Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
There are several lace triangle shawls out there that start with this same technique
of casting-on stitches and picking up stitches around, and they’re scarves that look like
this.
I’ve worked a few of them myself. This one – I’ll give you a link to this pattern.
And it’s for this little bit of knitting right here.
And when people read the pattern it doesn’t make any sense [laughs], and so they think
they’re not understanding what it is.
But it is a weird little bit of knitting, I want to cover this technique so you can
see how it looks kind of blown up with bigger yarn and you see that it actually does work.
You’re not misreading the pattern.
Let’s take a look on this lace scarf.
You can’t even see it.
It is this little bit of knitting right here.
That just gets you started with the right shape for branching out and knitting the rest
of the shawl.
The whole shawl starts from right here.
And this is a finished bit blown up.
I’ve only done the first couple of rows.
It is this bit right here.
I know it probably doesn’t make any sense but it works out for the rest of the shawl.
And this of course is a lot easier to see, considering that this is the weight of yarn
that you’re usually doing it in.
I think that adds to the confusion quite a bit, because it’s just hard to see when
you’re using this yarn.
Much easier to see when you’re using this yarn.
Okay, let’s cover the technique.
The pattern will tell you – and these patterns all start out the same like this.
Um, they’ll tell you to cast-on three stitches.
And there is something that I’m going to show you that I did NOT do in this scarf.
There’s actually a bump right here, and that’s because that is my slip knot.
It is neater work to do a cast-on without a slip knot.
And you’ll avoid having that bump.
That bump is not distressing me in any way, but I always try to do the nicest work I can.
So I’m going to do a long tail cast-on, slingshot method.
And I’ll give you a link to this cast-on, if you want a slower breakdown of it.
I’m going to cast on three stitches.
Okay.
And then the pattern tells you to knit six rows.
Oh, one more thing. I advise you to start on double pointed needles for this bit.
You don’t need the double points, but this part of the scarf is so fiddley, that you’ll
do better to not have a bunch of cord flapping around, getting in your way.
This is four.
Okay.
So you end up with this little tiny bit of garter stitch knitting.
Excuse me just a moment here.
Six rows, three ridges.
Now the first thing the pattern tells you after you’ve knit those six rows is to pick
up three stitches from the long edge.
There’s the short edge, there’s the long edge.
And I find that I can pick them up – the first one, just after that ridge, kind of
half way into that ridge.
There’s one.
You notice I’m using the same needle for this. So I’m kind of changing the direction
of my knitting, using this same needle. Kind of stretching this bit of knitting around.
And the third one I’m going to pick up right before the corner.
Okay, so now I have six stitches on the needle.
The next bit of instruction tells me to pick up three stitches from the cast-on edge.
This is the part that everyone gets confused about.
Because that’s going the wrong direction!
We’ve already come from over here, and over here, and now we’re going to go back this
way?
I swear, this works.
Normally, when you’re picking up stitches I advise you to pick up both legs of the V.
Kind of too much to do for this one, I’m just going to pick up the front leg, this
one here, the front leg of the V of the cast-on stitch.
If I can.
Lots of tension on the working yarn to get that to pull through.
I’m having a pretty easy time seeing where I’m going with this.
It’s kind of a different story when you’re using the lace weight yarn.
Okay, now [laughs].
See, I told you it was going to work out!
There is the beginning of my lace shawl, and I have nine stitches on the needle.
The next row of your pattern – of course, all patterns are different – but the next
row is usually a wrong side row, and it gets you started on the increases.
So this is a really brilliant way to start a triangle lace scarf. It’s really smart.
But the beginning can be confusing. Hopefully that cleared it up.
[music]