How Does Mosaic Knitting Work?

The Summer 2025 issue of PieceWork features the lovely Boardwalk Mosaic Shawl. Learn more about the technique here and current PieceWork subscribers can instantly download the pattern below.

The Start of Mosaic Knitting

In the introduction to her pattern, Mari Tobita gives us a quick lesson on the history of this knitting technique.

In her 1943 book Mary Thomas’s Book of Knitting Patterns (Hodder and Stoughton, London) author Mary Thomas includes charts and an explanation for “slip-stitch knitting”—designs formed by slipping pattern stitches (unworked) from one needle to the next and knitting or purling them on the next row. However, it wasn’t until the 1960s, with the publication of Barbara G. Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1976) that the craze for mosaic knitting (named by Walker) became popular among American knitters. Walker went on to add mosaic knitting patterns to each of her three subsequent treasuries,and in 1976 she published a book, Mosaic Knitting, that contains 380 of her original designs.

Detail of Mari’s shawl showing the mosaic pattern.

What is it?

In the Fall 2024 issue of PieceWork, featuring an interview of Barbara G. Walker, Katrina King talks about the technique. This part of their discussion helps to answer the question, “What is mosaic knitting?”.

Mosaic Knitting is a simple patterning technique that uses slip stitches and two highly contrasting colors. The pattern can be worked in either garter or stockinette stitch depending on the desired effect. For each row, only one color is used to work the stitches. Stitches are knitted, purled, or slipped according to the charted pattern and worked in reverse order on the return row. The working yarn is always held to the wrong side of the fabric when slipping stitches, and the working color is alternated on every odd row. Filled-in squares represent worked stitches, while blank squares represent slipped stitches regardless of what color the row is worked with.