Crochet
Easy knitted shawl patterns – your top picks
In Episode 15 of the podcast I mentioned quite a few easy knitted shawl patterns that people who saw Episode 14 had recommended for me. I thought I would share in case there are other crochet addicts who would like to knit something nice without too many headaches.
The first one, Nurmilintu, is a lovely garter asymmetrical shawl with a couple of lace panels. It’s a free pattern by Heidi Alexander and you can download it from Ravelry.
Then we have Pretty Basic by Janine Kallio, which is a triangular garter and eyelet design. This is also a free download on Ravelry.
Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade has several easy knitted shawl patterns that are worth a look. The Hill Top Shawl was highly recommended. This is a crescent shape garter stitch with lace sections which is (the recommendation said) not hard and looks wonderful.
The pattern costs £4.32 but good value for money as Helen has a row by row stitch count and percentages of design so you never have to play yarn chicken. It does look gorgeous…
Helen also has the Spindrift Shawl, which is another gorgeous crescent shape. This is currently free and was featured in a knit-along. I think there are also tutorials that you can access. I signed up by email a while ago, so this is definitely on my knitting horizon.
The lovely Kay Jones who is one half of the Bakery Bears also has several gorgeous shawls including the Sock Knitters Shawl and the Ollivander Shawl, both of which do look quite do-able for a knitting novice like me. Some of the others still look a bit tricky to my novice eyes, but they may be more straightforward than I fear!
Martina Behm has an entire set of shawl/scarf patterns that are really popular and four of them, all themed around the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy are available as an e-book. This collection includes the Hitchhiker, which loads of people recommended and others such as the Trillian.
Through the recommendations made on the YouTube video comments I learned about a very fab channel called Very Pink Knits. When I watched a couple of the videos I realised that I had come across this before and Staci, who runs the Very Pink Knits website too is an amazing teacher. I learned how to do the decreases for a sock gusset from her and I’ll revisit her sock tutorials now to see if I can eventually master those **bleeping** socks!
I’ve subscribed now – and I’m a bit late to this party as she already has over 185,000 subscribers!! And Staci also has a huge number of crochet tutorials too… well worth a look.
But the recommendation was actually for two specific projects including the Saroyan scarf (not shawl as I said). And its gorgeous. This is not Staci’s pattern, its a free pattern from Liz Abinante and is free on Ravelry. But Staci goes through the lace repeat every step of the way so its really inspiring me to have a go.
The other recommendation from Very Pink Knits was the SKEINO Arabella shawl. It uses 4 ply on 4mm needles, and so it’s bigger than the Linus shawl, but a similarly easy knitted shawl pattern.
So which of these easy knitted shawl patterns did I pick?
I chose this one suggested by the lovely Shelagh who is in the Facebook groups that I set up last year. Its the 400m Sprint Olympic Squirrel shawl by Susan Ashcroft who is stichnerd of Ravelry. Shelagh said that this one would be perfect for me and I’ve decided to make it my first project. I’d love to do them ALL eventually but, in the meantime, baby steps…
You can also check out Susan Ashcroft’s other patterns as many of them look really fantastic and not too difficult.
I’ve made a start as you can see and will be updating you with progress on the next podcast!
See you soon, Kathryn xxx
This is EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for!! I’m so obsessed with knitted shawls lately after all these lovely knit podcasts, but I’m a crocheter, so looking for something not as intimidating but still beautiful 🙂 We’ll be checking these out! Thanks so much Kathyrn <3
Brilliant Sarah – I’m sure you will find one that you can tackle. I’m really pleased with the way mine is going and actually look forward to doing a few rows as a break from crochet (sssssshhhhhhh don’t tell anyone!) xxx
They are all beautiful, but I am not brave enough to tackle them, so will stick to crochet . x
I’m in the boat as you: just finishing up my second Linus shawl and want something different, but not too hard. I have the spindrift pattern and that’s on my list, but I also fancy doing The Sunlight Shawl For Sad People (free on ravelry by Soft sweater Knits). It looks very pretty and the tutorial is written out simplistically for beginners. Just another one to add to your list!
Hi Jocelyn – are you back! Hopefully will see you this Weds? There seem to be so many lovely knitted shawls out there and they aren’t that hard. I’m totally impressed you are on your second Linus – and finishing it!!! Wowsers. I am still ahead by a length on spinning though 😉
Yes, coming on Wednesday and really looking forward to it! My second Linus shawl I started on holiday but I’m doing it with 300g DK, so it’ll be a big one. It has taken me all six weeks just to knit up 200g. Knitting garter stitch is slow! It looks like you and Nicola have dyed some great colours. Can’t wait to see!