We love to knit shawls, but knowing how to style hand-knit shawls can be tricky at first. That’s why we have teamed up with prolific shawl designer, Jana Huck, for this practical blog post on styling. She inspires us with several beautiful ways to wear your shawl, according to its shape. Take it away, Jana!

How to Style Hand-Knit Shawls with Jana Huck

Knitting shawls is pure joy. It starts with the yarn: will you use thick and chunky fibres or opt for an ultra-thin lace yarn? Then, there is the matter of choosing a pattern: are you in the mood for cables, an intricate texture pattern or good old garter stitch?  Last, comes the excitement of picking colours: will you stick with your usual palette or try something new?

There is endless room for variation. You can experiment and play with textures and colours to give the piece your own personal twist. Also, not much can go wrong when you work a shawl because you do not have to worry about fit. Most shawl patterns can easily be customised to suit your personal taste.

And when it comes to styling, there are just as many possibilities! I have put together an overview of the most common styling options. These are just for inspiration. There are no hard and fast rules: whichever way you like to wear your shawl is a great way!

Your styling options differ for slouchy, triangular shawls and slimmer, scarf-like shawls.

How to Style Triangular Shawls

A triangular shawl, such as Good Point!, can be styled with the point in the front or the back.

When wearing your shawl with the point in the front, bring the two ends to the front as well. This keeps the shawl nicely in place. When the point of the shawl is worn in the back, the shawl may slip from your shoulders, so you might opt for knotting the ends in the front.

Another very stylish technique is to wrap the shawl more tightly around the neck. This will provide some extra warmth, in addition to looking stunning.

Any of these styling options can be fixed with a shawl pin. A pin is especially useful if you have a shawl that tends to fall off your shoulders, no matter how you style it.

How to Style Slim Shawls

For a longer shawl whose dimensions are more like those of a scarf, you still have lots of options. I am using the term “scarf” very loosely here. The item could be a wrap in the shape of a rectangle, parallelogram, long asymmetric triangle or any other elongated form you can think of. The gist is that it is a narrower wrap than a traditional triangular shawl. These scarf shapes can be wrapped around the neck with the ends draped in the front.

For a more advanced technique, try the option shown in the first collage (I): wrap the scarf around your neck with the ends hanging down in the front, holds the ends together and twist twice, then knot the ends in the back.

A third style is shown in the second collage (II): fold the “scarf” in half, drape the folded scarf around your neck and pull the ends through the loop formed at the fold in the scarf.

I hope this inspires you to wear your gorgeous hand-knit shawls and scarves with even more pride!

Thank you so much for sharing your shawl expertise with us, Jana. We have certainly picked up a couple of new ideas on how to style our hand-knit shawls.

All of the shawls in this blog post are from Jana’s new collection exploring dots, aptly named The Dots Collection. Her triangular shawl pattern Good Point! is designed using Road to China Light, which is a soft, lustrous blend of alpaca, silk, camel and cashmere – perfect for shawls and accessories.

It is knit on the bias, with short row dots that bend garter ribs into two distinctly different patterns depending on how far apart the points are worked.  You can purchase the pattern, as part of Jana Huck’s mini shawl club, on Ravelry.

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