After the rather frenetic pace of Stash Dash I feel the need to slow down a little in my knitting. Clearing some longer term projects – I’m looking at you MiteredCrosses blanket – has been very rewarding but I now need a more relaxed project. Something to savour and enjoy.

Work knitting is quite busy right now with deadlines aplenty and several designs in the pipeline and I need something for recreational knitting that I can relax with and enjoy. Something to knit for pure pleasure and luckily I have just the thing.

This skein of gorgeousness is by the very talented Eleanor of Solstice Yarns in a much admired custom-dyed colourway called Beetle. Eleanor has dyed this colourway onto a range of her bases and my skein has been sitting patiently in my stash, awaiting its turn to shine.

The SolsticeYarns group are having a relaxed KAL from August through the end of the year – a ‘Beetle-along – allowing people to share their projects and inspiration for this beautiful yarn.

I am going to be making the Southern Shawl by Libby of Truly Mrytle Designs. There is a lot of simple stocking stitch and texture which I think will work really well with this silky smooth yarn and the lace at the end looks particularly pretty and delicate.

Even better – the shawl is asymmetrical in construction, meaning that I can double dip with the Yarns at Yin Hoo Aymmeti-CAL – always a bonus.

The main aim with this project is to slow down a little and just to enjoy the project for it's own sake. With yarn so beautiful I want to enjoy the whole process and this shawl looks like the perfect way to do that.