Controlled Chaos Shawl by Elizabeth Kay Booth

Controlled Chaos Shawl

Knitting
February 2021
Fingering (14 wpi) ?
24 stitches and 44 rows = 4 inches
in garter st
US 6 - 4.0 mm
US 7 - 4.5 mm
1000 - 1200 yards (914 - 1097 m)
One size fits all
English
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This shawl reminds me of patchwork and is a fun project for using up stash yarn. You can choose ten colors or two or anywhere in between and knit until you run out of yarn. This is one of those projects you will want to make multiple variations of just to see how each one will turn out!

It employs variations of slip stitch and the patterns are easy to memorize but don’t get boring. The bottom half is knit in 5 sections and the top half is knit across all stitches in rows, with the bottom sections seamed together. Icord on all edgings plus in bindoff give a neat look to the chaos of colors. In the end you have a beautiful, wrappable crescent-shaped shawl.

A note about choosing your colors: This pattern is highly versatile. Using two colors will give you an Op Art effect, while using a main color plus 5 separate colors will give you the patchwork effect shown in my photos. I also made a version (not shown) using 10 colors of equal yardage.

The pattern is written for a main color (about half the yardage) plus 5 contrast colors: Colors A - E. The key with planning your colors is to always place high-contrast colors next to each other. Below are the colors in the Frost Yarn color pack I had purchased:

MC - Dark navy with variegated
Color A - Dark Purple
Color B - Aqua
Color C - Melon
Color D - Light Green
Color E - Lavender

Notes about gauge and slip stitch patterns: This pattern instructs you to use a larger needle size for the slip stitch sections because slip stitch knitting is more constricted than garter stitch. Using larger needles for those sections helps avoid uneven edges or “pulling in” where the slip stitch sections begin and end. The needle sizes I used are given, but every knitter has slightly different tension. I recommend swatching a section of garter st, then a section of slip stitch pattern, and adjusting your needle sizes until you are happy with your fabric. Gauge is not particularly important, but balancing the garter st and pull of slip st patterns is.