DESIGN INSPIRATION

Two of my favorite things in knitted fabrics are cables and artfully speckled hand-dyed yarn. Unfortunately, the two don’t always play nicely together. Sometimes when we are working with highly speckled yarn, either the speckles or the pattern can be lost because your eye doesn’t know what to focus on. As a formally-trained chemist, one activity I enjoy is solving problems, so when presented with the challenge of mixing speckles and cables, I was excited to figure out how to make it work. One solution (chemistry pun) for this is to dilute the speckles with a neutral, heavier weight yarn. That is the method that I used in my Dilution Cowl, which is the sister pattern to the Concentration Shawl. For some highly speckled yarn, however, the speckles are delicate enough that they do not need to be diluted, so I took the opposite approach here and concentrated the speckles.

In chemistry, the act of concentrating a solution involves removing molecules of solvent that are used to spread out the molecules of solute. In this case, we have removed the solvent (the heavier weight, neutral yarn) and thus brought the speckles (solute) closer together. For a cooking analogy, you can think about how you reduce a broth or soup – by boiling the broth for a long period of time, molecules of water evaporate away, leaving a more concentrated broth that has more flavor in each spoonful.

The faux rib/garter texture of the Concentration Shawl creates a squishy, cozy fabric that does not compete with the beautiful speckles of this yarn. The edges of the shawl feature beautiful braided cables that entwine at the focal point of the shawl – that part took some really focused problem solving, but don’t worry; I’ve figured it out for you! With plenty of rest rows and pattern interest, this shawl will fly off the needles.

CONSTRUCTION

The Concentration shawl begins by casting on just a few stitches and then increasing only at one edge to create an asymmetric triangular shape. A cable panel is worked as an applied edging along the body of the faux rib until the cables meet at the bottom corner.

PATTERN INFORMATION

Difficulty Rating
INTERMEDIATE: Project is worked flat and includes cables, increases, and decreases.

Recommended Yarn
Bean Sprout by LolaBean Yarn Co., 80% superwash merino wool/20% nylon, 400 yds (366 m) per 3.5 oz (100 g): 2 skeins (shown in The City So Nice, They Named It Twice) OR approximately 800 yds (732 m) fingering weight yarn.

To get a similar effect to the sample, choose a speckled fingering weight wool/wool blend yarn with low contrast. Try taking a photo of your prospective yarn and apply a black and white filter. If the skein has little variation, it will highlight both the speckles and the stitch pattern in this shawl. Alternatively, you can use a solid or tonal yarn in a fingering weight wool/wool blend to make a similar fabric without the speckles.

Needles/Notions

• US #4 (3.5 mm) 24-32” (60-80 cm) circular OR size needed to obtain gauge
• Tapestry needle for Kitchener stitch and weaving in ends
• 3-4 stitch markers or progress keepers
• Cable needle
• Waste yarn

Gauge
23 sts and 38 rows to 4” (10 cm) in 2x3 faux rib on US #4 (3.5 mm) needles.

To measure gauge, cast on 33 sts.
Row 1: k to end.
Row 2: k3, p2, k3 to end.
Repeat Rows 1-2 until piece measures 4” (10 cm).

Pattern gauge was measured after washing and blocking. While gauge is not crucial for this project, a different gauge will affect how much yarn is required as well as overall size.

Finished Measurements
Wingspan: 64” (162.5 cm)
Depth at longest point on front: 28” (71 cm)

This pattern has been tech edited and test knit.