Dappled sunlight, the scent of leaves, the murmurs of wildlife and a sense of relaxed calm…this is the vision I had in my mind when I began the Natural Beauty shawl. Filled with relaxing garter, simple lace and elegant eyelets, this shawl has been designed to help you appreciate the natural beauty we all have within us as well as the beauty of nature without.

Knit from the bottom up, the simple fir cone lace motif is completed first to allow you to relax into the mindful, meditative action of garter stitch punctuated by delicate eyelets and simple pops of stockinette. The shawl provides a blank canvas for you to make use of the colours, fibres and textures in your stash, enabling the beauty of those single skeins we all can’t resist to shine through. Get your favourite knitting nook ready and prepare to relax into the soothing journey of Natural Beauty.

The shawl has been designed to use 3 skeins of fingering weight yarn and I have given some guidance on the use of colour and fibre to help you create a piece which reflects your own natural beauty and tastes. I would encourage you to experiment with different fibres and colours to achieve different effects in your knitting.

For the sample I used a total of 988m of fingering weight yarn as follows
Colour A - 365m of Mr & Mrs Rabbit Poledale Superwash Sock yarn (80% wool blend of Polwarth/Corriedale, 20% nylon) in ‘Misty Morning’
Colour B - 320m Alice Yarns 50% Merino, 50% silk in ‘Pink Lemonade’
Colour C - 303m of Back to Blighty 80% BFL, 20% nylon in ‘The Lady of Shallot’

I have written out the pattern in both a short form and a long form depending on the level of detail you require when knitting. The short form instructions are written out in simple steps and where rows or combinations of rows are the same as previous ones, you will be told to repeat these e.g. ‘Repeat Rows 12 – 16’.

The shawl is knit from the bottom up.

The long form instructions are written out in table form, giving instructions for each row (even where a row may be a repeat of a previous row). If you are a less confident knitter, this will help you to keep track of where you are in the pattern and tick off each row as you go. Stitch counts for each row are also given to help keep you on track.

Stitch markers are used within the lace section of the shawl to help you keep count of your stitches within the lace repeat and to make it easy to identify where any errors may have been made during the lace knitting.

Charts for the lace pattern repeat are also given should you prefer to follow these.