Licenced to Crenellate!

On Friday I will be (re-)launching Crenellate! We had lots of fun at the end of last week taking new photographs and I have been scouring through the pattern to make sure everything is listed in the abbreviations and the pattern is presented as clearly as possible. As the pattern has already been published in a magazine (this was published in Knit Now, Issue 179 in March 2025) this should be easy, but I still like to make sure everything is correct and it all fits my own ‘style’ of layout.

A friend of mine told me that in the medieval period a licence from the king was needed to be allowed to add crenellation to a property. I didn’t know this, but find it very interesting and will definitely be reading more about it, especially since I’m finding my recent audiobook listening is becoming a lot more historical fiction based.

As it happens, much of my Crenellate design is very straightforward. Sue had a look at the printed pattern and asked, “Do the charts really only use these symbols?” Yes they do, because it’s a textural pattern with no lace.

In fact, here is the chart key:

Crenellate just uses knit and purl to create the textural design, with yarn overs (yo) creating the increases for the shaping. The blue and red outlines show the sections of the chart that you repeat. That’s it. And, of course, if you’re not a fan of charts, the pattern is also written out in full.

The textural design is one of the aspects of Crenellate that make this design one of my easier patterns to knit. It’s a top-down triangular shawl with the body of the shawl simply increasing in size until the border. The border is also straightforward, even though it has a very fun shape! The border is all garter stitch, with the crenellated shaping created through casting on and off to change the length of the rows.

If you are a newer knitter there are three things in this design you may not have encountered before.

The first is the ‘garter tab’ that begins the shawl. Lots of top down shawls begin this way and I’m going to be recording a little video for my website and youtube channel to show how it works. Essentially, you cast on a few stitches (usually about 3), knit a few rows of garter stitches (often 6, giving three garter ridges) which creates a tiny garter stitch square (or tab, hence the name). You then knit one more row, but instead of turning and knitting back, you pick up some stitches down the side of your little square, then pick up some stitches along the bottom from where you cast on. This means you’re now working around three sides of the square and it becomes the centre top of a triangular or semicircular shawl!

The other two possibly less familiar things are both included in the border. One is a wrap and turn short row, which is used four times in the whole shawl and is described step by step in the abbreviations. I’m going to add a new video on my youtube channel for this as well. The last is the joining stitch to join the border to the body of the shawl as you knit it. That sounds more complicated than it is – it just means you knit the last stitch of the border together with the next stitch of the body of the shawl. As these are in different colours it’s easy to know when you’ve got to that point in the row – you’re knitting two stitches together, one of each colour.

Crenellate is worked in DK yarn so it’s ideal for the cooler weather we’ve started to experience. The original sample was knitted using West Yorkshire Spinners Elements DK which is a wool and Tencel mix, but it would work very well in other fibres too, including pure wool for a super cosy version.

Newsletter subscribers already have their exclusive discount code for Ravelry and Payhip which lasts for 48 hours from 10am on Friday until 10am on Sunday. The sample and printed copies of the pattern will also be at Yarndale this weekend. The timing is a bit of a gamble as I’ve not done an online launch at the same time as a yarn show before and I’m hoping that the two events will boost each other, rather than cancel each other out.

All the patterns are now printed and ready for the show and I now just need to plan the layout for our spot. We are in D5 this year, which is very near the Wharfdale entrance, and almost as far away from where we were last year as we could be!

There are still a few spaces left on my moebius knitting workshop on Saturday 10.30am-1pm. We will explore the unique structure of a true Moebius ring, where the knitting grows from the centre outwards, and discover how this technique can be used to make wonderful neckwear and more. You’ll learn two Moebius cast on methods and create a simple headband. From there you can tackle a range of moebius designs! Go to the Yarndale website to book your place if you’d like to learn this amazing technique – it’s a whole lot more than casting on and then twisting your knitting before you join it!

Who is coming to Yarndale at the weekend? Do come and say hello if you are there. Remember, we are on Stand D5.

Until next week, take care and do something that makes you smile this week in this mad, mad world. K x