INTRODUCTION

Birdhouse In Your Soul

by Amy Sadler

There's a first time for everything. Usually when I design, I go looking for charts that inspire me as a starting point. For this shawl, though, I saw two charts in Melissa Leapman's excellent The Knit Stitch Pattern Handbook as I was reviewing it for Knitty, and was instantly inspired to pull out the graph paper and pencil to combine them. Using the concepts I taught in my Plug+Play Shawl classes, I concocted Birdhouse in Your Soul, a bottom-up one-piece shawl with a self-finishing edge and pretty i-cord bind off.

Unfortunately, between designing this pattern in 2014, and publishing it 12 years later, the original yarn has been discontinued. Two good substitute yarns from Anzula are Katara, a luxury blend of merino and yak which has a similar gauge and appearance and would be extra warm; and Croquet, a blend of superwash merino and tussah silk with good yardage.

model: Debra-Anne Barnes

photos: Amy Sadler

SIZE

One

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS

Wingspan: 72 inches/183 cm
Depth at deepest point: 30.5 inches/77 cm

MATERIALS

Yarn
Anzula Oasis [70% silk, 30% camel; 375yd/343m per 100g skein]; color: Chiva; 2 skeins. Sample shown used just over 1.5 skeins.

Yarn Characteristics
Oasis is a 2-ply silk yarn blended with camel. As it's discontinued, look for a similar construction with either wool or an animal fiber blended with silk for a similar drape.

Recommended needle size
[always use a needle size that gives you the gauge listed below - every knitter's gauge is unique]
US #7/4.5mm circular needle - 32-40 inch/80-100 cm

Notions
yarn needle

GAUGE

20 sts/28 rows = 4 inches in stockinette stitch

20 sts/31 rows = 4 inches in pattern stitch


Note: gauge is not critical for this project, as long as you like the fabric that results. Aim for a solid fabric in the stockinette sections in order to show off the pattern details. Note that working at a different gauge will change finished size and yarn usage.

PATTERN NOTES

[Knitty's list of standard abbreviations and techniques can be found here.]

Construction Method: This shawl is cast on at the bottom tip starting with a stockinette tab, and increases each side on every row to create a shallow but very wide shawl.

Yarn substitution notes:

• Gauge: Whatever yarn you choose, adjust your needle size so that the stockinette sections of Chart B appear solid when held up to the light.
• How to adjust if your yarn is finer than specified gauge: Repeat Chart B until the shawl is nearly your desired width. This will necessarily change your yarn requirements.

Left twist: Skip 1st st, k 2nd st through the back loop, knit into skipped st as normal, then slip both sts off left needle.
Right twist: K2tog, leaving sts on left needle; insert the right needle tip into the first st and knit it again; drop both sts off left needle

Techniques:

• I-cord bindoff

CHARTS

View and download CHARTS here:


Chart A | Chart B | Edging

DIRECTIONS

Shawl
Stockinette tab start: 
CO 3 sts.
Work 6 rows in stockinette, beginning with a RS row.

Next row [RS]: K3, turn work 90 degrees, and pick up and knit 3 sts along long edge; turn work 90 degrees again and pick up 3 sts in the cast-on edge. 9 sts
Setup row 1 [WS]: P2, yo, p1, k3, p1, yo, p2. 11 sts.
Setup row 2 [RS]: K2, yo, k1, p to last 3 sts, k1, yo, k2. 13 sts.
Setup row 3 [WS]: P2, yo, p1, k to last 3 sts, p1, yo, p2. 15 sts.

Section 1 – Chart A

Row 1 [RS]: Work Row 1 of Chart A. 2 sts increased.
Row 2 [WS]: Work next row of Chart A. 2 sts increased.
Continue as set until you have completed all rows of Chart A. 35 sts.


Section 2 – Chart B

Row 1 [RS]: Work Row 1 of Chart B, working the stitches in the red bordered area once. 2 sts increased. Place markers to divide up the repeats and/or the 10-stitch motifs if you find them helpful.
Row 2 [WS]: Work next row of Chart B as set. 2 sts increased.

Continue as set until you have completed all 20 rows of Chart B.

From here, repeat Chart B. Each time you start again at Row 1 you will be adding two repeats of the red-bordered area, one on each side.

Continue as set, working Chart B a total of 14 times (until you have 29 repeats of the red-bordered area across), or desired length, then work through Row 8 of Chart B once more. If you are matching the sample, you will have 611 sts; but no matter where you stop, you need to have 8 purl stitches between the yo and the first/last knit stitch of the pattern motifs at each edge.

Upper Edging
Row 1 [RS]: Work Row 1 of Edging Chart, working the stitches in the red-bordered area 59 times, or as required if you have adjusted the length. 2 stitches added to each 10-stitch repeat plus 2 sts increased for edging.
Row 2 [WS]: Work next row of Edging Chart as set. 2 sts increased.
Continue as set until you have completed all 36 rows of Edging Chart.

Next row [RS]: K2, yo, k to last 2 sts, removing any markers as you go, yo, k2. 2 sts increased.
Next row [WS]: P2, yo, p to last 2 sts, yo, p2. 2 sts increased.

Bind off using i-cord bind off method, being sure the edge does not constrict width of shawl (you'll need some slack to block; stretch the bind off periodically as you work to be sure it matches the tension of the work below it).

FINISHING

Soak shawl in lukewarm water, with a wool-safe wash if desired, until fully saturated. Roll in towel to squeeze most of the moisture out, and then stretch and pin on blocking mats, keeping the top edge as straight as possible.

Once dry, weave in ends.

ABOUT THE DESIGNER

Amy Sadler is the editor of Knitty, and doesn't design very often. This is the last pattern she designed pre-menopause and is very grateful for the help of Tech Editors Kate Atherley and Joanna Fromstein in translating her pattern text and notes a decade later into something all kinds of humans can follow. Amy would also like to thank Melissa Leapman for designing these clever charts.

Amy, when not knitting, crocheting or doing some other dopamine-generating crafty thing, is deeply obsessed with watching Formula One races with her husband, Mark, riding her resurrected Vespa (another thing that got abandoned for a decade) around Hamilton, ON, and her amazing dog, Sky.

See the rest of her meagre collection of pattern designs and other amusements at amysadler.ca

Pattern & images © 2026 Amy Sadler