Curved and Squared Shawl

It's fall season which means it is very busy here at All Knit Up Designs. Fall season = show season, so for the last 3 weekends (and headed to my next one) I've been vending at fiber festivals! But, just because I'm out and about in traveling the PNW doesn't mean I haven't been working on a pattern. 

Going to fiber shows is one of my favorite parts of my job, I love spending time with knitters and getting to chat about my designs. When I talk with fiber folks at a show I take what they say into consideration. I had a few people mention that they don't love or wear triangle shawls, which is mostly what I design. I have a few different shapes like Wrapped in Color with 3/4 shaping or Me Before Brioche with crescent shaping but not nearly as many as I have different shapes of triangle shawls. I decided to take the feedback and add a few more crescents to the mix. 

Curved and Squared is my newest crescent shawl and it is a sister pattern to All Squared Up with a mitered square bind off, so another scrappy shawl to add to your collection! Curved and Squared uses a welted pattern in the body, which is a 4 row repeat with only 1 purl row and perfectly easy to memorize. 

The body of the original Curved and Squared sample is two skeins of fingering weight yarn at approximately 847 yards and then 13 colors for the mitered square. I opted to reuse colors in my sample because I was using a mini skein set from Road Trip Sock Yarn but you could use 3 grams of 32 different colors for a fully scrappy version. 

If you're intimidated by the mitered squares you can check out my tutorial here for a more in-depth explanation on how to knit them. The mitered squares are really where you get to play with color in Curved and Squared, so dive into your scraps and see what different colors you can combine for your wearable art! 

What is a Mitered Square?

What is a mitered square? That's what this whole post will be about! A mitered square is a form of knitting that utilizes decreases at certain sections to create a shape. 

Mitered Squares cast on the full amount of stitches for two sides of the square ie cast on 32 stitches for 16 stitches per side and then you decrease on both sides of a center marker. 

There are also options for decreasing two stitches at once instead of on each side of a marker but for All Squared Up, the pattern uses a center marker and then decreases on both sides. 

Mitered Squares can be used in a variety of ways. All Squared Up uses them a the bottom of the shawl for binding off, Scrapbook Cowl uses only mitered squares to create the body of the cowl. 

Mitered Squares really are a fascinating and fun knitting technique that is simple to knit and a great way to explore color. I can't wait to see the color groups knitters come up with for All Squared Up!