Design Your Own Crescent Shawl With This Simple Recipe

Editor‘s Note: Part pattern and part creative recipe, Martha Owen‘s Crescent Shawl invites knitters to experiment while creating a beautifully shaped, wearable wrap. With simple techniques and adaptable construction, it‘s a design you'll want to knit—and reinvent—again and again. As a longtime resident artist at John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina, Martha encourages students to work intuitively and be inspired by beautiful, natural materials. Grab your needles, a glass of iced tea, and get ready to cast on!

Here‘s Martha:
Follow along as I show you how to create an uncharted shape from your own imagination of colorful comfort. Sample this recipe; it‘s one to be tried, tested, and remade until it is just right! When you get started, tell yourself, “This is the first in a series—I‘ve got this! Martha is going to help!”

Materials

YARN 2–8 oz depending on size; use cobweb, fingering, or sportweight.
NEEDLES Bigger than what you would use for stockinette fabric on your yarn; we want a netting look; 2 straight, and one 24"–36" circular of matching size.
NOTIONS Markers; tapestry needle.

Special Stitches

YO Selvedge At the start of a row, put the needle under the working yarn before knitting the first stitch. This creates a YO at the beginning of the row—inc 1 st.