Walk through almost any Victorian neighbourhood in London and you’ll find it: an unmistakable warm yellow-gold brick, sometimes pale as butter, sometimes deepening to amber or terracotta depending on the light and the years. London stock brick built the city’s terraces, its squares, its garden walls. Made from the clay dug from the fields that once edged London, fired with ash and chalk, each brick’s colour reflects the composition of the city itself.

I learned to knit in a neighbourhood lined with it. After living with this brick my whole London life, I’m drawn back towards it every time I visit. Something of its character and warmth found its way into this shawl.

London Brick is an asymmetrical triangle in fingering weight yarn. Striking garter stitch alongside a simple slip stitch technique worked in two colours produces a fabric of surprising depth and character, richly textured and deeply satisfying to knit.

Yarn:
Natural Fibre Arts Alpaca Luxe
60% Superwash Merino, 20% Alpaca, 20% Silk; 460m/503yds per 115g skein
2 x 115g skeins,

Colour A: Wild Oat
Colour B: Burlap

OR

80g (approximately 320m/350yds) each of two contrasting colours of fingering weight yarn.

I used approx 70g for my sample and one of my test knitters used 80g

Needles
4mm (US 6) needles (or size to obtain gauge)

Notions
Tapestry needle
Removeable stitch marker