shawl – Page 3 – Deb Gemmell: Top Down, Gauge Free and more

Shawl wedges

In my search for a better fitting shawl I have found that I like long tails. The triangle shawl I like then is no longer a true triangle. With long tails I can wrap it around my neck and have two long tails hanging down. This gives me styling options which if you knew me you would be laughing right now, style, ha!! Ahem, to continue, I could leave the tails hanging (I’m sure this vertical makes me look taller, at least 5’1″). I could also tie the tails under my chin to keep my neck nice and snug.

So long tails … here the standard triangle shawl which starts at the top and has a spine down the centre with increases.

triangle shawl

You can make the tails longer by working increases every row along the top edge. That’s the shawl I was knitting as a sample for our Cabin Fever Retreat in October where we are diving into 3 different shawl shapes, the triangle being one of these.

long tail triangle shawl

Then, just as I was getting into it, I had a thought (this is not always good). Here is my thought. What if I put short row wedges in the shawl. Wouldn’t that make it wider than it is tall and produce longer tails?

triangle shawl w wedges.png

I think this is what is going to happen to the shawl I’m knitting.

triangle with wedges

Here is the first wedge knit in purple. The wedge is only 2 rows deep near the spine of increases and 4 rows deep at the outside. It seems to be rounding the top edge already.

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So I tried a couple more.

The second wedge was shorted rows over 6 rows and the third was over 8 rows. Obviously more rows would make more of a difference.

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I think there is something I could do with this idea. More wedges or just wider wedges? What do you think? Wider wedges would allow space for some patterning which would be cool don’t you think?

I was also definitely sorry I didn’t work the Shawl Tip. Next time.

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It works. I knit it in 100g of worsted weight wool by Twist and Shout Fiber Arts and 75g of Patons Classic Wool.

Thanks for reading,

Deb

Any Gauge Patterns by Deb

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Carry Yarn for stripes

Stripes, don’t you love them? They can be spontaneous and playful. There is no need to plan too far ahead. In fact they are an excellent vehicle for adding variety to a longer project. Use up some of those bits in your stash, bonus.

It is usually necessary to carry the yarn not in use along one edge for stripes. This can cause a tightness along the carry edge. We want to avoid this in a shawl which will be blocked and stretched slightly. I used a really simple method of carrying the yarn along the top edge in this Magic Symmetry Shawl. 20190627_100021_015 - Copy

On the Right Side Row I knit the first stitch with both colours, in this case the grey and the navy. 20190613_131629

Then I picked out the colour I needed to work the row (just drop the other colour) and worked across. On the next row, I worked to the last stitch and knit the two colours together as one stitch. It’s simple. It works. It gives you little blips of colour at the top edge. You can safely carry several colours along an edge this way. 20190627_100216 - Copy

I like the ease of execution.

I found myself still excited to knit one more Magic Symmetry Shawl (#3). Because I felt I was nearing the end of this particular obsession I dug into my stash for something a little thicker. I spent a lovely hour looking at all the possibilities. Decisions, decisions. I chose 2 100g balls of Estelle Worsted. The turquoise was a project that wasn’t working which I took apart. The navy was an single skein. I have no idea what I bought it for but I’m sure it was a good idea at the time. The small ball of grey was left over from some work socks. I thought it might come in handy. magic shawl

I worked the Ditch Magic Rows.

I was not scientific about when to add in the stripes. I just felt like changing it up so I did. Who’s the boss of this shawl anyway? Me, me, me.

I worked 2 row stripes and ditches at the same time. It turned out that one ditch was grey and the next ditch was one of the blues. That was unexpected. I’m going to pretend that it was intentional and that I totally planned to do that the whole time, really I did, aren’t I clever, ha, ha?!

This Magic Symmetry Shawl is going to keep me warm while reading in the evening all winter.

Are you shawl knitting? Aren’t they the perfect summer knitting project? They must be because I just cast on another one with a new idea.

Deb

Any Gauge and GAUGE-FREE Patterns by Deb

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Double increase with YO

Where do your “oops” happen? When I make mistakes it’s almost always at the end of the row. The longer the row, the more chance there is that I will completely loose the plot. I spend a lot of time unpicking stitches at the ends of rows to redo what I should have done as I approached the end, frustrating.

That is the explanation for the increase I used on the Magic Symmetry Shawl pattern. I thought it best to do a 2-stitch increase right at the beginning when it’s fresh, instead of a single increase at the beginning and end of the row. Then you can work all those knit stitches with no worries, letting your mind drift to wherever it wants to go.

Double Increase with YO: work [K1, YO, K1] all in the same stitch – increase of 2 stitches. Here is an excellent video by Suzanne Bryan on How to work KYOK.

It makes little consistent holes along the edge.

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This is my favourite of the three Magic Symmetry Shawls I knit.

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I dove into my stash and collected these bits. The greeny-blue ball on the left was left-over from a cowl. The middle and right balls are small balls of sock yarn (I have small feet so have lots of these little balls). They together weighed 117g. Perfect for a scarf.

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Greeny-blue background with Striped Magic Rows in the darker colourful wool.

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When I ran out of the one greeny-blue I just started with the next one. You might be able to catch where the change is.

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Then I thought it could be a little longer so dove into my odd ball stash again and found a tiny sock ball with a little of that same green in it along with those little black and white blips. You know the kind of sock yarn I mean? The blips add a certain something to the outside edge. I ran out of greeny-blue so finished up with the last of the variegated and had only a couple feet of yarn left, that’s all. Whoohoo.

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Thanks for reading. Hope you’re having fun shawl-knitting,

Deb

Any Gauge patterns by Deb, Magic Symmetry Shawl

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Stashbust a Shawl

Every conversation I have with knitters seems to include the word Stashbusting. You, too? Maybe it’s you who gets that conversation started. It usually comes up around opportunities for buying more yarn. Who can resist? But what can you do with some of the stash you already have?

I’m on the same mission. All those odd 50g balls, single 100g skeins, left-over sock bits need to become something wearable.

I had 2 partial skeins of Durasport by Briggs and Little in natural. This one I dyed with food colouring and the other one with tea.

dye guild (2)

Then onto the needles to knit a shawl with both colours. But not just any shawl, I have specific criteria for shawls.

I like my triangular shawls to be wider than they are deep.
I like my shawls to have long tails (equal or close in length) so they are easy to wrap around my neck and stay in place. I’m trying to stifle the urge to staple shawls to my clothes.
I need it to be easy to knit so I can carry it around. Garter stitch is perfect for knitting a stitch or two wherever I am.

The Magic Symmetry Shawl starts at one point and works like many shawls do by adding one stitch to the shawl every 2 rows. Nothing new there. To get the tails to be of similar length so you don’t need a shawl pin (or staples), takes some magic.

To make it easy to know when to knit these Magic Rows they need to be different than the other rows. So I made the Magic Rows in the second colour.

I knit most of the rows in the beige tea wool with the Magic rows in turquoise until the beige ball got small then I switched it up using the turquoise as the main and stripes in beige until I ran out of yarn.

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Any gauge will work for this new pattern Magic Symmetry Shawl. This is the first one I knit. I have a couple more shawls to show you since how can you knit just one?

Cheers and happy summer knitting,

Deb

Any Gauge patterns by Deb

Cabin Fever patterns and Books

Shawl Tip

I’m always excited to learn of a new tip. I first heard about this at a knitting guild meeting but sometimes it takes me running into something a couple of times to finally give it a try. I tried this one and it totally works.

Continue reading “Shawl Tip”

What if … Skew stumbling

Sometimes an idea comes into your head fully formed and all that is needed is execution. It could be a variation on a recipe, a knitting pattern, a paint colour scheme, a new way to wear an outfit, an idea for your garden or something totally other. And sometimes upon execution, as hiccups develop, comes the realization that the idea was not as fully formed as you thought. Do you give up? Do you persevere?

This is happening with my Skew design and I am persevering because I am still excited about the original idea.

I started with the idea of moving one of the raglan increases over and working a stitch pattern into the space. skew 20180408_091905

My first little sweater had some problems. The ribbed stitch pattern was causing the front to pull against the buttonband. It would have to be buttoned up all the time to keep the front edges lined up. 20180408_083659

So I changed the ribbing to a broken rib (garter stitches between the twisted cables). Then I realized that the cable pattern had to be more prominent to stand up against the garter stitches. So that got changed too. A couple of hitches fixed up to my satisfaction. 20180424_111308

I’m happy with the original idea of the skew which is showing nicely at the bottom of the front. 20180424_111411

Almost there. This sweater needs a lighter colour to show the pattern well for photography so the next sweater will be light blue, pink, cream, oatmeal?? That’s my project this week.

I hope all your hiccups are minor and easily solved. Happy knitting this week,

Deb

ANY GAUGE and GAUGE-FREE patterns by Deb

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Gauge Free Playing

I am in the middle of must-get-finished Christmas knitting. In spite of this schedule, I’m taking some time to play with a Gauge-Free triangle. I have no one in mind for this, maybe it’s for me?!

That’s not really it. The real reason I’m taking a break is because we are in Ottawa watching our daughter play in the Roar of the Rings (curling playdowns to decide who gets to be Team Canada at the Olympics) which is a roller coaster of emotions and not so good for my knitting. As you may imagine it’s a little tight in places, ha, ha.

This triangle will become an asymmetric shawl. I dived into my stash and found a ball of Noro Silk Garden Sock which is colourful and will make a lovely summer wrap. It’s only 300m, not enough, so I also found a ball of Louett Linen which should go well with it.

So here goes. I started with the Silk Garden, working an increase at the beginning of one row and knitting back. That’s it. The yarn is doing all the work. 20171203_123111

Then I started working stripes with the Linen.

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The problem is carrying the yarn you’re not using for those two rows. I have decided to knit the last stitch of the second knit row with both colours. It makes that edge a little thicker but I don’t have any yarn looping on this edge.

Now I’m adding in a purl row. I really like the look of this. It makes one colour the background which is effective.

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With the Linen I’m working one knit row and a purl row then 2 knit rows of Silk Garden. This should take me through today’s game. Then I think some “K2tog, YO” yeylets are in my shawl’s future.

There is nothing I can do wrong here. This shawl let’s you play with stitch patterns and colour. It’s freeing. Maybe this is for you too.

Thanks for reading,

Deb

ANY GAUGE and GAUGE-FREE patterns by Deb

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