KNITTING THE FOREVER SHAWL

PIN IT NOW, READ IT LATER

Back in January Frenchie of Aroha Knits put on a shawl challenge. 5 knit shawls in 5 days. Luckily they were little minis, not the full thing so I totally got behind it. So in 5 days you learnt the 5 traditional ways of how to hand knit a shawl. From triangles, to asymmetrical shawls, to square - the whole shebang, and it’s because of this course that I finally took my first dip into shawl designing and came up with the Forever Shawl. You can still sign up for that challenge and do it yourself: HERE.

CHECK OUT THE MATCHING SIMPLE STRIPED HEADBAND PATTERN HERE! - ITS FREE!

The design:

This design is a classic triangle shawl worked from the “wingspan” down. Worked with YOs, knits and purls, meaning it’s a super chill and relaxing knit but works up pretty quickly due to the size 4 heavy worsted yarn. AKA you can stop mid row to save your meal on the stove as it bubbles over.

I wanted something super simple and minimal with stripes but ginormous (kind of like those scarves at Aritzia) but I wasn’t even sure how it would turn out - as I’d never made a full size shawl before. I called it the “Forever Shawl” because it took me not only forever to get over my stigmas around shawls, but also because those last rows (and this happens with every shawl) just seem to take a *biiiiit* longer than you think they will due to the size. Aka they feel like forever!

CHECK OUT MORE OF MY KNITTING PATTERNS

Why I have never knit a shawl

I feel like there are certain things that are just expected of you as soon as you pick up knitting or crocheting. Like it’s a mandatory thing to knit the old classics. I say “classics” in a nice way, because as a knitter I’ve found that there are certain projects that come as expected when you first learn to knit. Funny enough I like to buck the trend and stay away from those things entirely. I don’t make shawls, I don’t make afghans, I don’t make granny squares and I don’t make wash cloths. They have ever really interested me, and I’ve never gravitated towards them just because I felt they were “expected” of me as a knitter.

Buuuuut back in January I picked up three skeins of this gorgeous Blue Sky Fibers Alpaca while on my birthday yarn crawl at Pudding in Calgary. I didn’t have a plan for them and knew they wouldn’t be enough for a garment, but I got them anyway thinking I might jump aboard the shawl bus one day. #sorrywallet. I grabbed 2 arctic white and 1 dove grey (I soon realized that I needed one more white for the size I wanted in my shawl after I started knitting) as the rest is history. I took the 5 days shawl challenge and figured why the heck not.

How it’s made:

This shawl is started by casting on a certain amount of stitches, working them in garter, and picking up stitches (trust me it’s not as hard as you think!). You then move on to gradually increasing 4 times every second row until it gets to the size you want!