Pattern Spotlight: The Sincere Shawl (Tunisian)

Aug 7
3 min read

Like the crochet version, the Sincere Shawl in Tunisian crochet began with a painting. Bob Ross's "Winter's Oval" has a quality that is hard to put into words: the radiant beams of light emanating from the center have a warmth and generosity to them, and that feeling was the starting point for the design. The shawl was created in collaboration with Raelynn of Sincere Fiber Co, whose hand-dyed yarns bring the color story to life in a way that makes the connection to the source material genuinely visible.

The textured sections throughout the shawl reflect those soft streaks of light, creating movement and depth across the fabric. A variegated yarn in those sections catches the stitch pattern in a way that shifts as you work through each repeat, so the finished piece has a quality that reads a little differently from every angle. The contrasting tonal shades frame it, adding definition and a clean visual structure that keeps the variegated sections feeling balanced rather than overwhelming. The interplay between the two is what gives this shawl its finished character.

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The Tunisian version has a different fabric quality than the crochet original. The structure of Tunisian crochet gives the textured sections a different depth and dimensionality, and the way variegated yarn reads in Tunisian fabric is distinct from how it reads in regular crochet. If you have already made the crochet Sincere Shawl, the Tunisian version is worth making as its own thing rather than as a substitute. They read differently enough to both earn a place.

About the Design

The Sincere Shawl in Tunisian crochet is an intermediate-level fingering weight shawl, one size. The textured sections create movement and depth that showcase variegated yarn beautifully, while the contrasting tonal shades add vibrant definition for a balanced, art-inspired finish. The Tunisian construction gives the fabric a structured quality that the crochet version does not have, which changes how the colorplay reads in the finished piece.

Because it is fingering weight, the finished shawl is light and drapey, the kind of thing you can wear through a longer season than a heavier shawl would allow. The one-size design is generous enough to wear in multiple ways without sizing becoming a concern.

Choosing Your Colors

The most important decision with this shawl is the relationship between your variegated and your tonal. The textured sections are built to let the variegated yarn be the focal point, so you want a tonal that complements it rather than competes with it. Picking up one of the quieter or more muted tones from the variegated for your tonal is usually the most reliable approach. It creates a shawl that feels cohesive without being too matchy. High contrast pairings, where the tonal reads as clearly different from the main tones in the variegated, give the shawl a bolder, more graphic look. Lower contrast pairings, where the tonal blends more softly into the variegated sections, give it a quieter, more tonal result. Neither is wrong. It depends on how much you want the colorwork to announce itself.