triangular ← Knits 'n' Pieces

Two-colored garter stitch shawl – Crossroads

Mar

2015

I had been playing with the idea of striped shawl in garter stitch for a while and finally I did it. I wanted it to be a nice warm shawl to wrap around the neck or shoulders on a cold day. I was looking for the right yarn and colors for this and didn’t find any, but then one day I won two skeins of Marskogens lamm yarn from Woolmint (in English soon, blog here) and this yarn was meant for this wrap. :) It is 100% wool and so soft and nice and really a pleasure to knit with.

Crossroads is worked in one piece, starting with the first triangle and then moving on to the center part and the second triangle, joining it all together as you go along. Wrap is shaped with short rows (+ increasing and decreasing of center part). The border is worked to the wrap later. Don’t let the short rows to intimidate you, it is really not that difficult to work them and they are described in the pattern.

Although it is all in garter stitch, 1/3 of the wrap is purled and the rest knitted. RS of the wrap has these clean and clear stripes of purl rows. On the WS the colors seam a bit foggy and blended with each other and there is a nice row of alternating chains which makes a pretty design feature. So if you weave in the ends carefully, you could use either side of the wrap as RS.

It took 2 skeins of Marskogens lamm (100% wool; 382yds / 350m, 353oz / 100g) to knit this wrap (382yds / 350m of brown and 344yds / 315m of light grey). I used US 4 / 3.5mm needles to get a nice dense fabric.

The finished measurements of the shawl: approx 75” / 191cm wide and 19” / 48cm long at center. You could make it larger or smaller. I suggest changing the number of cast on stitches by 20. To adjust the center part, just work more or less rows (and increases and decreases).

Matching exact gauge is not essential here, but bear in mind that different gauge will affect finished measurements of wrap and amount of yarn needed.

Hope you’ll enjoy this! Happy knitting!

You can find Crossroads wrap pattern in Ravelry

Plus One Diamond shawl

Mar

2014

The winter in Estonia tends to be long and dim, the days are short and nights seem endless. When the spring finally comes and clouds disband, you can see the blue sky again. This blue is beautiful! Although the weather is getting warmer each day, it is still quite chilly in the mornings and in the evenings, so it is good to have something to wrap around your shoulders or neck, to keep you warm and cozy. These two ice blue shawls with lacy diamond pattern will do just that.

I finished these two shawls long long time ago (well, not that long ago, it was November 2013) and submitted to Knitty. Unfortunately just a couple of days before the spring-summer edition was launched, I got the rejection letter. This was my first foreign language submission and first rejection, so of course, I was a bit disappointed, but I’ll try again. There is always next time :)

For these shawls I wanted similar blue yarns and I found DROPS Lace and DROPS BabyAlpaca Silk. I wanted to knit the shawls with the same needles, so Lace and BabyAlpaca Silk were perfect for that. Both shawls are knitted following the same charts, the only difference between them is the number and stitch of the rows between pattern rows. For clarity in the pattern I made different charts for the beginning and the end of both shawls.

Shawls are knitted sideways, so obviously the inspiration came from Strikkelise’s Baktus scarf, that I think is just a genius piece of knitting.

The photo shoot took place in November, but we needed spring-looking photos. So that was real fun :) We were actually very lucky, because it was the last sunny and snowless weekend here before the dark autumn and winter. But it was very very windy and quite cold. I found a photo gallery of this exact day from our news portal Delfi. It was the same day we captured photos of Cranberry hat and mittens and Winter Bliss hat, which were definitely more appropriate to wear that day :)

Hope you like the shawls and enjoy knitting them! :)

You can find Plus One Diamond shawl pattern on Ravelry

Williamina shawl

Apr

2013

The spring is here and it is the perfect time to knit a nice lacy shawl for summer nights, right? I modified my earlier design a bit and knitted a new sample and wrote directions in English.

So here it is – Williamina shawl.

I used Garnstudio’s Drops Lace, which is a blend of alpaca and silk, a very soft and enjoyable yarn to knit with. And purple is my new favourite, definitely.

Finished measurements of the shawl: 68” / 172 cm wide and 34” / 86cm long at centre. Pattern is adjustable, you can easily knit a smaller or a larger shawl.

You can purchase this pattern from Ravelry