A Colorful Way to Knit a Shawl

I once knit part of a scarf with little odd balls of yarn, and every time I changed color I also changed stitch pattern.

That’s the exact idea behind the Color Adventure Shawl, designed by Tonia Lyons, but instead of using odd balls it calls for a yarn with really long color runs.

You could do a similar thing if you have longish bits of leftovers from other projects, but it’s not quite the same. The pattern does give suggestions for how much of each yarn you might like to have in order to make it work with stash. But you do lose a bit of the excitement of not knowing when you will change colors.

Either way this is a pretty and fun shawl that uses fingering weight yarn and lots of easy stitch patterns to make a really cool shawl.

You can get the pattern on Knitty.

[Photo: Tonia Lyons.]

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Many times when I write these posts I will say something like “you can use any yarn you want” or “this would be a great stash-busting project.” That’s just how my mind works. And my stash, too, since I probably have sweater quantity of two or three yarns at most, but tons of singles and odd balls and leftovers.

Blankets are generally a really good way to use up those bits, but in this case, I think you’re going to want to plan it out a bit better.

Looking at photos of the Color Study Blanket from Purl Soho, it looks like it’s made with two yarns held together, and that block in the center is worked with one of each color from the adjoining sides to make a mixed up color.

But that’s not actually how it’s done. This is three separate colors (four, really, with the neutrals in the corners) chosen form a yarn with an expansive palette so they play off each other. The project calls for a worsted weight superwash wool, which is a great choice for a blanket that’s both warm and washable.

This pattern was originally designed by Laura Ferguson and was updated by Hiromi Glover. It is worked in one piece in garter stitch intarsia, which is a great way to learn the intarsia technique if you don’t already know it. It comes in crib or throw sizes.

Despite the introduction to this post, I am going to go ahead and say that, yes, of course you could do this blanket with scraps or odd balls or even just choose five colors that don’t blend together so easily. But I really do love the look of the color play, and I think it would be worth your time to find colors that play well together to get a similar effect.

This pattern is available for free from Purl Soho.

[Photo: Purl Soho]

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