A basic triangle shawl is a great project to have in your arsenal. If you’ve never done shaping before, you’ll get a lot of practice with increases (in this case, yarn overs). And once you understand how knitting a triangle works, it’s a basic shape and project that you can make over and over again in different ways.
This basic triangle shawl pattern from Mirella Moments is worked from the bottom up in DK or light worsted yarn. It has garter stitch borders and the body is worked in stockinette. Though it’s knit flat, you’ll want a circular knitting needle for ease of holding all those stitches.
Because it’s a blank canvas, there are a lot of potential options for customization, such as:
- use heavier or lighter-weight yarn
- add stripes
- make the borders a different stitch pattern like moss or seed stitch
- use a different increase method
- work the body in a different stitch pattern or add garter ridges
In addition to using different weights of yarn you could also make different sizes of shawls depending on how much of a particular yarn you have on hand. Shawls like this are great for using those random balls of yarn you aren’t sure what to do with, or leftovers from other projects.
They’re a little more fun to knit than scarves but you can still find places to donate them to charity, or they make great gifts.
You can get this free pattern from Mirella Moments.
And of course there are lots of variations on the basic triangle that make great, easy shawl knitting projects as well, like an asymmetrical triangle (this one is from Yarnspirations). And speaking of using scraps for your shawl, I recently shared a scrappy shawl pattern designed to do just that, if you want more guidance than just “use all your scraps on this project.”
[Photo: Mirella Moments]
