Flame Shawl with Pockets

The pattern for knitted shawl with pockets

In the summer of 2020, I was asked to make a crochet sample for the local yarn shop. It was Perfect-Pockets Shawl by Sonja Hood. After I finished the sample, I was looking for a knit pattern to give as a suggestion for knitters who will be seeing a crochet sample at the shop. And I didn’t find any patterns at that moment, that I liked, so I decided to create my own pattern.

Right away I knew that I’ll be working across (crochet pattern worked lengthwise) because it is much easier to customize the length of the shawl this way. I thought the mistake rib stitch pattern will be great for the borders. I made some research for the main stitch pattern and found an interesting net stitch that I liked. I dug into my stash and found a great yarn Lopi by Saco River Dyehouse. Even though the yarn company marks the yarn as DK it works up more like worsted weight yarn, that is why I recommended worsted weight yarn for the pattern.

So this is the story of how this project started and Flame Shawl with Pockets was born.

I love this shawl, it is so big and comfy. If you do it with very soft yarn, you can use it also like a big oversize scarf. You can warm your hands in those oversize pockets or just use pockets to store a phone or keys when you don’t want to have a purse with you. Fun and practical accessory.

How about the fringe? Do you like it or will you ignore it and leave the shawl without fringe, or maybe you’ll do pom poms instead?

What do you need to know to make this shawl for yourself?

As usual, the knitter's best friends, knit and purl stitches. Plus you need to know how to do yarn overs (YO). Here, you’ll be using double yarn overs, which is actually just two YO. And I introduce you to one more special stitch, twisted double purl stitch (Tw2P).

For those who prefer visual learning, I recently made a video on how to knit a net stitch.

You’ll need five 100 gram skeins of worsted weight yarn and needles size US 11 (8 mm). I do recommend straight needles for this project if you have those, but you can use circular needles too, just pay attention to how you move stitches, especially yarn overs from the cable part to thick needles.

One more recommendation is to use the chain cast on method (you’ll need hook size L (8 mm) for it), to get the same look on cast on and bind off edges. You can find several videos on YouTube about this method, I share one of the links in the pattern.

Here is the pattern

Flame Shawl with Pockets on Ravelry

Flame Shawl with Pockets on PayHip

Please if you’re sharing your finished projects on social media use hashtag #FlamePocketShawl and tag me @natalia_yarncraft