As a designer, I found this shawl of the Contrasts collection the most exciting to work on and I hope you will have as much fun with it as I did. Obviously, if you like cables, this pattern is made just for you. But there is so much more. You will be knitting in (almost) every direction you can imagine. You will complete the cable spine first (brown on my shawl), then pick up stitches from both sides of its long edge and work on the garter “wings”. Finally, you will pick up stitches for the border and complete that part. This is not an intarsia project, you will never have to work with more than one color at a time.

Where does the name come from? Honestly, from the beginning, these cables reminded me of branches. But I couldn’t come up with a name I liked until the shawl and I took a little stroll together into the woods to take a few photos. It was between Christmas and New Year’s Eve and this is typically the time when people are thinking about what they have already achieved and where the road goes and I did exactly that while standing literally at some crossroads taking pictures and this name just came to me. And it seems so fitting, because it tells so much not just about the shawl (which is knit in different directions) but about my feelings as well.

As far as color possibilities go, you have several options. You can use one color throughout. If you want two, choose one for both the cable spine and the border and a second for the garter wings. If you want three, you can use one color for the border and the cable spine and pick two others for the two garter wings. Or go ahead and choose four as I did!

Video showing all stitches used at https://www.facebook.com/agneskutasknitweardesign/videos/2274013795998313

Yarn
Garnstudio DROPS Nepal
65% wool 35% alpaca
75 meters (82 yards) / 50 grams

Color 1 (C1)
#0618 camel
2 skeins

Color 2 (C2)
#2920 orange
2 skeins

Color 3 (C3)
#7238 olive
2 skeins

Color 4 (C4)
#2923 goldenrod
5 skeins

Needle
5 mm (US 8) circular needle, 100 cm (40 inches)
or the needle size you need to get gauge

Notions
stitch markers (optional)
blocking pins

Size
172 x 63 cm
67¾ x 24¾ inches

Gauge
16 stitches / 22 rows = 10 cm (4 inches) in garter stitch measured on the blocked shawl.
Obtaining the gauge given is not crucial for a successful project, but will affect the finished size and the yardage needed.