Beatha (pronounced BA-ha) is Irish Gaelic for “life, livelihood, food, sustenance; that which nourishes us.” Knitting and textiles definitely nourish me, and I think that’s true for everyone who loves to create things with yarn.

This is a fun, relatively simple crescent shawl. There are two “fiddly” rows (not difficult, just fiddly); the rest of the knitting is a breeze.

This shawl uses nearly all of both balls of yarn. Save your swatch to use at the end (because you’ll need it!) or, even better, use leftovers from another project knit in either of these yarns to swatch.

NOTE: If you are a loose knitter, I suggest going down a needle size from what’s recommended. One of my test knitters ran out of Color B before finishing (you can also decrease the last section of Color B to only two rows of plain garter stitch, if necessary).

The pattern is one size, knit in DK weight yarn. You’ll need:
275 yards of Color A (Spirit Trail Fiberworks’ Birte in “Sublime”)
270 yards of Color B (Indigo Dragonfly’s DK Matter in “Noctourniquet”)

It can easily be knit in Fingering or Worsted weight, for a smaller or larger shawl, but be aware that the yardage requirements will be different for other yarn weights, and may even vary for different DK weights (one tester used a MadTosh yarn and calculated 294 yards of Color A and 288 yards of Color B).

I’m going to knit one in Sunna, on Size 6 needles. There’s plenty of yardage, and it will make a slightly smaller and lighter weight, but still generous, shawl. Stay tuned!

Blocked measurements are 70” wide across the top by 17” deep at the center / widest point.