Polygon Shawls & Star-Shaped Shawls

Welcome to the next episode of my Shawl Design for Everybody series! Today’s topic in our shawl design course is how to knit polygon shawls and star-shaped shawls.

To make a long story short: Both polygons and star shapes are based on triangles and their combinations.

Polygon Shawls

Polygons are best worked center out. The amount of increases and their position depends on the number of corners you want to see in your specific polygon shape.

The principle is as follows: a whole circle has 360° and we are dividing this virtual circle into slices – much like cutting a cake or pizza into pieces. How many pieces you want to achieve determines the angle to cut (or in our case: to increase!).

In our example, we would like to achieve eight corners. This means we have to divide 360° by 8, resulting in 45° per piece (of the shawl cake). As discussed earlier (and I definitely have to write the article on increase angles soon, I hear you!), increasing two stitches every other round results in an increase angle of approximately 90° – To achieve 45° per slice, 360° in total, we need to increase 8 stitches every other row.

Now all is left to do is to divide them evenly to shape this polygon. remember the article on working square shawls center out? This basically has been a four-corner polygon! The same principle applies here. We use one stitch as divider per panel and increase around this panel divider stitch ( I mostly tend to use ktbl’s here).

Pattern Template: Polygon Shaped Shawl (Eight Corners)

• CO 16 sts and join to work in the round, being careful not to twist.
• Next round: *k1, pm, ktbl, pm* all around. (16 sts)
• Next round: *YO, k1, YO, slm, ktbl, slm* all around. (32 sts)
• Next round: *k to next marker, slm, ktbl, slm* all around. (32 sts)
• Next round: *YO, k to next marker, YO, slm, ktbl, slm* all around. (48 sts)
• Repeat the last two rounds until shawl is of desired size.
• Optionally: Work an edging.
• Bind off all sts loosely.

For polygon segments, the process is similar – just work back & forth instead of in the round and omit some of the panels. Work four panels for a half-circle, for example!

Star-Shaped Shawls

Star shaped shawls are constructed by combining polygon shaped shawls with triangles. Start with a polygon, then attach one triangle to each polygon panel to form a star.

Pattern Template: Star Shaped Shawl (Eight Corners)

• CO 16 sts and join to work in the round, being careful not to twist.
• Next round: *k1, pm, ktbl, pm* all around. (16 sts)
• Next round: *YO, k1, YO, slm, ktbl, slm* all around. (32 sts)
• Next round: *k to next marker, slm, ktbl, slm* all around. (32 sts)
• Next round: *YO, k to next marker, YO, slm, ktbl, slm* all around. (48 sts)
• Repeat the last two rounds until inner part of the star shawl is of desired size (approximately half of the diameter of the finished shawl).
• Start working back and forth now: work one triangle per polygon panel, decreasing at the same amount as increased in the polygon.
• Optionally: Work an edging.
• Bind off all sts loosely.

For star segments, the process is similar – just work back & forth instead of in the round and omit some of the panels. Work four panels for a half-circle, for example!