Get an Education in Shawl Knitting from Kara Gott Warner

Kara Gott Warner recently announced she was moving on from Creative Knitting magazine, where she had been the editor for years. But she’s certainly keeping busy in the next phase of her career.

Her Power Purls podcast is still going strong and, starting today (April 10), she’s launching a free “Stitchucation Shawls Challenge.”

The challenge will last five days and aims to teach knitters an “intuitive approach” to shawl knitting, complete with instructional videos and step-by-step guidance. The program is free and sounds like a lot of fun if you’d like to learn more about shawl making or improvisational knitting.

[Photo: Kara Gott Warner.]

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Looking for more amazing shawl patterns? Check out these Knitting patterns we found on Etsy.

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When I knit socks (which sadly I have not done in a while; need to get a new pair on the needles soon!) I generally stick to pretty simple designs and colorwork that isn’t all that detailed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a fancy sock, I’m also just pretty lazy and I figure a project worked on size 0 or 1 US needles is going to take a long time even without the added work of intricate colorwork, so why make it more complicated?

But there are definitely socks out there I’d be willing to make an exception for, and I think Tangled Bliss by Annette Schleicher may just be one of them.

If you can’t tell from looking, this is decidedly an advanced knitting pattern. There’s brioche for the cuffs, complex looking colorwork done with the ladderback jacquard technique, multiple charts, and colors changing everywhere.

There are links to tutorials for all the special skills in the pattern, but still it would help to have a handle on these concepts before you get started.

The pattern uses three colors of light fingering weight yarn at a whopping 31 stitches per 4 inches/10 cm (that’s 7.75 stitches per inch/2.5 cm).

Would you believe me if I told you that this pattern was designed for a speed knitting contest? Speed would be the last thing on my mind.

But again, I think all the work for these fancy socks would be worth it. I love hoe the colorwork looks like an old tile floor, and think of the bragging rights when you tell people you made them yourself. (Though of course you did; have you ever seen store-bought socks that look anything like this?)

Best of all, this pattern is available for free on Ravelry, so there’s no reason not to give it a try if you’ve got the skills. If you do, I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Annette Schleicher]

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