Featured POTM

Project of the Month: Scout Shawl

A piece of true beauty and technique, this month we want to highlight a store sample that has been gracing our window since last year. The Scout Shawl by Florence Spurling made by Cheryl is a testament to colorwork, consistency, and a love for the vintage aesthetic!

Our sample is a heavier version of the shawl which calls for fingering-weight in the pattern. This sample is made with the rustic, locally hand dyed Emily C Gillies BFL Sport.

Read on for an in depth look at the Scout Shawl and Emily C Gillies BFL Sport!

Gauge Swatch

There has never been a stronger supporter of the gauge swatch than Cheryl! Especially since she modified the pattern to work with a sport/DK yarn, Cheryl tried two different gauge swatches to ensure the pattern worked.

One gauge swatch knit flat (top) and one gauge swatch knit in the round and steeked (bottom).

Had she knit the Scout Shawl in the round, this would avoid knitting colorwork on the purl side, as well as using intarsia.

However, after a cost-benefit analysis, Cheryl decided to stick with the pattern and knit flat. While this kept the pattern much simpler, it also presented a challenge and a learning opportunity. She payed extra attention to her colorwork tension on the wrong side (WS) of her knitting.

Cheryl used US 4 – 3.5 mm needles in her gauge swatch.

Techniques

Scout’s patchwork effect is achieved by mixing Fair Isle and intarsia knitting throughout. Knitted sideways from tip-to-tip, the easy-to-wear shape and size of the shawl is designed to display maximum detail as it drapes over the shoulders.

As Cheryl noted, the tricky part of this pattern is minding tension on the wrong side of the knitting!

Yardage and Colors

The key to a good colorwork is CONTRAST. This ensures that colors will show up next to each other and not be drowned out. An easy way to see if your color choices have good contrast is to turn a photo of your yarn in black and white.

Paula demonstrates this in another blog post here:

https://baaadannas.com/2021/10/26/picking-colours-by-saturation/

 

From her tireless documentation of her knitting, Cheryl was able to calculate exactly how much yardage was needed for each color. Since her Sport weight yarn did not match the yardage of the original fingering weight pattern, she hopes these notes can be a help to the next knitter! Check out her full calculations on her Raverly page.

C1 = Mom Jeans = 129 yards main + 108 yards edges
C2 = Nimbus = 271 yards
C3 = Cat’s Eye = 202 yards
C4 = Hot Damn = 149 yards
C5 = Teal’s a Party = 185 yards

About the Yarn

Cheryl found the yarn to have a good sturdy hand feel while still feeling lofty and squishy, which again speaks to that soft yet strong quality of BFL. Not quite merino next-to-skin but soft enough for her to wear around her neck. Something to note is although labelled Sport weight she found this knit up to a DK gauge.

Fibres: 100% untreated BFL
Gauge: 24 stitches = 4 inches (10 cm)
Needles: 3.5 mm (US 4)
Weight: 3-ply Sport (2) / DK (3)
Length: 115 g / 255 yards (233 m)

Swatching

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