Saturday, August 30, 2014

My Garter stripe Shawl pattern

This is my own shawl pattern and one that I hope will make a shawl that is easy to knit but still offers a bit of texture.
I love triangle shawls and have found lots of patterns that ask for markers to be used and I liked the look of them. I tried them out in the yarn I will be using but did not like the look of the pattern in the yarn I have.
Other patterns were fiddly to do and as I am using circular needles to accommodate the stitches I was not happy following a pattern with lots of changes in it. When turning the needles to work back and forth it is easy to twist it the wrong way and end up with mistakes.
I found this to help me remember how to knit back and forth with circular needles

Knitting straight on circular needles

So I came up with a simple pattern that will be easy to do whilst watching TV and look nice whilst still giving a me a nice light warm shawl at the finish.

I will be using a self striping yarn with multiple colours in it I have two 200g balls of it.

I am taking part in a Stash buster on Sparkpeople.com and we work on a project for one month and add the amount of yards we have knitted each week. So I worked out roughly how many yards is in each ball which is about 874 yards.
The Stash buster Challenge starts 1st September and lasts the whole month, at the end of the month I should have a nice colourful shawl and still have a 200g ball of yarn in the same colour to use up. I am imagining the shawl will use up 200g of yarn but will see what happens.
Working with 6mm needles it should knit up nice and light and not create huge holes with yarn overs.

This is my pattern:

Garter Stripe Shawl

Materials needed: DK yarn, 6mm Circular needles (the plastic bit between the needles is roughly 18 inches long (46cm) to accommodate the large number of stitches

CO 3 sts

Knit one row

K1, YO, knit to end of row (turn)

Repeat this row 5 more times (6 rows in total)

Start pattern

Row 1: K1, YO, Knit to end of row (turn)

Row 2 : K1, YO, K1, Purl to last 2 stitches K2 (turn)

Row 3: K1, YO, Knit to end of row (turn)

Row 4: K1, YO,Knit to end of row (turn)

Repeat these 4 rows until the shawl is as big as you want it leaving plenty of yarn to do the last 3 rows of  K1 YO Knit to the end of each row. Bind Off.

I may add a fringe if I have enough yarn from the ball or I may add the fringe in a plain yarn. I can add two pieces of fringe per YO along the two sides I like the fringe length to be roughly 6 inches so I would need just over 12 inches of yarn for each as you will lose some length with the knot and then in trimming as well.

How to Fringe a scarf or shawl

I have used both methods and find them both easy to do I also add a knot to each strand at the bottom of the fringe end it helps stop the thread from fraying especially as the shawl gets older and has been washed many times.

Three ways to make a fringe

These look fun to do and I may try the twisted one on a project.

The project will start September 1st wish me luck I hope it will work out as I expect.

2 comments:

  1. I'm looking forward to seeing your finished shawl. The yarn is lovely.

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  2. I apologize if this posts multiple times. I had difficulty with the system deleting my comment after I signed in to post it.
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    I can't wait to see your FO! I am curious to know how much of the yarn you end up using, as this looks like an excellent stashbuster. Something fidgety I can do while I sit in front of the tv.

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