** Twelve Birds MKAL half circle version here **

Knit a glorious mystery shawl, inspired by the iconic prints and tapestries of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Those lavish, exuberant depictions of the natural world are a feast for the eyes and the imagination. Lush flowers and forests, twining vines and ripe fruit, mythical creatures and exotic birds: all things bright and beautiful, woven together in glorious abundance.

Our mystery knitalong design this year is a tribute to William Morris and his daughter May, Edward Burne-Jones, and their fellow designers and artists, who left us such a legacy of beauty, and craftsmanship. In this mystery knitalong, we’ll let their work spark our creativity.

Our secret shawl is on a grand scale, full of rich detail and texture to keep you guessing until the end. But don’t let that intimidate you! The pattern will be suitable for brave beginners through experienced shawl knitters: while the final design seems intricate and impressive, the stitches are straightforward and simple. Look forward to detailed instructions and row-by-row stitch counts with the Curious Handmade Percentage Checklist™ pattern format.

How it works:

In a mystery knitalong, you take a step into the unknown. The only certainty is that you’re knitting a shawl, and at the beginning, all you know is the type and amount of yarn to use. Everything else is revealed along the way.

The shawl pattern is split into clues (in this case, six clues) and you receive a new piece of the pattern every week. The shawl’s design is a total secret, and we try to keep it that way until the grand reveal at the end of the knitalong. We will have spoiler-free chat threads if you want to knit at your own pace and be completely surprised by the process, and guilt-free spoiler threads if you’d like to peek ahead!

As we knit our shawls together, you can share delightful speculation, support, encouragement and camaraderie with your fellow knitters in the community. We’ll gather on Instagram and in the Curious Handmade Ravelry group to share our yarn choices and our progress, and to cheer each other on until the end of the project.

You can join in the MKAL at any point: we’ll be knitting together for the next couple of months, so don’t worry about being “behind”. The most important thing is to go at your own pace and enjoy the process.

CLUE RELEASE DATES
Clue 1 - Thursday, March 21st
Clue 2 - Thursday, March 28th
Clue 3 - Thursday, April 4th
Clue 4 - Thursday, April 11th
Clue 5 - Thursday, April 18th
Clue 6 - Thursday, April 25th

The final pattern reveal on social media will be Friday, May 3rd. We’ll be avoiding spoilers until then (more on that below.) The knitalong will continue until Friday, June 7th to allow plenty of comfortable knitting time for you to go at your own pace and still have a chance to win a prize for your finished shawl!

YARN INFO:

This mystery shawl pattern uses four skeins of fingering-weight yarn.

• I used three gently speckled colourways to create a blended fade-type effect, with one slightly higher contrast semi-solid as a ‘pop’ feature panel.

• The colours appear in the pattern in order so A blends into B and B into C. The colour pop section is knit in colour D and is next to C sections.

• The pattern includes lace, so highly variegated skeins may obscure the stitch patterns somewhat. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all, just something to be aware of if that matters to you.

• For my first sample using the Voolenvine Willow kit, I used the teal semi solid as the feature with the “fade” using speckles going from the light gold to light teal.

For the second sample I used the Marigold kit, with the Marigold semi solid as the feature panel with the “fade” going from light teal to light gold.

Sample Yarn
Voolenvine Nouveau
100% superwash merino; 365m/400yds per
100g skein,
4 x 100g skeins

Colourways:
Willow option
Colour A: Gilded Lily
Colour B: Pimpernel
Colour C: Sage
Colour D: Willow

Marigold option
Colour A: Sage
Colour B: Pimpernel
Colour C: Gilded Lily
Colour D: Marigold

or

Approximate yarn amounts used for sample in a
fingering weight single ply yarn:

Colour A: 65g; 237m/260yds
Colour B: 70g; 256m/280yds
Colour C: 95g; 347m/360yds
Colour D: 100g; 365m/400yds
For a total of 330g (1205m/1320yds) in fingering
weight yarn

SPOILER AHEAD! Scroll down to learn the shape of the mystery shawl…

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The Twenty Four Birds Shawl will be circular!

If you’ve never knit a circular shawl before, I have a handy video tutorial for the cast-on, which you can watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLt0C4o8fzs

It should help you practice before the first clue is revealed tomorrow!

Happy knitting!

Helen x