Pattern Release—Nuit d’etoiles

As you can tell from the title of this post, Nuit d’etoiles is here! It almost didn’t arrive on time, however; if you want the peaceful country ramble, read on. Pattern and giveaway info are a bit further down, so trot along and follow the subheads if you’d rather not wander around among the dandelions and sheep.

The Story

Unlike Le Soir, Nuit d’etoiles doesn’t have a years-long saga to go with it; however, out of all the shawls in the Mélodies collection, it’s the most directly inspired by its namesake music (to which I will link at the end of this post), Nuit d’etoiles by Claude Debussy. I listened to dozens of mélodies to draw ideas for the collection, and this was one of the most unique and ear-catching (well, a song can’t be eye-catching, can it?). The unexpected harmonies, the shifting rhythm of the vocal line, and the sparkling texture of the piano accompaniment stuck in my head and it wasn’t long before this shawl came out.

The shawl had to be asymmetrical, that much was clear immediately. Nuit d’etoiles is the most modern of all the songs that I chose; Debussy liked to push the dissonance envelope, and despite the fact that this is one of his more conservative works, there’s still plenty of wonderful harmonic weirdness to be had.

At the same time, I spent a lot of time thinking about what lace stitches to use. While Debussy and most of his well-known contemporaries were innovators (sometimes to excess), their work was built on the foundation of composers who came before them (I’m looking at you, Mozart; and you, Beethoven). Since I had already set on a contemporary shawl shape, it seemed fitting to use a more traditional stitch pattern to bring things back into equilibrium. Through much of the song, the piano plays a repetitive motif high on the keyboard that suggests glittering stars, and I’ve never seen a stitch that as much resembled stars as bird’s eye stitch. (Don’t ask me why they call it bird’s eye, because it looks like stars to me.) Anyhow, I’d been itching to use it in a design for ages, and now seemed like a good time.

Almost simultaneously, the idea came to me: there are plenty of asymmetrical shawl patterns out there in the world—Ravelry currently lists 3,225 in their database—so this one should be really, really asymmetrical, just to get the point across. What if the whole thing were to be totally off-balance, but totally not? That would be one cool knit; and maybe Debussy would be proud of me. Raw edges and simple bands of garter stitch seemed like a good idea too; the song isn’t too fussy even if it is devilishly hard to sing.

I spent several hours teasing out how I wanted it to work (the final version uses a combination of uneven increases and short rows) and charting out the lace pattern; contrary to my usual habit, I even swatched. In the end I was shocked at how easily the charts came together, once the math was figured out. In fact, I kept wondering if I’d made a mistake. Apparently I didn’t, as all the charts worked out perfectly with the exception of a few hiccups. I am grateful for my tech editor and testers… The only problem was that I couldn’t estimate exactly how large the finished shawl would be; and as you can see above, it’s a hulk. Such a hulk, in fact, that I couldn’t take a picture of the whole thing that wasn’t crumpled or just piled up somewhere in the frame. You’ll have to take my word for it; it’s big.

The final measurements are 81.5″ across the top and 30″ deep, and it used all of 3 skeins of Malabrigo Silkpaca. In blissful naivete, I had guessed it couldn’t possibly take more than 2 skeins; my mistake resulted in an emergency order from Eat. Sleep. Knit.. It also took me far, far longer to knit than I had estimated, which is why I almost ran late with it; but at least I definitely had bird’s eye stitch memorized by the end of it. Though Debussy might well wonder how I turned his 3-minute song into this monstrosity.

The Details

As mentioned above, the shawl is 81.5″ wide by 30″ deep at the tallest point, and uses 1,260 yards of laceweight yarn. I’d suggest something with silk content to help the lace block out properly; this particular stitch likes to spring in on itself. A nice crisp crochet thread would also work if you’re allergic to animal fibers, though it wouldn’t be as soft (Knit Picks Curio #10 is my personal rec). I used 3 skeins of Malabrigo Silkpaca in their Pearl 10 colorway; as is my custom, I will be reviewing the yarn in a few weeks. It’s good stuff.

This is definitely an advanced project, though I won’t stop you if you’re a daring intermediate. The shaping is quirky, and you’ll be working lace, short rows, and increases simultaneously for most of the piece. Also, the lace portions require patterning to be worked on both right- and wrong-side rows.

Nuit d’etoiles 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 Release #4—$18
• Release 4# and onward—$20

So if you like this design and want to snag it and the rest of the collection for only $16, make sure to do so before December 2! Dates will be added to this list as available. Once all four patterns are out, there will be a print book; a release date for that will be announced in the future.

Any questions? Drop ’em in the comments! (These comments will not be eligible for the giveaway.) Speaking of which…

The Giveaway

This giveaway runs on basically the same lines as the Le Soir giveaway: for a free pdf copy of Nuit d’etoiles, comment below with your favorite thing about this design, and the color of Silkpaca you’d like to make it in. Comments must be submitted between October 21 and 7:00 pm EST on October 24 to be eligible for the giveaway. For a bonus entry, post about Nuit d’etoiles 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 October 28, 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, October 24!

The Music

And so that the unnecessarily nerdy things I was saying earlier will actually make sense, here’s the companion recording for this design. Enjoy!

Nuit d’etoiles by Claude Debussy. Performed by Véronique Gens (soprano) and Roger Vignoles (piano).

The giveaway is now closed—thanks for joining in! The winner will be announced this coming Wednesday, October 28, so be sure to check back then to see who won! There will be more Mélodies pattern giveaways in the coming months, so if you want to be notified of those, be sure to subscribe to this blog!