New knitting pattern: Painterly shawl
Painterly shawl
Knit Now magazine has just published the pattern for my latest design, Painterly, a colourful, asymmetric shawl.
Inspired by brush strokes
Designers who entered Knit Now magazine’s Knitter of the Year competition had to create a mood board and use it as inspiration for a design for an adult garment. I wrote about Rosalind, my winning design which was inspired by woodlands, in my last blog post.
Anna Elliott, who was one of the other winners, created a fantastic mood board inspired by the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. Take a look at her Vincent mood board. One of the joys of visiting an art gallery is that you can look at paintings close-up and see how the painter has used their brush strokes to create different effects. It was the brushstrokes that I was drawn to, such as those on this self-portrait and Starry Night, as well as the colours in Sunflowers, one of my favourite paintings. I wanted to use stitch patterns to create the impression of brush strokes.
Painterly is an asymmetric triangular shawl, which you work from a point to the shortest edge, by increasing stitches along one side. Then you finish the shawl by working a Brioche stitch border along the two shortest sides.
Yarn details
I chose to knit my Painterly shawl using Spindrift from Jamieson’s of Shetland. Jamieson’s buy Shetland fleeces from local crofters. They carry out all stages of yarn production in their mill in Sandness, Shetland Isles. You can choose from 240 colours; having their shade card is a bit like having a painter’s palette. You’ll need about 12 skeins of Spindrift.
Painterly shawl pattern details
The shawl is 73 cm along the shortest edge and 167 cm along the longer edge with a border.
You’ll need 3.5 mm | UK 9 | US 4 and 4.0 mm | UK 8| US 6 80 cm circular needles as well as a stitch marker.
You can choose between written instructions or charts for the four stitch patterns in the shawl. You work the border from written instructions.
The pattern for Painterly shawl is published by Knit Now magazine in Issue 80.
Update: I have self-published the pattern for the Painterly shawl.
