Freia Fine Handpaints Shifting Sands Shawl Knitting Pattern

Freia Fine Handpaints Shifting Sands Shawl

What Is Being Made

The Shifting Sands Shawl is a lace knit shawl designed by Tina Whitmore, created using Freia Fine Handpaints Ombré Shawl Ball Fingering Merino yarn. This triangular wrap features a finished wingspan of approximately 50 inches with a depth of 14.5 inches, making it a versatile accessory suitable for layering or wearing as a traditional shawl. The design showcases the beautiful color gradations of the hand-painted yarn through strategic shaping and lace patterning.

Techniques Used

This shawl is constructed using several key knitting techniques that work together to create its distinctive aesthetic:

• Top-Down Construction: The shawl is worked from the top downward, allowing knitters to try on the garment as it grows and customize the final size if desired.
• Seamless Knitting: The entire shawl is worked as one continuous piece with no seaming required, creating a smooth, unified fabric.
• Lace Patterning: Undulating increases and decreases create waves of color throughout the design, with the lace pattern becoming more complex as the shawl expands.
• Worked Flat: Despite using a circular needle, the shawl is worked back and forth in flat rows rather than in the round, allowing for the triangular shawl shape.

Stitches Used

The Shifting Sands Shawl employs fundamental lace knitting stitches to achieve its elegant drape and visual interest:

• Knit Front and Back (kfb): An increase stitch that creates new stitches by knitting into both the front and back of the same stitch, used strategically to shape the shawl's expansion.
• Knit Two Together (K2tog): A right-leaning decrease that combines two stitches into one, creating the directional lines within the lace pattern.
• Yarn Over (YO): A decorative increase that wraps the working yarn over the needle to create new stitches and openwork holes characteristic of lace knitting.
• Stitch Markers (Pm/Sm): Placed markers help organize the pattern repeats and guide the knitter through the increasingly complex stitch sequences as the shawl grows.

The pattern uses numbered repeat sequences (6rep, 12rep, 18rep, 24rep, and 36rep) that combine these basic stitches into more intricate motifs. These repeats expand in complexity and stitch count as the shawl increases in size, creating the wave-like visual effect that gives the design its name.

Materials and Gauge Information

The Shifting Sands Shawl requires one 100-gram ball of Freia Fine Handpaints Ombré Shawl Ball Fingering Merino yarn in the Aurora colorway, which provides approximately 430 yards of fingering-weight yarn. The recommended gauge is 20 stitches and 32 rows over 4 inches.

Needles and Notions Required:

• One US 6 (4mm) circular needle, 32 inches or longer in length
• Four stitch markers for tracking pattern repeats
• A tapestry needle for finishing and weaving in ends

The pattern notes that this yarn grows significantly with blocking, so knitters who work very loosely may want to go down a needle size to ensure adequate yardage for the complete pattern. Conversely, knitters with extra yarn remaining after the final pattern row can add additional rows to use every available inch of yarn. The fingering-weight merino fiber provides both elasticity and drape, essential qualities for a lace shawl that will be blocked and shaped after completion.