Knit a Scarf with Bold Circles

I had kind of stopped sharing scarf knitting patterns for the summer, even though our Southern Hemisphere friends can still use them, but I will make an exception for this one, which I think maybe everyone should knit right now, regardless of the season where they live.

The Shanta Wrap from Pascuali Designs features big, bold circles on a contrasting background. The project is worked in garter stitch and uses the intarsia technique to make the color changes.

This one calls for sport weight yarn to make a shawl that measures 15 inches/38.1 cm wide and 60 inches or 152.4 cm wide. That’s already pretty big but you could try it with DK weight to make more of a shawl, or even with fingering weight to make a narrower scarf.

The main thing is that you really need two colors that contrast highly to make those circles pop. The designer uses their own Pascuali Suave yarn (available in Germany), which is a cotton yarn, though this would be great in wool for a warmer finish (and again if you want to make it wider to be a shawl, wool or alpaca would be a great choice).

You can find this project, which is available in English and German, on Ravelry.

If you’ve never done intarsia before it can be a little intimidating, but the good news is that this scarf uses large color sections and it doesn’t look like you would ever need more than three balls of yarn for a row. (With intarsia each block of color uses its own ball so you don’t carry the unused yarn across the back.)

If you need help with your intarsia technique, I wrote a post over on Our Daily Craft that covers the basics. It shows intarsia worked on a stockinette stitch with three balls of yarn, but the idea is the same when working with a garter stitch.

[Photo: Pascuali Designs]

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Next Pattern:

Blankets are a great blank slate project that you can change up in a million different ways. From color to stitch pattern to size, the possibilities are almost endless.

Jared Flood, the designer behind Brooklyn Tweed, was inspired by a log cabin quilt his mother made in 1995 to re-create that design in knitting, which led to more blankets and ultimate Brooklyn Tweed’s Knit and Crochet Blankets, which includes 25 patterns from an array of designers using different skills and techniques to make cozy, pretty blankets.

The patterns are divided into three aesthetic themes: traditions, minimalism and colorplay. The patterns are rated on a scale of one to five, with one being the easiest, and there aren’t any pieces rated five. Two blankets are rated one, 14 are two, eight are three and one is four.

In addition, three of the 25 patterns are crocheted, but they either use single crochet or granny stitch, so they are pretty easy even if you don’t do a lot of crochet. You can see all the patterns on Ravelry.

Some of my favorites include Rattan by Rastus Hsu, a chunky blanket worked in knits and purls with simple crossing stitches to make a raised woven look; Homewood by Seth Richardson, covers in dramatic, loopy cables; Ainur Berkimbayeva’s Tessellate, one of the beginner projects that doesn’t really look beginner but is totally worked in knit and purl stitches; Warp + Weft by Aist? Butkevi?ien?, which is mostly knits and purls but makes a fun woven look fabric that blew my mind a little bit; and the same designer’s Canyonland, a multicolored blanket with wavy stripes.

The patterns tell you how to resize them for different dimensions and include information on pattern repeats where it is possible to make a totally custom size.

Many different techniques are included here such as cables, lace, shadow knitting, intarsia and other colorwork techniques, as well as modular knitting and lots of sewing pieces together. The patterns are all presented with charts, but there are line by line written instructions available on the Brooklyn Tweed website if you need them.

The book ends with a deep dive into log cabin knitting, telling the story of the quilt Jared’s mom made and how he made it in knitting, as well as the multitude of variations you can make if you want your own log cabin style design.

The back of the book includes a little written information about some of the special techniques needed, but there are no photos.

This is a lovely book full of inspiration for knitting and crochet blankets for any skill level. If you like to make blankets as gifts or aspire to have a handmade blanket in every room of the house, these designs would be a great place to start.

About the book: 192 pages, paperback, 25 patterns. Published 2024 by Abrams Books, suggested retail price $24.99.

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