Knitterly Brilliance: How to Turn a Shawl Pattern into a Cardigan

I love a sweater that is almost like a blanket. Something that’s big and warm and cuddly, but of course that looks nice, too. Maybe a blanket with sleeves would be my dream garment.

And while I’ve knit some things like that, an even better idea might be to take a gorgeous shawl and turn it into a sweater. Jill Draper did just that — using her own stunning yarn — to make a cardigan version of Gudrun Johnson’s Handsel shawl.

She talked through how she made the changes, so that you might apply them to your favorite giant shawl pattern to make your own shawl sweater, on the Mason-Dixon Knitting blog.

It’s really clever but not all that difficult, and the results are beautiful and definitely worth the math involved.

Would you ever turn a shawl into a sweater? I’m thinking hard about it now!

[Photo via Mason-Dixon Knitting.]

Looking for more knitting patterns for knitted Cardigans? Check out these Knitting patterns we found on Etsy.

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I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

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