Helen Kennedy says her shawl pattern, Always Be Brave, came about because people shopping at a local yarn fair were drawn to heavily multicolored yarns but didn’t know what to do with them.
She designed the shawl to use a wild multicolor yarn along with a high contrast solid color yarn, using a slip stitch pattern and reversing the colors midway through to make a different effect in the fabric.
The original version of Always Be Brave was made with sport weight yarn and was published in Knitty for Deep Fall 2019.
Helen has reworked the pattern and released a new version using fingering weight/sock yarn and released it as its own pattern on Ravelry.
Both projects are large asymmetrical triangles and they are worked sideways from a tip to the long edge. It is mostly worked in stockinette stitch with slip stitch colorwork adding texture and contrast.
Helen used single ply sock yarn to make her version; you’ll need about 420 yards/384 meters of each color. The shawl comes out to about 72 inches in wingspan (that’s 180 cm) and 20 inches/50 cm deep at the widest point.
This project is a great one to try out slip stitch or mosaic knitting patterns if you haven’t tried them before. There is a chart involved but it isn’t difficult to follow, and once you have a hang of the slip stitch pattern it’s pretty easy to do.
You can find the updated pattern on Ravelry.
If you’re looking for more mosaic knitting patterns to try, check out my mosaic knit cowl, which is another one that uses a multicolored yarn along with a solid. I’ve also gathered a collection of mosaic colorwork knitting patterns you can try. It’s a really fun technique that makes colorwork that looks a lot more involved than it is.
[Photo: Helen Kennedy]
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