May 3, 20171 min read

It Started with a Sketch: Boom Star

For this shawl, I was inspired by an article I read in the Telegraph: Spectacular collision of suns will create new star in night sky in 2022. I had the perfect color combo in my stash, Malabrigo Sock in dark gray and vivid yellow, so I set to designing a shawl inspired by dark night skies and bright stars.

The star stitch, or aster stitch, was the perfect stitch pattern to use. But I still felt the shawl needed something… more. I’ve been following Silhouette Patterns on YouTube for a while, and they use pattern slashing quite a bit to adjust and modify sewing patterns. I got to thinking… what if you used pattern slashing to shape a knitted shawl? And what’s pattern slashing in the knitting world: short rows!

My sketched shawls have four sections in them, and this is how I initially wrote the pattern. When I knit the sample, though, I realized there was enough yarn only for three sections and a wide border. Sometimes real-life limitations can interfere with your vision. :)

Boom Star is made with eye-catching star stitch on a stockinette background. Starting from the upper right corner, the shawl is knit on the bias to create an asymmetric triangle. Garter-stitch wedges made with short rows give the shawl a gently curved shape. Main and contrasting colors are inverted in the wide garter-stitch border, ending the shawl with a bang.