Easterbrook

Easterbrook Shawl by Taiga Hilliard Designs

Project Overview

The Easterbrook is a versatile knitted shawl designed by Taiga Hilliard Designs that bridges beginner and advanced skill levels. This downloadable PDF pattern offers an accessible entry point for newer knitters while providing sufficient complexity and visual interest to engage experienced makers. The design demonstrates how sideways construction combined with strategic lace insets creates a sophisticated finished garment.

Construction Method

This shawl is knit sideways, a construction technique that builds the garment horizontally rather than from top to bottom. Sideways knitting allows for unique shaping possibilities and makes it easier to adjust dimensions during the knitting process. The pattern incorporates lace insets throughout the construction, adding delicate openwork details that enhance the shawl's drape and visual appeal.

Knitting Techniques and Stitches

The Easterbrook pattern employs a range of fundamental and intermediate knitting techniques suitable for developing crafters:

• Yarn overs (YO): Creates the openwork characteristic of lace sections
• Decreases: Slip, slip, knit (SSK) decreases are used to shape the lace pattern and maintain stitch counts
• Increases: Knit front and back (KFB) and purl front and back (PFB) increases build stitches gradually throughout the pattern
• Stockinette stitch: Forms the base fabric structure
• Garter stitch: Provides textured borders and edge definition
• Reverse stockinette: Creates contrast and visual interest in specific sections

Yarn and Materials

The Easterbrook pattern is designed using Anzula Croquet yarn in DK (double knitting) weight. The pattern requires 690 yards total, making it an efficient project in terms of yardage. The specified gauge is 18 stitches over 4 inches when worked on US size 8 (5.00 mm) needles.

Adaptability

A key feature of the Easterbrook pattern is its flexibility with yarn weights. While the pattern is written for DK weight yarn, the instructions note that this design can be adjusted to work with any weight of yarn. This adaptability allows knitters to use yarn from their stash or substitute different fiber types while maintaining the integrity of the shawl's design and construction method.

Difficulty Level

Rated as intermediate difficulty, the Easterbrook accommodates knitters who have mastered basic stitches and are ready to explore lace work and sideways construction. The combination of straightforward increases and decreases with lace patterning provides an ideal learning project for developing more advanced techniques without overwhelming complexity.