Now available as a Knitmastery interactive pattern!

Northwest Passage is a riff on the blanket pattern Born at Sea. In Northwest Passage, I rework the stitch patterns from Born at Sea as a long, triangular shawl, worked from the right tip to the wide left edge in sport weight/heavy fingering yarn. (For size reference, the model shown is 5 ft 7 in/170cm tall.) Northwest Passage uses 2 stitch cables and a texture pattern of knit and purl stitches; instructions for working 2 stitch cables without a cable needle are provided in the pattern notes. To make Northwest Passage, you will need to know how to knit, purl, work yarn overs and k2tog decreases, and how to read charts. Pattern instructions are charted only.

Yarn requirements: 5 skeins of Astral Bath Orbit Sport (available by custom order: see here for more information) OR 1410 yds/1289m sport/heavy fingering weight yarn.

About the yarn: Astral Bath Orbit Sport is a 4-ply worsted spun, machine washable Bluefaced Leicester (BFL) wool yarn. BFL is one of the finest longwools, with beautiful lustre and drape. The multi-ply construction gives this yarn great stitch definition, making the textured stitch patterns pop. The slight colour variation of this hand dyed yarn also adds visual depth to the textured stitches. If substituting yarn for your project, look for a yarn with similar properties, especially one that will show the stitches well and drape nicely, such as longwools, longwool blends, or merino/silk blends.