Free Patterns: Speaking of Christmas in July

It turns out I’m not the only one thinking about holiday knitting already. Red Heart has a whole section on Christmas in July patterns on their website, which currently includes 12 free patterns for you to choose from.

These patterns include knit and crochet projects, and there are actually only four for knitting right now, but I’m sure they’ll be adding a lot more as they gear up for their 12 weeks of Christmas (egad!) that starts in October. Right now there are cute ornaments made out of mittens, a stocking with a mitten pocket (perfect for a little candy cane), a garland made of hats and mittens (lots of mittens in this collection, but they are pretty irresistible) and a pretty red party sweater.

Are you thinking about holiday knitting yet? Spill it!

[Photo by Red Heart.]

Sometimes when I’m scrolling through Ravelry a pattern will catch my eye as much because of the name as the look of the design (which is a little hard to see in those little thumbnails sometimes, anyway).

So it was with the Stellify shawl by Paola Albergamo. Stellify means to turn into a star, and the name and the story behind the shawl come from the story of Ariadne. The better known part of her story is that she helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur, but he then abandoned her. What comes after in many stories is that Dionysus found her, fell in love with her and later married her.

When he threw her jeweled crown into the sky, the Corona Borealis constellation was formed.

What does all this have to do with shawl knitting?

The shawl itself looks like it has a scattering of stars on it, as if it, too, has been stellified. The shawl begins with an I-cord tap and is shaped into a triangular shawl with both lateral and central increases. I-cord edging is incorporated into the sides, and the colorwork is done with mosaic knitting, which means this shawl is easier than it looks.

Mosaic knitting has you working with just one color per row, slipping stitches that appear in the other color to make the colorwork visible. Even better for people new to this kind of colorwork, the pattern includes written and charted instructions throughout so it should be easy to follow along.

The pattern comes in two sizes (the larger one is shown here) and calls for two colors of fingering weight yarn. It looks great in black and yellow, but don’t miss the other projects on Ravelry to see other fun and beautiful color options.

You can find the pattern in English and Italian on Ravelry.

[Photo: Paola Albergamo]

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