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Bold Ribbed Shrug Knitting Pattern

September 25, 2024 by Sarah White

The other day I shared a bunch of ribbed hat knitting patterns, but of course ribbing is great for lots of other projects, too. Ribbing automatically gives anything a structured look, and it’s a great choice when you need stretch in some areas of a project.

The Simple Ribbed Shrug from Purl Soho is a great example of the beauty of a simple ribbed project.

Worked from the top down in 2×2 ribbing, this project would actually be pretty good practice for knitting a top-down sweater if you’ve never done that before. It has a sort of turtleneck top with raglan increases worked to shape the shoulders. Then the body is worked straight to your desired length.

Unlike a sweater, there’s not separating out stitches for sleeves (and no sleeves to knit, which is kind of the worst part of knitting a sweater), and the body is over before you get bored trying to get to the right length.

The project has five size options, measured around the arms and chest. The body circumferences (your actual body) range from 36 to 66 inches (91.5 to 167.5 cm) and it is intended to be worn with 6 to 12 inches/15 to 30.5 cm of negative ease.

We usually talk about positive ease in knitting patterns, but negative ease means that the garment is actually smaller than the body it’s intended to cover. Because this is ribbed, it will stretch nicely and open up the ribbed stitches for an even more dramatic effect.

I love the idea of this as an extra layer tucked into your coat, or something you can throw over your pajamas for a Zoom meeting and it looks like you’re wearing a sweater.

Wherever you want to wear it, it calls for a DK or light worsted weight yarn. The sample is a blend of merino and organic cotton, but I think straight wool would be great for this one, too.

You can grab the free pattern at Purl Soho.

[Photo: Purl Soho]

Next Pattern:

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Have you read?

Book Review: Cable Knitting Stitch Dictionary

Stitch dictionaries are a fun way to learn new-to-you knitting stitch patterns or to take a deep dive into a particular technique. Debbie Tomkies offers 100 cable stitch designs and thoughts on how to incorporate them into projects in her Cable Knitting Stitch Dictionary.

Each stitch pattern is shown in a large swatch photo and with written and charted instructions. Any special stitches are included on the page. The stitches are rated on a difficulty scale of 1 to 3, and the pattern notes also indicate how many extra stitches you should add to a project if you’re going to work this cable (since cables pull the fabric closer together you need to compensate for that) as well as how many stitches and rows are in the repeat if you want to design a project yourself.

The cables are arranged into sections: classic cables, combinations, all-over panels, creative cables, motifs and panels and cabled edges and borders.

It’s fun to flip through the designs to think about projects you can add a single cable or two to or make with an allover cabled design. Or you could make swatches of different cables and sew them together into a pillow cover or a throw.

At the back of the book there’s a section on general cable knitting techniques, reading charts, working swatches and avoiding errors (though it mentions working the wrong number of rows between cable turns, it doesn’t share how to count rows between cables to avoid this mistake).

It also talks about how to design your own cables, combine cables in a project, choose the right yarn and needles and determine how many more stitches you need to cast on when working cables instead of stockinette stitch. There’s also a glossary of symbols and abbreviations you may find in cable knitting and other patterns.

The book provides a good overview of things you can do with cables, as well as some fun things you might not have tried like infinity cables and horizontal cables. It’s a great book for a designer who likes to work with cables or a knitter who wants to play with different stitches in their projects.

About the book: 176 pages, paperback, 100 stitch patterns. Published 2024 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $26.99.

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