Summer 2025 Project of the Month

Katherine will be putting together a video demonstrating some different techniques for working the stitches in this pattern. Stay tuned! 

In the meantime, check out some tips she put together for us while she was knitting her shawl:

1. Point protectors are your friend. If you have some, make use of them. If you haven’t added these to your notions bag, now is the time to do so. We’re not going to lie. The rows in this pattern get long! (Katherine timed herself at 15 minutes for a garter stitch row toward the end!) Point protectors will allow you to safely set your project down in the middle of a row so you can go take that quick dip in the pool!

2. Use pointy needles. Katherine found that the needles she cast on with were old and dull with use, and she decided a fresh pair of 3.5mm tips was exactly what was needed. The pointy tips will make working into multiple stitches easier, and reduce yarn splitting and overall frustration. 

3. Use a locking stitch marker to mark the Right Side of your shawl. This will help you to orient yourself while knitting. This tip is going to be more beneficial for new knitters who aren’t as familiar with reading their stitches. Locking stitch markers can also be used to mark certain rows in your project. 

4. Stitch markers can be used to mark any area on your row you like! Areas to mark in this pattern that may be helpful are before/after your i-cord edging, and placed at regular intervals on a row to help with counting. (It’s a lot easier to count 400 stitches when it’s broken down into sections!)

5. Life lines can be used throughout the project or before a challenging section to “save” your work. Simply take contrasting yarn and thread it through the stitches on your current row. The yarn will stay in those stitches and make it way less intimidating if you need to rip back. At the end, this can easily be removed by simply pulling the contrasting yarn out of the row. 

6. Keep your tension in check. If your tension is too tight, it will be difficult to work into your stitches, especially the daisy stitch. If needed, size up one needle size. 

7. The yarn overs in this pattern can be surprisingly tricky! Keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t slip off your needle. To avoid them slipping off your needle, make sure you complete the YO by bringing your yarn all the way back to the front of your work before working the next stitches. Once you’re finished the row, you can double check that your YOs are still there by looking at the stitches before/after the 3 i-cord edging stitches. A dropped YO can be an easy fix – if you catch it on the row it’s missing from or the next row! 

8. Who knew knitters could be so bad at counting! Instead of counting each row, Katherine finds it most helpful to pay attention to the first few stitches you work in a row to ensure you’re establishing the pattern correctly, and the last few stitches in the row. If the last few stitches don’t end the same way the pattern call for, you’ll know your stitch count is off. At this point you can investigate your knitting to see if there is a visible mistake, or pick back the row and start again. 

If you are newer to knitting more complex or large projects, we recommend counting every row until you’re more comfortable. This will ensure that if there is a mistake you will only have to pick back 1 row at the most. 

You will notice most mistakes on the row they happen on, or the next row. If something seems off, don’t keep going hoping it will fix itself. Pause and see if you can identify the mistake and troubleshoot a solution from there. Certain sections such as the daisy and eyelet sections will require your stitch count to be correct so that it lines up nicely. 

9. Unhinged knitting hack – use at your own risk! This one is right out of Katherine’s books. If your stitch count is off but the rest of your stitches are lining up, you can always fix your stitch count by adding some increases (kfb preferred) in the garter stitch section. We would only recommend doing this for a small number of stitches!