L-Shaped Designs

Like many knitters, I do not like to do finishing. I am embarrassed to admit how many UFOs (unfinished objects) I have sitting around just waiting to have a few seams sewn! Because of this, often when I design I like to come up with a concept that requires little or no finishing.

The two shawls shown here were born out of this concept. I thought an L-shape would make a nice wrap which would stay well on the shoulders, but I did not want to knit it in two pieces. Both garments start with a large number of stitches knit flat on circular needles and then decrease down to the more narrow side of the "L". The self striping yarn used in both create different directionality when the the shawl is draped over the shoulders--that is one side has horizontal stripes and the other vertical (not necessarily evident in the styling shown in the pictures here). Also, the stripes on the long side are narrower than the stripes on the short side.

The "Self-Striping Shawl" is the easier of the two. It has a seed stitch border which is knit as you go along. It is knit in Artful Yarns Broadway and the pattern can be found in the book Vogue Knitting on the Go: Shawls.

The "Wooly Stripes Wrap" is only slightly more complicated (depending on whether you think intarsia is complicated :-) It is knit in a similar method to the other shawl, however the seed stitch border is applied with the intarsia method. This makes the colors in the self striping yarn creep slowly along the edge, in contrast to the thinner stripes on the interior. It is knit in Nashua Handknits Wooly Stipes yarn. The pattern is available in Nashua Handknits North American Lifestyles: Stripes.