I've been seeing in the New Year with friends who live in the village of Bramley in Hampshire and and it's inspired me to knit a shawl with some very special yarn that was hand spun for me a couple of years ago and was just calling out to be used. I spent several hours combing Ravelry for the right pattern but couldn't find something that really seemed perfect for it, because it's quite a variegated yarn, though I have been inspired by many different shawls, particularly the Textured Shawl recipe by Orlane (Ravelry link).

So I thought that it might be fun to blog the pattern as I knit it. Part public note of what I did, part pattern for anyone else who might be crazy enough to join me on a very random, but hopefully, simple, elegant and attractive shawl knitalong.

So here goes.

Use whatever combination of yarn and needles makes you happy.

I'm using 6.5mm and a handspun yarn that feels like heavy sock weight, possibly 4ply and intend to knit until I run out of yarn. I have no idea of the yardage but I've got about 140g of it.

Cast On 3 stitches (sts) Knit (k) 12 rows Pick up and knit 10 sts along long edge and 3 sts from cast on edge

This gives a lovely garter stitch border along the top of the shawl and is worth the fiddliness of the picking up and knitting.

K3, yarn over (yo), purl (p) to last 3 sts, yo, k3

Section 1

K3, yo, [k3, yo, k1, yo] x3 yo, k3 Next and all wrong side rows: K3, p to last 3sts, k3

Begin all right side rows with k3, yo and end with yo, k3

Repeat the following 3 times for each right side row K5, yo, k1, yo K7, yo, k1, yo K9, yo, k1, yo Etc.

The number of stitches in each repeat increases by 2 each row. Continue until there are 21 sts in each repeat before the spine [yo, k1, yo]

Section 2 [this section subject to change - it isn't working the way I hoped it would]

~~Knit 2 together (k2tog), yo to last stitch before the spine, k1 K1, yo, k2tog through back loops (k2tog tbl) to spine Repeat these two rows 4 more times~~

Section 3

(To Be Continued)