Knitters often evolve past beginner status but aren’t quite sure where to go next. Jumping head first into lace knitting seems daunting. F-stop was designed with this in mind, to help ease the transition as you graduate to the world of more complicated stitch patterns.

The body is mostly garter stitch with some simple shaping on the edges. It is knit end-to-end like a scarf so there are never more than 61 stitches on your needle. The simple beaded lace pattern is 13 stitches wide, allowing the knitter to become accustomed to reading a chart without a lot of intimidating repeats.

The elegance of the finished shawl belies the simplicity of the pattern. Inspired by my love of photography, I chose the name f-stop because the gentle curve of the wedges reminds me of the aperture blades inside a camera lens.

The pattern will work with lace or fingering weight yarn. If you use beads, you’ll need about 600 (pattern shown with size 6 beads).