Playing With Construction
This is a small excerpt from Shawls to Play With, the shawl collection I’m working on. There are four shawls in the collection (named Gratia, Xylia, Yuki, and Idril) all of which are designed around elegant simplicity.
PLAYING WITH CONSTRUCTION
The shawls in this collection are all variations on traditionally shaped, knit in the round, shawls. The traditional shawl shapes being, the wedge circle, the concentric circle, the pi circle, and the center out square.
Gratia is a variation on the concentric circle, Xylia on the wedge circle, Yuki on the center out square, and Idril is a variation that falls somewhere between the concentric circle and the wedge circle.
Why are there multiple ways to knit a flat piece of fabric in the round?
Because all circular shawls are simply variations on each other.
They all follow the same ratio of stitches increased to rounds worked, 8 stitches increased on every other round, but each shape has the increases arranged in a slightly different configuration.
For the shawls in this collection, I took those traditional increase placements, and the ratio of stitches increased to rounds worked, and played with them.
This is an excerpt from Shawls to Play With, which, with a bit of luck, will be making it’s first appearance later this week.
my favorite bind off trick. part 1
One of my favorite tricks for creating a bind off that doesn’t break, actually has nothing to do with the bind off itself.
My favorite trick is to increase my stitch count right before I bind off. This way my bind off involves more stitches than the main body of my shawl.
Because there are more bind off stitches than main body stitches, each bind off stitch has to take up less space than each main body stitch.
For A Shawl Knit Flat
1. Finish your pattern, in the photo I just used a basic stockinette swatch.
2. If you’ve ended with a RS row, work a WS row.
3. To increase: work your border stitches, [yo, k1, yo, k2tog] to the opposite border, work your second border stitches.
4. Work a WS row.
5. Bind off.
FOR A SHAWL KNIT IN THE ROUND
1. Finish your pattern.
2. Knit 1 round.
3. To increase: [yo, k1, yo, k2tog] around.
4. Knit 1 round.
5. Bind off.
WORKING MORE SUBTLE INCREASES
But if you don’t want your increases to be obvious. Or you don’t want to work those extra two WS rows. Or you’re worried about running out of yarn. Or just don’t like the eyelet look. You can use make 1s or knit front and backs instead.
So for a shawl knit flat:
1. Finish your pattern, in the photo I just used a basic stockinette swatch.
2. To increase: work your border stitches, [m1*, k3] to the opposite border, work your second border stitches.
3. Bind off.
For a shawl knit in the round:
1. Finish your pattern.
2. To increase: [m1*, k3] around.
3. Bind off.
*if you prefer knitting into the front and back of the same stitch, replace the m1 with kfb.
I like this trick because it means I can block my shawls like crazy without every feeling like my bind off is going to break, plus the yarn overs make threading blocking wires practically painless, and I think they can add a nice design element to most shawls. For example,
in Tumbling Deco, the yarn overs blended right into the patterning.
and in Anwar I turned this into a design element, by working the final three rounds and the bind off in the main color (as opposed to the contrasting color), which tied the edge of the shawl back to the center of the shawl, and really made the design feel complete.
This trick has you increasing your stitch count by a third and is essentially creating a ruffle at the very edge of your shawl, which then gets blocked away. Increasing your stitch count by a third works great for shawls curved edges, but not so great for shawls with straight edges.
Tomorrow I’ll talk through using this idea on shawls with straight edges, squares, triangles, and the like.
a collection about possibility
knitting like a woman obsessed.
Riffing off of the idea of instant gratification from yesterday. I adore a project I can sink my teeth into.
A project that inspires nothing short of commitment, adoration, and borderline obsession.
A project to sink your teeth into.
It’s part of why I knit shawls, they aren’t quick by any stretch of the imagination, and they don’t requite piecing like most sweaters do. No second sleeve syndrome with a shawl. Just a beginning, and an end, with an expanse of fabric to play with in the middle.
I’m currently working on a collection that’s pulling out this kind of obsessed focus. The kind of focus where you can’t concentrate on anything else. The kind of project that has you staying up late and waking up early to work on it.
I see a small pattern collection accompanied by lots of writing.
A collection centered around simplicity, elegance, grace, drape, ease, flexibility, adaptability, possibility, experimentation, curiosity, and play.
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