Designing the Basic Triangular Shawl - a Learning Pattern. see use of text at bottom

Here's the logic of designing. You have to distinguish in your mind between the shaping stitches and the purely decorative stitches. The decorative pattern will require a certain number of stitches, called its repeat. The repeat is the number of stitches required to complete one full section of the pattern. It will vary slightly depending on whether it is being worked flat or in the round. Worked flat, it may be necessary to add partial repeats, or possibly just plain edge stitches. You will almost certainly want edge stitches in any case to help prevent curling or uneven edges. You don't have to figure out the repeat for yourself, because most pattern stitch dictionaries already have figured them out for you. It's possible to do for yourself, but is fairly advanced design work.

You also have to have increases or possibly decreases to shape the garment and keep those in mind while designing the piece.

This is a triangular shawl, designed from the top down, and center out. We start at the center back with three stitches. The shaping requires 1 increase every other row on both outside edges and each side of the center. At first you will just work the plain increases, and in fact it makes a perfectly good shawl to only do the increase sections and work all the other stitches in plain garter stitch, but it takes a lot of yarn. You can "stretch" the amount of yarn you have by essentially adding "air" in the shape of a lace pattern.

So, as I said, you distinguish between the lace areas and the shaping increase areas, though often for lace patterns you will use the yarn over increase even in the shaping areas to increase the general laciness of the appearance. It is a very good idea to use different colored markers to separate the shaping increase sections from the pattern sections. Then, whenever there are enough extra stitches in the shaping increase sections to make one more repeat of the pattern, you move that number of stitches from the shaping section to the pattern section and do an additional pattern repeat. You do that by moving the markers right or left as needed to add those stitches to the pattern design section.

As is always the case, getting started is the hard part, because the number of stitches has to add up and it is impractical to do some maneuvers next to each other, which may require different numbers of stitches than you might think.

So here is the example:

  1. Cast on 3 stitches.
  2. Knit all stitches.
  3. k1, inc 1, k1, inc 1, k1 - 5 sts ( Where it says inc 1 use a k1, k1b increase or any other increase that leaves no hole.)
  4. k all
  5. k1, inc 1, k1, yo, k1, yo, k1, inc 1, k1 - 9 sts (yes, yo is an increase, but continue to use an increase that doesn't leave a hole on the edges, and use yo in the center)
  6. knit back on all stitches
  7. k1, inc 1, k1, set marker, k2, set marker, yo, k1, yo, set marker k2, set marker, k1, inc 1, k1 - 13 stitches
    The outside sections and the center section are now shaping increase areas and the two stitches between the shaping sections are your first decorative pattern sections, because this pattern only requires an even number of stitches, with one plain stitch at beginning and end. The last and first stitches of the shaping sections will double as the plain stitches needed for the pattern.
  8. Work back in just plain knitting one last time.
  9. k1, inc 1, k2 / yo, p2tog/ k1, yo, k1, yo, k1/ yo, p2tog/ k2, inc 1, k1 (17 sts) The part given between / and / is the decorative pattern. The rest is the increase section.
  10. From now on, the working back is a little different. You continue to just plain knit the edge and center shaping sections but the design pattern needs a different "work back". K to 1st marker, then yo, p2tog, to next marker, k to next marker, yo, p2tog, to last marker, k remaining stitches.
  11. k1, inc 1, k3/ yo, p2tog/ k2, yo, k1, yo, k2/ yo, p2tog/ k3, inc 1, k1
  12. Work back, remembering to work the design sections yo, p2tog.
  13. Now we will move some stitches from the shaping sections to the patterns sections. There are now 6 stitches in the outside edge sections and 7 in the center sections, so we will move two stitches from the outside edges, and 4 from the center into the design section. Here's how: K1, inc, 1, k1, move marker back 2, slipping stitches back and forth between needles as necessary, then yo, p2tog, twice, then take out next marker, yo, p2tog, replace marker. There are now 3 pattern repeats in the design section. K1, yo, k1, yo, k1, Move marker back, as you did before to move two stitches from center section to design section, yo p2tog, twice, then remove marker, yo, p2tog, once more, replace marker, k1, inc 1, k1.
  14. Work back, k3/ yo, p2tog (3 times)/k5/ yo, p2tog 3 times/ k3.
So here is the basic rule. We need a minimum of 3 stitches in each of the outside sections, and a minimum of 5 in the center sections so we won't have to have 2 yarn overs together. Every time you get two more than that in the shaping sections, move them to the design sections. Basically this shawl ends when you run out of yarn, but you will want to leave some for a decorative edge.

The simplest decorative edge needs a crochet hook and the ability to crochet chain stitch. The crochet hook should be about the same thickness as the needle you used. To do it you count how many stitches there are on the needle on the last row - all of them, decorative and shaping both. Find a convenient number to divide that by, usually 3, 4, or 5. Put a stopper or a rubber band on the left end of the circular needle so the stitches won’t slide off while you’re not watching them. Now slip the number of stitches you decided on from the right needle to the crochet hook, work one chain stitch through all (we’ll say 5) stitches. Chain 7. If you know how to do a picot you can use that in the middle of your chain 7, if not, don’t worry about it. So, chain 7, pick up 5 more stitches from the right needle, chain stitch through all and chain 7 more. Continue until all stitches are taken off the needle and end off.

This pattern doesn’t need much blocking usually but you can block it or just handwash it gently with shampoo and hair rinse and let it hang from a towel bar to dry - smoothed flat of course, not all rumpled up.

copyright cjwyche, 2000-2006 These patterns and documents are essentially learning tools and I favor free access to knowledge on the internet, I have placed them on this web page under Copyleft|GNU Free Documentation License (version 1.2 or any later version). This means you have permission to freely download, ocpy and use content from this web site under the same License. Any creative changes you make to this source material cannot be copyrighted, but must also be freely distributed under the License. Modified: 2006-02-01 anybrowser HTML 3.2