Circular Segment Shawls

Welcome to the next episode of my Shawl Design for Everybody series! Today’s topic in our shawl design course are circular segment shawls.

Circular Segment Shawls

Circular shawls are best worked from the center outwards, that also holds for circle segment shawls. Yesterday we learned how to construct circular and annular shawls. Today, we are using this new knowledge to construct circle segment shawls.

A circle segment is a part of a circle. Imagine a clock: to form a whole circle, the clock hand has to go all around one time – 360° to form a circle. If the clock hand goes from three to nine, we get a half circle like the one shown below.

If the clock hand goes from three to six o’clock only, we get a quarter circle like the one shown below.

This considerations lead to the following pattern template.

Pattern Template: Circular Segment Shawl Patterns

Calculate how many stitches (=N) to cast on based on 9 sts for 360° ( a whole circle). How many degrees should your shawl design have? A half circle would be 180° or 5 sts; a quarter circle 90° or 3 sts, etc. (Additionally, you might want to check your gauge, too.)

• CO N sts
• Knit 1 round
• (YO, k1) around
• Knit 3 rounds
• (YO, k1) around
• Knit 6 rounds
• (YO, k1) around
• Knit 12 rounds
• (YO, k1) around
• Knit 12 (24, 48, …) rounds with increase rounds in between (or until shawl is of desired size)
• Bind off loosely, block.

Repeat working in this schema until your shawl is of desired size, then work an edging (garter stitch border or something more complicated, as you please) and bind off loosely. Block gently.