Counterchange is a term for a pattern whereby the colours of the motif and its ground are reversed in another part of the design to balance the elements. The Tiles pattern used here is from the Barbara G Walker book, Mosaic Knitting, published in 1997.

This side to side shawl is simple to knit with an effective pattern that starts as a white Tiles motif on a blue background. At the centre of the shawl, the pattern changes to a Parquet pattern and then to a stripe. The stripes down the centre back enable the change in the colour focus and the following Parquet and Tiles patterns have their colours reversed with a blue motif on a white background.

The gauge is not crucial to this but the sample shown is 40 rows and 26 stitches per 10cm / 4in.

You will need at least 700m / 770yds of each colourway for this. 1400m / 1540yds in total, 2 skeins of each colour.

The pattern has written and charted instructions along with coloured graphics for the two main patterns, Tiles and Parquet.

The needle size is for guidance only, it is recommended you do a small swatch to check your gauge.