When I'm not running the B&B or my B&B training, I like to knit. It's my ultimate way to relax.

My favourite knitting is shawls, cowls and scarves. No need to worry about swatching and sewing up seams, or spending hours knitting a jumper just to find out it doesn’t fit or suit me!

I’ve never been particularly brave with colour, sticking with blues, greys and black in my clothes. However I’ve recently discovered mosaic knitting and got into colour in a big way.

Some of my finished projects have been proving very popular on Instagram so here are 5 of my favourite shawl knitting patterns, with links to buy the yarns I’ve used and the patterns.

If you’re new to knitting, Ravelry is an amazing resource for knitters and crocheters. You can search for patterns, then see what yarns, colourways, needles etc other knitters have used to create the project. I’m on Ravelry as KJT1966. Here’s the link to my project page.

Some of the links are affiliate links, which means I get a small percentage if you buy the yarn through my link. It helps contribute to my serious yarn buying habit!

Nightshift Shawl

I can’t tell you just how much I enjoyed knitting this shawl. The colours are rich and so vibrant and the yarn I used, Malabrigo Rios, is a joy to work with. The beauty of this shawl is that you can really make it your own with endless potential colour combinations. It’s simple knit, using knit, purl, M1R ( make one right ), M1L ( make one left ) and slip stitches.

The pattern is available to buy here and the yarn here.

Shift Cowl

The shift cowl ( pattern available to buy here ) is the baby sister of the Nightshift. It’s seamed at the back which makes it easy to wear. I’m currently knitting my third in the original yarn, Spincycle – Dyed in the Wool. This is the most expensive yarn I’ve ever bought. But you can make it very effectively with cheaper yarns. The pink one was made with 3 balls of Drops Delight, which is just £2.30 a ball in the UK at the time of writing. The blue/green was made with Malabrigo Rastita But as an alternative, the most popular yarn to knit it with on Ravelry, after the Spincycle, is Malabrigo Arroyo

Groovy Shawl

One of my favourite things to do when travelling is to find local yarn stores and spend a while discovering yarns I can’t buy in the UK. There’s a lovely shop in Portland, Oregon called Knit Purl, where I spotted this shawl ( pattern available to buy on ravelry here ) made up in the shop. The yarn is a pure alpaca, Galler Yarns Prime Alpaca, and comes in a 227g skein. The shop wound it into a cake for me and I was able to knit it for the rest of my trip. With just knits and purls and increases, it was the perfect travel knit! You can’t buy the yarn in the UK but any alpaca DK or Aran/worsted weight would make a great substitute

Passegiata Shawl

This is another beautiful knitted shawl, that looks really effective but is oh so simple, just lots of knit rows and increases. We had a long drive down to Devon, and it’s a perfect travel or netflix bingeing knit. I knitted it in the same Malabrigo Rastita that I knitted the Shift Cowl in above.

This is a lovely lightweight shawl and would be perfect for summer evenings or weddings.

Pattern available here

Guernsey Wrap

I’ve knitted this wrap 4 times now, using 3 different yarns. It’s a simple pattern just made up of knits and purls. As a shawl, it’s very wearable either as a big chunky scarf or draped round your shoulders in the evening. My favourite yarn to knit it in has been this WYS Croft in this glorious orange colour. The yarn is available here and the pattern here.

Garter Ridge Cowl ( Free Pattern)

OK I'm up to 6 favourite patterns, not  5, and this is a cowl not a shawl, but I just had to add in my very favourite recent knitting project, the Garter Ridge Cowl from Purl Soho.

As soon as it dropped into my inbox, I knew I had to make it. It was perfect car knitting for our long trip to Cornwall, where we were spending a few days of R&R.

As I said it's perfect car ( or TV ) knitting. Just make sure you cast on and do the first couple of rows somewhere that you can concentrate to make sure you don't twist the stitches when you join in the round. I lay my needle flat on a table to make sure all of the stitches are facing in the right direction.

I would have loved to have used the recommended yarn, but it's not easy to get in the UK, so I use Drops Lima, which is a wonderful soft/wool alpaca blend. I used 3 balls of each colour, but I was definitely playing yarn chicken with the blue towards the end. And I'm quite a tight knitter, so it may be worth buying 4 of each just in case!

I did a loose bind off that I'd found on YouTube, but wished I'd gone with an iCord bind off, using both colours instead ( knit 2, knit next 2 stitches through the back, slip the 3 stitches from the right needle and repeat, alternating colours if you're doing it with 2 yarns ).

You can find the free pattern here >> Garter Ridge Cowl