DIY: Arrowpath Shawl by Robbie Laughlin

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The Arrowpath Shawl by Robbie Laughlin is a beautiful and meditative knit that reminded me I should knit more shawls! It is a pleasingly simple pattern that makes a great travel project. This is the first pattern I’ve made from Robbie’s ebook Architexture: Shape and Surface.

The pattern was easy to memorize yet had enough variety to keep me interested. I had to restart the beginning section a few times until I understood how the center double decrease works. I misread the part about knitting to one stitch before the marked stich until the CDD. Once I figured it out, the rest of the knitting was smooth and satisfying.

Yarn and tools

The yarn for this project is from a scrap bag at a Bookhou sale and unfortunately it didn’t come with the label. It is a super soft DK merino with a speckled tonal quality. I purchased a bag of three colours and used all of it for this shawl. I used a 5.0 mm circular needle for the whole piece.

Adjustments to the Arrowpath Shawl

There were only some minor adjustments to the shawl. I had three equal cakes of yarn, so I used all three instead of the two colours called for in the pattern. The two lighter shades made up the first solid section. You can see the changeover in the middle of the shawl that appears like a natural fade. I also added one more 12 row repeat to use up all two lighter shades of wool. It lengthened the finished piece by about 3 cm, so it was only a small adjustment to the size. Lastly, at each colour change, the pattern advises to cut the ends of the yarn and attach the new colour. Since I avoid weaving in ends as much as possible, I instead carried the alternate yarn up the side and twisted it with the main one at the end of each row. This worked for me because the darker green didn’t contrast too greatly from the lighter shades in the body. If the shawl was black and white, the alternate yarn would probably look too visible.

For more of our shawls, please look here.