All About the Fresh Air Shawl Pattern

For this design I knew I wanted lots of texture and decided I wanted to include alternating sections of garter stitch alongside a more interesting stitch pattern. I experimented with knitting different stitch patterns and spacing eyelets throughout. After knitting many swatches I settled on the final design. I chose to make the textured sections shorter than the garter stitch sections and find that they provide an engaging break from the garter stitch, without being overly long before you get to another relaxing section of garter stitch. I also added an i-cord edging which frames all of the texture with a smooth border.

This shawl can either be knit with one strand of sport weight yarn, or two strands of fingering yarn. It's a great canvas for experimenting with marling using two strands of yarn in various colours. I initially designed this pattern with yarn Advent calendars in mind and wanted to experiment with marling, so I used the yarn I had remaining from my Beehive Yarns 2020 Advent calendar to knit a sample and loved how all the colours melted together. I didn't have enough yarn left to knit a full sized shawl, so I knitted until I was running out of yarn (which was part way through the final section) and then bound off. I also knitted a full-size sample using a single strand of sport weight yarn also from Beehive Yarns in the colour ‘Khakis’ and really liked how the single colour version showed off the texture.

The size of the shawl can be easily customised, you can simply stop early and bind off like I did with my Advent yarn sample. On the other hand, if you'd like to make your shawl larger you can just add more sections, I've explained which sections to repeat for this in the pattern's notes page.

In the pattern I've included a Marling Guide, where I've provided as much information as possible to help you experiment with marling. In the marling guide I've included:

• Information on using leftover scraps of yarn - this project can be a great way to use up small amounts of yarn you have remaining in your stash.
• How to use mini skeins or sets of mini skeins.
• How to use larger skeins of yarn evenly (using each colour for the same number of rows). This section covers using 4-7 colours; I've included step by step instructions and explained what row to change each strand of yarn on, plus provided information on approximately how much of each colour you'll need.
• How to use a large number of colours evenly. If you're wanting to use 8 or more colours I've provided a formula you can use to calculate when you'll need to change colour. You can simply add the number of colours you want to use to the formula. I've included an example with real numbers to make this as easy to understand as possible. This section also includes a table which shows the amount of yarn required for each section, so you can use this to estimate how much of each colour you'll need.
• How to use one colour throughout your project marled with various other colours.

This guide should give you a lot of ideas for marling and make the whole process as easy as possible, with most of the maths already done for you.

I'm very proud of this pattern, it was a few months in the making and I couldn't be happier with the result. I found the shawl to be fun to knit and cosy to wear. I'm sure I'll be wearing mine a lot, we took the pattern photos in pretty chilly weather and the shawls kept me surprisingly warm.

Click the link below to check out the full details of the pattern.