Simply Stellar is an asymmetric triangle brioche shawlette, knit on the bias from narrow end to wide end. It features assigned pooling stars. The pattern requires two skeins of fingering weight yarn, one of which should be dyed for assigned pooling.
I knit my Simply Stellar with A Chick That Knitz Deluxe sock in Wildflowers (pooling) and Sassy, a fabulous hot pink.
I designed this shawlette as a slightly simpler version of my Starstruck. Tammy Pelfrey, the dyer at A Chick that Knitz, told me that some people were intimidated by the syncopated border on Starstruck, so Simply Stellar was designed as a simpler introduction to brioche plus assigned pooling. The shaping is very simple, and the yarn tells you when it’s time to make a star.
This pattern is available through Ravelry, link here, and Payhip, link here. Use coupon code SHINE for 15% off through September 9, 2025.
We’re barreling towards September, and I am juggling several projects! I’ll have a new design out next week (Tuesday, September 2), another one ready for tech edit and test knit, and a fun online project for October. I had a photo shoot with my sister yesterday. She doesn’t work for cash, so we go out for our favorite lunch instead. Her: chicken and waffles. Me: usually the perfect fried chicken sandwich.
Lunch at Screen Door, PDX Pearl District
But this time I had a fried chicken salad. It’s salad, so it’s healthy, right? (Look away from the bacon.)
I’m still editing pictures, so you’ll see those later.
I’ve been looking for a way to store my everyday necklaces and earrings. Right now they’re jumbled in a pretty box, and they’re always tangled. I’m planning to use a big circle of knit fabric in an embroidery hoop, and add some hooks to hold the necklaces. Those hooks may be spiral stitch markers; we’ll see if they work. Earrings can go directly into the fabric. Wish me luck!
I started knitting with leftover yarn, but I really wanted something that coordinated with our bedroom, and I wanted it to be more interesting than a stockinette circle. Assigned pooling is doing the trick.
I bought this yarn, MadelineTosh Tosh Merino Light, at For Yarn’s Sake on the way to a meeting. I didn’t have the right sized dpns with me, so I bought these Knit Pro Cubics. They’re square shaped. I like them!
We’re heading into a holiday weekend. Hope yours is full of knitting. I hope mine is, too!
And off, and on, and off, and on again! Sometimes it takes a while to figure out what your yarn really wants.
This yarn is A Chick that Knitz Singles Fingering in Tropical Flowers. I got it at Nash Yarn Fest, intending to pair it with another color for brioche plus pooling.
Here it is with Caribbean.
It was nice, but the stars didn’t really pop against the background.
I liked the contrastier combination of Wildflowers and Sassy. this is A Chick That Knitz Deluxe Sock. This pattern, Simply Stellar, is coming soon. It’s been a busy summer, and this will make a nice intro to fall knitting.
I frogged the blue version, and decided to try a different assigned pooling pattern, without brioche. I want this to be a cowl, and it has to be worked in the round because the motif has to be worked from the right side of the fabric.
I love how the colors pop against the background when it’s just the pooling yarn. The second color in brioche really didn’t add anything meaningful.
But do I want the motifs to be flowers?
Or volcanoes? I knit on this last weekend, while we were traveling to and from Ellensburg, Washington for a friend’s birthday/retirement party. And by the time we were halfway home, I decided I wanted flowers.
And voilà, my project was instantly transformed into a swatch! I needed to frog the whole thing, and work it from the bottom up instead of top down.
That meant choosing an edging for the beginning, and doing some math. Easy peasy. The nice thing about working it from the bottom up is that there won’t be any yarn chicken shenaningans going on. The edging is completed first, so I know there’s enough yarn for it. And I can knit the top of the cowl to be as tall as I want it to be with the yarn that’s left; the height isn’t a critical measurement.
I’m about halfway done, and looking forward to showing you the result. It’s an easy knit.
Cheers! (Cocktails at Julep in Ellensburg. Backwoods Barbie on the left, Rhinestone Cowboy on the right.)
Scattered Petals is a bandana cowl knit in the round. It features a dusting of assigned pooling petals on a two-color brioche rib background. Choose two skeins of fingering weight yarn, one of which is dyed for assigned pooling. Knitting begins in the round at the bottom with a contrast color brioche rib edging. Simple shaping at the center front creates the look of a triangle shawl.
Smaller and larger cowls stacked, for comparison
The pattern offers the cowl in two sizes, depending on how much coverage you like.
Assigned pooling stitch detail
I used Yarn Snob’s A Good Fingering for my cowls, in Black Orchid (pooling color) and Wicked Green. I love, love, love how this turned out.
The Scattered Petals pattern is available on Ravelry, link here. It is also available on Payhip, link here. Use coupon code ROSES for a 15% discount on either site. I hope you enjoy this sweet knit!
I’m happily knitting away on my Simply Stellar (brioche plus assigned pooling shawlette) sample, and test knitters are beginning theirs, too. I love this yarn combo; it’s Wildflowers (pooling) and Sassy (pink) Deluxe Sock from A Chick that Knitz. There is just a tiny overlap of that fuchsia in the pooling yarn, but not enough to be confusing to the eye. Perfect!
I misread my intentions and started with a US3 needle instead of a US4. Not a big difference, but I decided to change mid-project. I wouldn’t do that on a sweater, but on a bias brioche shawlette? It’s not really going to show. It might give it a tiny bit more drape, and it might make me finish a tiny bit sooner. I was 126 rows in when I decided to swap needles. And then I swapped needles again today after another 6 inches, because my yarn was catching on a rough spot where the needle goes into the metal join, grrr. So away with the Knitters Pride Ginger (I usually really like these), and onto a KnitPicks wooden interchangeable that was in my stash. Things are going more smoothly now.
Sometimes the pooling color pops up where you don’t want it. One way to deal with it is to knit a pooling motif in the background color of the pooling yarn. This will reset where the color pool happens.
Another way is to cut your yarn and move the pooling color along. But that means you’ll have more ends to sew in. I don’t cut until I’m done with the project, because sometimes I frog entire projects! So I just pull up a big loop of the background color of the pooling yarn.
I’m enjoying this knit. I’ll have time to work on it this weekend. Airplane knitting! My sisters and I are going to our cousin’s wedding celebration. Yay, family time!
Reader, the gauge in the second version of the cowl was much better, but the cowl was still too big/tall/wide after blocking. I want that vertical center line to be straight, not wobbling back and forth because the piece is too big, at least for me. I had a taller friend try it on, and it was better on her, but it still needs adjusting. I had about a half skein of each color left, so I promptly recalculated and cast on for the THIRD time. For ME.
Post-midnight bind off
This is more what I envisioned. It’s still going to grow with blocking, but I think it will be the right proportions. Yes, I could just steam block it, and not let it grow much, but I think something that is worn around your neck should be able to be washed, eventually! So I’ll definitely wet block it.
Soooo close. I need to block and photograph, and then it will be ready for a test knit call. Current name? Scattered Petals, or Cascading Petals. What do you think?
Design by trial and error. I do all this refiguring/reknitting so you don’t have to!
Fired Up and ready to go! Fired Up is a simple worsted weight cowl featuring an assigned pooling Flame Motif on a stockinette stitch background. It is knit top down.
Choose a worsted weight yarn that is dyed for assigned pooling, and cast on for some fun!
Two kinds of assigned pooling make this cowl shine: the Flame Motif, and colorful purl bumps.
Simple shaping at the center front creates cozy coverage over your shirt’s neckline. The cowl ends with a reverse stockinette edge to keep the bottom from curling up.
Tara Roberts of Stranded by the Sea gave me this yarn at Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat, and I knew exactly what it wanted to be. It took me a few tries to figure out how to best make the Flame Motif, but once that was sorted, it flew off my needles!
This pattern is available on Ravelry, link here. It’s also available on Payhip, link here. Use coupon code FLAME for 15% off through April 21, 2025 on either site.
Once I determined how to best make these motifs, this cowl was a hoot to knit. I made it a little longer in the front, to cover any gaps in a V-neckline.
The yarn is a worsted weight space-dyed, from Stranded By the Sea in Edmonds, Washington. I got it at Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat in February.
Should I write up a pattern?
Someone on Instagram said it reminded them of holiday lights. i don’t want to limit ideas, but Light Bulb Moment felt like a great name. What do you think?
A small haul from Rose City Yarn Crawl! I didn’t really need another tote, but this year’s was so cute, I had to have it.
I also bought 2 skeins of MadeleineTosh Twist Light in their exclusive colorways for For Yarn’s Sake: Queen’s Chair (pooling), and Night Swimming, which is the most delectable velvety midnight blue. There’s more in the shop if you need some, too.
This zipper pull from Swanky Raven Studio features a rocket, and Melvin the Hedgehog, the mascot of Hook and Needle. Swanky Raven has lots of beautiful jewlery and stitch markers; check out her Instagram. And I bought a much needed bottle of Soak Wash, which is great not only for washing and blocking knits, but I also use it on my swimsuit three times a week. I bought a BIG bottle.
That’s it!
I spent Thursday, the opening day of the crawl, at For Yarn’s Sake with Shannon Squire and Lorajean Kelley (Knitted Wit). So great to catch up with them. Check out my Instagram to more pictures from the day.
I’m currently playing with this, trying to get something going so I have travel knitting on my way to Nashville tomorrow. Yes, it’s time for Nash Yarn Fest!
The Starstruck shawlette combines two of my favorite knitting techniques, brioche and assigned pooling. This asymmetric triangle is knit from the narrow end to the wide end. The syncopated edging evokes swirling nebulas, and the body of the shawlette features assigned pooling stars.
The shawlette requires two skeins of fingering weight yarn, one of which should be dyed for assigned pooling. The assigned pooling yarn is featured in the body of the shawlette and stars, and the other yarn is featured in the syncopated edging.
Your pooling yarn tells you when it’s time to make the stars. I knit my shawlette with A Chick That Knitz Singles Fingering, in Hibernation and Caramel.
This pattern is available on Ravelry and Payhip. Use coupon code NEBULA for 15% off through March 5, 2025.
Thanks to tech editor Meaghan Schmaltz, test knitters Ann Berg, Debbie Braden, Diane de Souza, Nancy McNally, Annette Morsing, Lynn Murphy, Brynn Riordan, Tammy Pelfrey, Anna Zeigler, and model Sharon Hsu.
Special thanks to Tammy Pelfrey/A Chick that Knitz, for the beautiful yarn for this design.
And yes, I did change the name of this design from Stardust Nebula to Starstruck. Shorter, punchier, easier to remember? I hope so!
Find my patterns on Ravelry: Michele Bernstein Designs
Here are some of my favorites, and the newest. Many of my designs are also available through my Payhip store.
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