Boldweave In Rowan Kaffe Fassett Kidsilk Haze - Downloadable PDF

Boldweave Shawl Knitting Pattern in Rowan Kaffe Fassett Kidsilk Haze

The Boldweave is a striking knitted shawl or wrap designed by Kaffe Fassett and worked in Rowan Kidsilk Haze, a luxurious lace-weight yarn celebrated for its delicate mohair halo and silky sheen. This downloadable PDF pattern delivers a visually dramatic, colour-rich textile that is immediately recognisable as a Kaffe Fassett design — bold, painterly, and full of expressive colour blocking. Rated as an intermediate skill level, the pattern is well suited to knitters who are comfortable managing multiple yarn colours across a row and following structured repeat sequences.

What Is Being Made

The finished project is a shawl or wrap, a generously sized rectangular textile designed to be worn draped over the shoulders or wrapped around the body. The Boldweave shawl achieves its characteristic graphic impact through wide, bold stripes of contrasting colour arranged in a carefully sequenced repeat. The result is a wearable piece of textile art that reflects Kaffe Fassett's signature approach to colour — layering unexpected combinations to create depth and vibrancy.

Yarn and Materials

The pattern calls exclusively for Rowan Kidsilk Haze, a lace-weight yarn sold in 25g balls. Kidsilk Haze is a blend of super-fine kid mohair and silk, making it exceptionally lightweight, warm, and soft against the skin. Its fine halo adds a gentle luminosity to colourwork, allowing adjacent colour blocks to blend softly at their edges while still reading as distinct and bold from a distance.

Seven colourways of Rowan Kaffe Fassett Kidsilk Haze are used in this pattern:

• Yarn A – Violet K0015 (2 balls)
• Yarn B – Lichen K0016 (1 ball)
• Yarn C – Meringue K0012 (1 ball)
• Yarn D – Celery K0014 (1 ball)
• Yarn E – Blancmange K0010 (1 ball)
• Yarn F – Tangerine K0013 (1 ball)
• Yarn G – Petunia K0011 (1 ball)

This palette — moving from deep violet and petunia through soft lichen, celery, meringue, blancmange, and tangerine — is characteristic of Kaffe Fassett's bold yet harmonious approach to colour, juxtaposing warm and cool tones for maximum visual energy.

Needles

The pattern is worked on one pair of 5mm (no 6) (US 8) needles. This needle size is notably larger than would typically be used for a lace-weight yarn, and this is a deliberate choice. Working Kidsilk Haze on larger needles opens up the fabric, creating a light, drapey, and airy texture that enhances the shawl's wearability and allows the mohair halo to bloom fully.

Techniques and Construction

The Boldweave shawl is constructed using flat knitting — worked back and forth in rows on a single pair of needles. The construction is straightforward in structure, relying on the power of colour placement rather than complex stitch patterning to create its visual impact.

The key technique throughout is intarsia-style colour knitting, where different yarn colours are introduced and dropped across a single row to create distinct, non-overlapping colour blocks. Each section of colour is worked with its own length or ball of yarn, and yarns are not carried across the back of the work as they would be in stranded colourwork. This keeps the fabric light and prevents unwanted puckering across the wide colour panels.

Colour Block Structure

The pattern is built on a system of numbered row sequences and repeats. Colour blocks are arranged in panels of 16 or 48 stitches, alternating across the row to create the bold striped and blocked effect. For example, a row might instruct the knitter to work 16 stitches in one colour, 16 in another, 48 in a third, and so on — with the arrangement shifting as