There’s a certain minimalism to it as well; the music is clean, fresh, and hides its drama under class. The poetry contains lots of repetitive sounds and internal rhymes. But it’s a strikingly modern work as well. Unexpected harmonic shifts occur frequently, and that seamless, distinctively French melody often takes odd twists and turns to reach its musical conclusion—or not. (That makes for some hard singing, by the way—ask me how I know—but I promise the shawl is easy to knit.) As usual, I will link to a companion recording below; all of this technical gobbledegook will become, well, not gobbledegook.

All these elements contributed to the nebulous vision I had in my mind for this shawl: elegant, understated, and conservative, but striking and contemporary as well. There were also some practical considerations, as I mentioned above. I’d just come off of designing Nuit d’etoiles and wanted a palate cleanser; something smaller and more relaxing to knit. And I also have a strong bent for playing yarn chicken—a design that will allow me to cast on a few mindless stitches, and then go until I either want to stop or run out of yarn (whichever comes first) has my full attention.

One stitch pattern and a few hours in my charting software, and presto!

The resulting asymmetrical shape is somewhere between a crescent and a triangle; it has three sides like a triangle, but only one of them is straight. It’s a modern, hybridized shape that can be worn in a dozen and one ways. It can be resized easily (see below), so if you just want a little something to twine around your neck a few times, you can have one. Or a big wooly portable blanket? Also possible. Or if you just want a not-too-small-not-too-large wrapper to keep your shoulders warm this winter—well, take a look.

It really is a minimalist design, both as a pattern and a finished product. There’s a single lace chart, which you repeat as few or as many times as you want. It uses a single stitch pattern and the same plain stretchy bind-off as Nuit d’etoiles. The sample shown was made with about 700 yards of fingering weight yarn, but you can make it in any yarn you want, with as much yardage as you happen to have on hand. My testers (I’ll be featuring their projects on this blog at a future date) used various yardages of laceweight, fingering, and sportweight yarns with awesome results.

Of course the problem with a design like this is that now when I look in my stash, all I can see in my head is future Clair de Lunes…if it weren’t for the fact that I know I get bored of making the same pattern over and over again, I could make shawls of different sizes in gold, teal, silver, purple, white, and even orange.

And about those Christmas lists we’re all making nowadays—this is the perfect pattern to bang out from yarn in your stash, and no matter how big (or more likely, small) it ends up being, it’ll still look like a million bucks. Am I taking advantage of the holiday rush and the spirit of giving to make a shameless plug? You betcha.

The Details

As shown, the shawl is 59″ across the top edge and 40″ along the straight edge, and used about 700 yards of fingering yarn; but as mentioned above, it can be any size you like. The yarn shown is Expression Fiber Arts Oasis Camel Silk Fingering in their Crystal colorway, which has the longest name of any yarn I’ve ever used and actually deserves it (expect a yarn review to come). It’s the most slinky, drapey thing I’ve ever made. But the sky’s the limit on yarn choices: if you can knit lace with it, you can make Clair de Lune with it.

The skill level for this shawl is hard to nail down. The asymmetry may be a stumbling block for a very inexperienced knitter, and the rib-like pattern requires at least a little attention even on the wrong side; but otherwise, I’d class this as a beginner lace shawl, making it the easiest pattern in the collection. Adventurous beginner. That sounds about right.

Clair de Lune is available for $6 as an individual pdf download, via Ravelry and Lovecrafts as with all my self-published designs. It is also available in ebook form on both channels (links here and here), and currently can be purchased for a deep discount. As individual patterns are released, they will be added to the ebook and the price will go up. The publication and pricing schedule, which I first detailed here, has been updated to this:

• September 2 to October 21—$14
• October 21 to December 2—$16
• December 2 to March 2021—$18
• March 2021 and onward—$20

So if you like this design and want to snag it and the rest of the collection for only $18, make sure to do so before March 2021! I’ll have a more specific date nailed down one of these days.

So far all the releases have been six weeks apart; why the gap of months between Clair de Lune and the last design? One word: Christmas.

The Giveaway

Consider this an early Christmas present from Red Earth Designs—a giveaway for a free pdf copy of Clair de Lune! For a chance to win, simply comment below with your favorite thing about this design, and the Expression Fiber Arts yarn you’d like to make it in. (My sample is in their Oasis Camel Silk Fingering; but given how flexible the design is, we’ll say any of their yarns are fair game.) Comments must be submitted before 7:00 PM EST on Saturday, December 5, to be eligible for the giveaway. For a bonus entry, post about Clair de Lune on your blog or share it on social media, and leave a separate comment with a link to your blog post/social media post/pin.

The winner will be drawn using a random number generator and announced December 7, so check back then to find out who won! After the announcement has been posted, I will use the email address provided with the comment to contact the winner. So be sure to drop those comments before 7:00 pm EST on Saturday, December 5!

The Music

Because it’s only fair to acknowledge Faure (there’s a pun in there somewhere…):

Clair de Lune by Gabriel Faure. Performed by Véronique Gens (soprano) and Roger Vignoles (piano).

The giveaway is now closed; thank you to everyone who entered! Your feedback is truly valued. To receive info about future events and giveaways (there will be more!), be sure to subscribe to this blog.