knitting pattern: the Go Fly a Kite shawl

[holli]

I designed this to wear to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival last year, and knit it in Knitpicks Bare dyed blue, on a size 4 circular needle. The Flickr set has more pictures and the complete charts.



This shawl is knit from the center back, so you start with very few stitches and end with a whole heck of a lot. My preferred cast-on for a shawl constructed this way is as follows:

Use a provisional cast-on in a waste yarn. Cast on three stitches. Knit 7 rows garter stitch, then pick up 7 stitches along the side of the strip you've just knitted. Undo the provisional cast-on and pick up the last three stitches. You now have 13 stitches, and are ready to begin the first row of the chart.



I knit this with a 3-stitch wide garter edging-- just add a k3 to the start and end of every row on the chart.

I did about 14 repeats before beginning the edging, and wound up with a generously-sized shawl. Simply change the number of repeats for a larger or smaller shawl.



This is not quite the same edging as on the original shawl, as that was kludged-together and badly improvised. I came up with a really weird way of casting off, but it actually worked quite well with my decision to add a crochet edging, and I recommend it if you want a crochet edging too. Basically, I worked one last row in (yo, k2tog) the whole way across before casting off as loosely as possible. Then, with a size H (I think, I don't have it handy) crochet hook, I worked (ch8, sc) into every other yo hole along the cast-off edge. Then I turned around and did the same thing in the other direction, this time using the loops I'd just made instead of the cast-off edge. I don't crochet a whole lot, so I'm not sure if that makes sense-- if not ask and I'll try to clarify.

If you can't read lace charts, this may not be the pattern for you, since it took me like a year to even put the charts together, and quite frankly a line-by-line pattern is not happening any time soon. If you would like to write a line-by-line pattern for your own convenience, feel free to share it!



eta to clarify: Chart 1 is half the shawl, as knitted. There's a 1-stich column between the two halves of the shawl. So on row 1 of the chart, you k3 for the edging, yo, k3, yo, and then k1 before you yo, k3, yo again, and then k3 for the other half of the edging. Does that make sense?

Comments

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

Oh my GAWD, that is GORGEOUS!! And your own pattern, too! ::so very jealous::

[holli.livejournal.com]

It's not at *all* as complicated as it looks-- if you've ever knit a center-back shawl before, you can do it. (If you haven't, I recommend Kiri, available here (http://alltangledup.com/), if you don't feel up to this one.

[ahsavka.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, you're amazing. And so is that shawl.

[holli.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[brownbetty]

That's a really pretty and lacey shawl! Do I understand correctly that it's of your own design?

[holli.livejournal.com]

It is!

(Although given how long the art of lace knitting has existed, I suppose the odds are good that I just independantly re-invented a lace motif that already existed somewhere else.)

[craftygryphon.livejournal.com]

That's just gorgeous - thanks for putting it on Ravelry! (Gee, I wonder what I'm gonna do with the lovely Lacette I just snagged? Hmmmm....)

I'm totally casting this on tonight. Thanks for sharing the pattern!!

[holli.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad you like it! I would *love* to see how yours turns out, too.

[chibionigiri.livejournal.com]

Saw this on Ravelry and I just had to comment on how gorgeous it is! I've been contemplating on writing out a shawl pattern, too, and I was wondering if you had any tips? :)

[holli.livejournal.com]

Tip #1: If you write the charts in a notebook before making the shawl, and then months later decide to put the pattern on the Internet, DO NOT LOSE THE NOTEBOOK. I ended up casting on and re-knitting a couple of pattern repeats, because I could follow what I was doing better that way than by just looking at the finished shawl.

Write down what you do as you're doing it, because you will forget and have to reverse-engineer however you got it to work in the first place. Often, knitting swatches is a better way of experimenting that drawing charts, because you can experiment on the fly and figure out what looks good.

I *highly* recommend Inna Zakharevich's wonderful Chart Creator (http://www.innaz.com/cgi-bin/makechart/makechart.cgi), without with you would corrently be squinting at a much-scribbled-on handwritten chart.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi! I would love to cast on for this shawl but I wanted to be sure I had everything figured out before starting.
I was wondering if you could say some words on the symbols you used... I have knitted a few lace shawls but I have never seen that "/3" symbol... Does it mean you have to knit the stitch 3 times?
TIA, Alice from Italy!

[holli.livejournal.com]

Sorry this reply is so late in arriving, but /3 means "knit three together." Although my preferred method is actually "slip one, knit 2 together, pass slipped stitch over."

[evolution2x.livejournal.com]

I have 4 skeins of Knitpicks bare and want to knit this shawl. Since I plan to dye the skeins red for this shawl, how many skeins are needed? Thanks for sharing your pattern.

[holli.livejournal.com]

I used one of the big 100-gram skeins, and had a handful of yards left over. If you plan on knitting extra repeats for a larger shawl, dye two, but otherwise you'll only need one.

[gloss]

This is *so* gorgeous -- and, dude, I'm simultaneously envious, psyched and impressed that your fic is as good as your knitting. :DDD