The Houses of Reykjavik shawl by Stephen West is a beautiful and entertaining knit. I had a lot of fun using up my leftover yarns to make this shawl. Keep reading for my experience knitting this fun shawl.
I saw the previews of the Houses of Reykjavik shawl on Instagram and I was immediately interested in the pattern. All the different colors and the unique construction really caught my eye. I bought the pattern when it was released but I was getting ready to knit the Good Things Shawl and I was committed to finishing that before starting another project.
After finishing my Good Things Shawl, I was ready to start my next project. I started working on a sweater for my husband and the Houses of Reykjavik shawl. It was nice to work between a fun, colorful shawl project and a more classic, repetitive sweater.
YARN
The Houses of Reykjavik Shawl is inspired by the colorful houses in Reykjavik and is marketed as a stashbuster project. Any project can be a stashbuster, but I especially like it when a pattern has the yardage/grams for each section so you can weigh what scraps/leftovers will work.
This pattern has a full schematic with yardage weight for each section. The diagram is also helpful for understanding the design and planning out your colors. For my Houses of Reykjavik Shawl, I just used leftovers and didn’t worry too much about planning colors.
I had some new leftovers from knitting the Good Things Shawl and I was really happy with the rainbow palette I had to work with. I weighed some of my smaller leftover balls and they were ~2-5 grams. Usually I might not even consider them in a project because they seem too small, but the schematic shows multiple sections 5g and under.
I used a mix of fingering weight yarn, lace weight suri or mohair, and sport weight suri. Stashbuster type projects are my favorite because there is no pressure or expectation. I feel free to use any and all kinds of yarn and not be too precious or overly prescriptive.
HOUSES OF REYKJAVIK
The Houses of Reykjavik shawl begins with the middle section knit modularly. This section looks similar to colorful houses and I loved all the colorful versions I’ve seen on other’s Ravelry project pages.
The middle-start construction reminded me of the Go Go Dynamo shawl, which I loved. I was excited to get started knitting this shawl.
I cast on with my US 5 (3.75mm) needles on a 50″ cable. Such a large cable isn’t really necessary with the beginning I-cord or parallelogram shapes. In fact, using DPNs would probably be easier.
I knit through each parallelogram and wedge with a different color each time. The only thing I planned out was that I wanted the wedges to be in a fluffy color and the parallelograms to be in fingering. I didn’t stress about planning colors; I just chose whatever color I thought would be a nice contrast to the previous.
I knit through the modular triangles and left the live stitches on my cable so that by the time I was finished, I was already set up to knit the next row.
This pattern uses a lot of large, clear pictures to help explain some instructions and show where to pick up stitches. I find that helpful, but in this pattern I found the layout a little clunky or even confusing. I feel pretty comfortable with knitting now so when I came across a confusing direction, I just did what I thought was best and it turned out fine.
BODY
Once the middle section is complete, you pick up and knit the tiny bobbles sections and brioche sections all the way to the top of the shawl. These sections feel faster and faster as you get nearer to the top. The momentum is encouraging and I was loving choosing new colors for each contrast section.
With the top of the shawl completed, this little cute shawl was already looking so fun. It looks like a confetti party to me and seeing all the fun colors and textures just made me happy.
I picked up the bottom of the shawl and knit the brioche in a combination of fingering yarn as the MC and a suri sport yarn as the CC. I ran out of the suri halfway through and I switched to two strands of another fluffy yarn held double to keep the same weight.
At one point during my knitting, the cable on my needles broke! Luckily I only dropped a needles’ worth of stitches and was able to rescue them easily enough. But I’ve never had a cable break before.
WAVY STRIPES
The final section is a wavy stripe border that has 5 CC stripes. I knit through as much as I could with the MC, but as I saw I was running out, I decided to end my shawl early. I only have 3 CC stripes on my shawl but I think it’s perfect.
FINISHING
I blocked my shawl with a color catcher in cool, soapy water. I didn’t have any issues with color transfer or bleeding (like I did with my Good Things Shawl).
To finish the shawl, I pinned it on blocking mats and then wove in and trimmed the ends once the shawl was dry. Blocking really shows off all the hard work you put into knitting. It relaxed my shawl and gave it a nice drape.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I had a lot of fun working on this shawl when I had time. It was kind of a background project for a while, but I loved using up so many colors and kinds of yarn and playing with different combinations.
I love the design of this shawl and the construction starting in the middle of the shawl. These types of stashbuster knits are like comfort projects to me. I love just knitting for fun and enjoying the project unfold. Stephen West patterns are always well-written too, so I never have any issues on that front.
This shawl is really beautiful and I love how it turned out. Check out my Ravelry to see my other projects or what I’m working on next!
