Like many knitters, I find it impossible not to be drawn to mini skeins and mini skein sets—they’re just so cute! But I’ve often hesitated to buy them because I find that when I do, they end up just sitting in my stash because I’m never quite sure what to do with them. Recently it occurred to me that by combining two sets, I’d have enough yarn for a larger item such as a big, cozy shawl—and I also realized that a shawl was the perfect way to use up any amount of minis because you can stop knitting at any time.

This shawl can be worked with any amount of yarn at any gauge you like; simply swatch until you get a fabric you like and go with it. The pattern explains how to maximize your yarn to use up as much of your mini skeins as you can. The gauge and needle size listed here are simply the gauge and needle size used for the sample shown in the pattern; likewise, while fingering weight yarn was used for the sample, you can use any weight of yarn that you like.

The technique used to create the stripes in this shawl is technically intarsia, but it’s done in such a way that you do not need to have small bobbins or yarn butterflies and there is no twisting of strands. You will have two skeins of yarn attached to your work at any given time and use some strategically placed short rows to achieve this effect.

To knit this pattern, you need to know how to:

• do a provisional cast on (any method),
• pick up stitches along a garter edge,
• increase using m1/backward loop, and
• work short rows (any method).

Tech editing by TECHsorcist