Rivendell Smoke Ring - Chart One

Last year, at about this time, Susan Pandorf of Sunflower Designs announced a grand project - three years of knitting inspired by The Lord of the Rings.  She kicked it off with the Evenstar Mystery Shawl, a truly spectacular circular shawl design, and has been releasing the patterns that went with the first book (The Fellowship of the Ring) throughout this past year.  This is one of those patterns.  I must confess that this is only the second design by Susan that I have actually started knitting, even though I have a number of them in my pattern library.  I'm not sure why they have not shot up to the top of my queue, they are amazing.  As I knit I am in awe of her design skills and creativity.  I think that perhaps I was a bit intimidated after knitting Evenstar, which was a non-trivial task, but so worth the effort.  I think that I shall be knitting more of her designs this year.

This is also my first time knitting with Twisted Fiber Arts Yarn.  The yarn that I am using for Rivendell is Muse, 50% Silk, 50% Merino.  The yarn design is called Evolution, as you can see from the picture it is an evolution of color from one end of the skein to the other - there are no repeats.  The colorway is called Unconditional.  The yarn itself is wonderful to knit with, soft, shiny (thanks to the silk) and it knits up beautifully with great stitch definition.  I have a few skeins of their yarn in my stash, including a double skein that I bought for another of the Fellowship patterns - the Goldberry shawl.  That one has also moved up to the top of my queue.