I wanted to design a project that would give the beginning knitter a lot of practice at the very basics of knitting. This shrug may look complicated, but there are only 4 basic things you need to know - cast on, knit, purl, and bind off. Aside from weaving in the yarn ends, the only finishing is two very short seams to create the armholes.

Everything started out with Penny’s Garden Hat. I loved working on designing with this yarn so much that I decided to create a matching set of fingerless gloves. The yarn was dyed with a main colour, interrupted by a short block of two other colours - one highlight colour and one more subtle colour.

Inspiration for this design came from working with a hand dyed yarn where the skein was primarily one colour, but it also had a very short colour repeat of a contrasting colour. I tried to come up with something that is a good weekend project that does not require a lot of counting or a lot of fussing.