Our free Sketch Shawl knitting pattern takes our new hand-dyed Estuary yarn as its muse and medium. Let the serendipity of this artful yarn lead the way as it creates dark, light, and medium shading, like pencil strokes that play across the page of your handknit fabric.

Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho

You’ll knit your Sketch Shawl in one piece, knitting rows of alternating horizontal and vertical garter stitch squares that grow into one great big square that you’ll fold in half to wear. You’ll join each new square to its neighbors as you go, so there’s no seaming to tackle at the end, and you’ll even work in most of your yarn ends as you knit… So when you’re done, you’re pretty much done!

Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho

Simple stitches really shine when your yarn is this extraordinary. Estuary is an exquisite mix of fine merino wool, lustrous mulberry silk, and a little bit of linen, which sprouts from the yarn with a natural flair!

Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho

This single-ply fingering-weight yarn relaxes and blooms to create a soft, fluid fabric flowing with movement, harmony, and balance. You’ll love every stitch that you knit with this yarn, and you’ll fall in love all over again whenever you wrap your Sketch Shawl around your shoulders.

Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho
Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho

Each color in Estuary‘s palette of elevated earth tones, including this classic Blue Tourmaline, is made by hand-dyeing 2 or 3 different colors onto a warm white yarn, shaded by the natural colors of silk and linen.

Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho

Pick up 6 skeins of Estuary to knit your own Sketch Shawl, a one-of-a-kind work of art that celebrates the beauty of freehand creativity!

Yarn lovers, if you adore the yarn used in this project, you’ll love exploring all of our other yarn collections! Discover over 45 thoughtfully designed yarns in nearly every natural fiber and in every spectacular color you can imagine. Only available here at Purl Soho’s online yarn store, where every skein is created with care and your creativity in mind!

Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho

Designed by Purl Soho designer, Hiromi Glover. See even more of Hiromi’s work on her Instagram!

Share your progress and connect with the community by tagging your pics with #PurlSoho. We can’t wait to see what you make!

Want to print this pattern? On desktop, find the “print” icon in the right margin, and on mobile, scroll to the end of the pattern for it. Use the on-screen instructions to remove anything you don’t want to print!

Materials

Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho
  • 6 skeins of Purl Soho’s Estuary, 65% fine merino wool, 20% mulberry silk and 15% linen. Each skein of this fingering-weight yarn is 384 yards/ 100 grams; approximately 2170 total yards required. We used the color Blue Tourmaline.
  • US 4 (3.5 mm), 16- or 24-inch circular knitting needles
  • Stitch marker
  • Scrap yarn

GAUGE

26 stitches and 52 rows (26 ridges) = 4 inches in garter stitch

SIZE

Finished Dimensions: 40 x 40 inches square, with a hypotenuse of 56½ inches when folded

Finished Square Dimensions: 4 inches square

NOTES

GARTER RIDGE

A “garter ridge” equals two rows of garter stitch. It looks like a prominent horizontal ridge and is an easy way to count rows!

PICKING UP STITCHES

To create the cleanest pick-up edge, insert the needle between garter ridges. For more help with this technique, visit our Picking Up Stitches Tutorial  and scroll down to “Along A Vertical Edge: Garter Stitch, Between Ridges”.

WEAVING IN TAILS AS YOU GO

To spare yourself weaving in dozens and dozens of tails, each time you rejoin yarn, we recommend knitting in the new tail as you pick up stitches. Here’s how…

Bring the tail over the working yarn at the wrong side of the work and knit the next stitch (“trapping” the tail with the working yarn), then drop the tail and knit the next stitch as normal. Continue knitting in the tail every other stitch for an inch or two. See this maneuver in action in the video below!

To see this technique in action, visit our Weaving In Ends As You Go Tutorial (and note that this is demonstrated on a different project)!

SCHEMATIC

NOTE: The instructions for Squares A–J are all different. The pattern explains them all!

Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho

Want to see it bigger? Download this Schematic as a PDF!

PATTERN

COLUMN 1

SQUARE A

Cast on 26 stitches. We used a basic Long Tail Cast On.

NOTE: Place a removable stitch marker or scrap yarn on first row to indicate wrong side.

Knit every row until there are 26 garter ridges on right side, ending with a wrong-side row.

Cut yarn.

SQUARE B

With right side facing you, slide previous square’s stitches to right tip of circular needles, then cast 26 stitches onto right tip of same needles (to the left of previous square’s stitches). [52 total stitches]

Set-Up Row (wrong side): K25, place marker (pm), slip slip knit (ssk) to join current working square and previous square, turn work. [51 stitches remain]

Row 1 (right side): K1, slip marker (sm), knit to end of row.

Row 2 (wrong side): Knit to marker, sm, ssk, turn work. [1 stitch decreased]

Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until all stitches from previous square have been joined to new square, ending with Row 2 and removing marker on last row. [26 stitches remain]

Slip stitches onto scrap yarn.

Cut yarn.

SQUARE C

With right side facing you, turn work 90 degrees clockwise so left selvage of previous square is at the top.

Rejoining yarn and weaving in tail as you go (see Notes), pick up and knit (see Notes) 26 stitches along left selvage, starting just below last garter ridge and ending between first garter ridge and cast-on edge.

Knit every row until there are 26 garter ridges on right side, ending with a wrong-side row.

Cut yarn.

CONTINUE

Continue to work and attach squares according to Schematic (see Notes), alternating repeats of Squares B and C until you have 10 squares total, ending with a Square B.

COLUMN 2

SQUARE D

With right side facing you, rejoining yarn and weaving in tail as you go, pick up and knit 26 stitches along right selvage of first square, starting between cast-on edge and first garter ridge.**

Knit every row until there are 26 garter ridges on right side, ending with a wrong-side row.

Slip stitches onto scrap yarn.

Cut yarn.

SQUARE E

With right side facing you, turn work 90 degrees clockwise so left selvage of previous square is at the top.

Slip on-hold stitches from adjacent square (the square to the left of the one you are about to work) to circular needles and slide work so needle tip is at yarn tails.

With other end of circular needles and starting just below last garter ridge, rejoin yarn and pick up and knit 26 stitches along left selvage edge of previous square, weaving in tail as you go, and ending between cast-on edge and first garter ridge; slip last picked-up stitch to left needle tip, knit 2 together (k2tog) to join current working square to adjacent square, turn work. [51 total stitches; 26 stitches on right needle, 25 stitches on left needle]

Set-Up Row (wrong side): K1, pm, knit to end of row.

Row 1 (right side): Knit to marker, sm, k2tog, turn. [1 stitch decreased]

Row 2 (wrong side): K1, sm, knit to end of row. **

Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until all stitches from adjacent square have been decreased, ending with Row 2 and removing marker on last row. [26 stitches remain]

Cut yarn and leave stitches on needles.

SQUARE F

With right side facing you, turn work 90 degrees counterclockwise so right selvage of adjacent square is at top.

Slide previous square’s stitches so needle tip is at opposite end of yarn tail.

With same needle tip and starting just before first garter ridge, rejoin yarn and pick up and knit 26 stitches along right selvage of adjacent square, weaving in tail as you go. [52 total stitches]

Set-Up Row (wrong side): K25, pm, ssk to join current square to previous one, turn work. [51 stitches remain]

Row 1 (right side): K1, sm, knit to end of row.

Row 2 (wrong side): Knit to marker, sm, ssk, turn work. [1 stitch decreased] **

Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until all stitches from previous square have been decreased, ending with Row 2 and removing marker on last row. [26 stitches remain]

Slip stitches onto scrap yarn.

Cut yarn.

CONTINUE

Continue to work and attach squares according to Schematic, alternating repeats of Squares E and F until you have 9 squares in column, ending with a Square F.

SQUARE G

Work as for Square E up to **.

Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until all 26 stitches from adjacent square have been decreased, ending with Row 1. [26 stitches remain]

With wrong side facing you, bind off as follows…

Bind Off Row (wrong side): Slip 1 purlwise with yarn in front, remove marker, k1, pass slipped stitch over, *k1, pass first stitch over second, repeat from * to end of row.

Cut yarn and pull through remaining stitch.

COLUMN 3

SQUARE H

With right side facing you, slip on-hold stitches from first square of previous column to circular needles, and slide them so the yarn tail is at the needle tip.

With other end of needles, cast on 26 stitches, slip last cast-on stitch to left needle, k2tog, and turn work. [51 total stitches; 26 stitches on right needle, 25 stitches on left needle]

Work remainder of square as for Square E, beginning with Set-Up Row.

CONTINUE

Continue to work and attach squares according to Schematic, alternating repeats of Square F and Square E until you have 10 squares in Column 3, ending with a Square F.

COLUMNS 4–9

Repeat Columns 2 and 3 three more times, until you have 9 total columns.

COLUMN 10

SQUARE I

Work as for Square D up to **.

Knit every row until there are 25 garter ridges on the right side, ending with a right-side row.

With wrong side facing you, bind off knitwise to end of row.

Cut yarn and pull through remaining stitch.

NEXT SQUARE

Work as for Square E.

SQUARE J

Work as for Square F up to **.

Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until there are 25 garter ridges on the right side, ending with Row 1. [26 stitches remain]

Bind Off Row (wrong side): Bind off knitwise to stitch marker, remove marker, ssk, bind off remaining stitch.

Cut yarn and pull through remaining stitch.

CONTINUE

Continue to work and attach squares according to Schematic, alternating repeats of Square E and Square J until you have 9 squares in Column 10, ending with a Square J.

LAST SQUARE

Work as for Square G.

FINISHING

Weave in remaining ends and gently wet block.

Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho
Sketch Shawl | Purl Soho

Learn About Estuary + All Our Beautiful Yarns

This project beautifully showcases Estuary, our artful and exquisite hand-dyed yarn, in all its untamed beauty. A luminous single ply of fine merino wool, mulberry silk, and linen, this fingering-weight yarn is soft and lustrous, with just a little bit of wildness. Pick from a palette of earthy variegated colors, each one made by hand-dyeing 2 or 3 colors onto a warm white base… Knit swirling eddies of dark and light that catch the eye like light on water!

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Looking for more inspiration? Explore all of our free knitting patterns and knitting tutorials, buy one of our many knitting kits and yarn bundles, and shop for beautiful yarn. We have over 35 gorgeous natural fiber yarns in 100’s of magnificent colors, designed to bring integrity, beauty, and joy to your next knitting project and only available at Purl Soho!