Knitting round a corner

Before I start I would like to say have struggled to get the colour of the piece the same in all the pictures, although I have spend hours trying to do so and am usually pretty good at managing this, so apologies for that. However the post is about technique and process and I think these are clear. 

The completed piece

I have knitted several rectangular Scarves/Shawls based following patterns from Unst Heritage Centre (1). All these have what I would call ‘good’ corners where you can see the detail of the outer lace as fits ‘like a glove’ at the corner. 

An Unst corner (more details of Burrafirth  and  a sibling Hinneywaar  6Jan21 and 26July20)

I have also studied edgings of Shetland Shawls ( over many years of visiting Shetland)  in 4 museums in Shetland and the shawls on display at Ollaberry during wool weeks and talked to many current Shetland, by that I mean from and in Shetland, lace knitters who have ‘family’ histories of lace shawl knitting. 

However, what I had not done before was to knit the inner section of a shawl and then add the outer lace by knitting on and getting the lace to fit the corners perfectly. By ‘perfectly’ I mean no bunching and no guesswork and juggling. The way I learnt in this workshop was precise and accurate and every stitch had a place. This is the sort of design and knitting that appeals to me. (2)

Again for this shawl I dyed the wool. I am using Jamieson and Smith Shetland Supreme 2 ply and 3.25 needles. This time I used yarn that I had dyed with Genista Tinctoria to give me a ‘strong’ yellow and then I over dyed this with indigo. I loved the richness of the colour and the vibrancy, just right for February Knitting. I have described more about the set of greens in the blog post of 6Feb22  and the colour I used is the one on the left of the series shown there. 

We knitted the centre rectangle first and once this was complete all that was left was to pick up the stitches around the centre as we knitted the edging. As I was going to do more ‘invisible lace grafting practise’ I had done a little waste knitting before I started the row and ended doing the lace edging with more waste knitting too. Then for the invisible graft which is in here. I am pleased with it and finding I needed fewer looks at my hints and tips sheet I have devised now. 

The whole being ‘being dressed’ 

Detail of a corner

 Grafting - I have gone into some detail here with the samples, and also written more extensively about it elsewhere in my blog. 

I honestly could not find the graft when I looked as I had turned the sample round so many times ! I have marked where I think I must be. 

Card with finished piece (this is far too vivid!) 

I am very pleased to have learnt how a native born Shetland Lace Knitter goes about designing  for and completing a corner. I will definitely be using these techniques again. 

Thank you Elizabeth. 

1. Many, if not all, of these have been devised by Hazel Laurenson, and some of the patterns have been worked out following actual shawls found in Unst from knitters who are no longer with us. These are available from Unst Heritage Centre. 
2. This class was with Elizabeth Williamson, her online classes can be found at https://www.elizabethwilliamsonknitting.co.uk/

More Shawl shapes for Shetland lace knitting

I have combined a couple of shawl shape workshops here, this photo is from the second one. 

The first one was a mini triangular shawl. It is worked in garter stitch, making it reversible, and uses traditional Shetland lace patterns. As the circular pattern ( details in previous blog post here) it is designed so that once the techniques are understood then it  could be made bigger to suit the knitter. (1) 

For this shawl I used some spare Jamieson and Smith Supreme 2ply that I had naturally dyed  with Alchemilla and Madder. 

The knitting starts at the centre top with a few stitches and gradual increases enable the centre section to be completed, the edging lace is then worked and the shape ‘appears’ after casting off. This one, as all the others, was dressed by pinning out when damp and allowed to dry fully. 

I really enjoyed this pattern and it was very interesting to see the shape form. I felt that the combination of this yarn and 3.25 needles gave just the right combination of ‘knitting and holes’.

I have already described the second workshop of the circular mini shawl (post of 18Feb 22)

The third workshop was for a Mini Crescent Shawl. This also starts in the centre of the top and the pattern of increases gives the lovely crescent shape. As in the first workshop described above the outer lace is knitted on once the required number of stitches is reached. 

Completed shawl 

This time I decided to modify the cast on as I had never done a ‘tab’ cast. I decided I needed to do some samples. 

In the three samples below: 

The top one shows the pattern, cast on the small dip would be closed invisibly by a few stitches, as in the Fladda shawl

The middle one shows a tab cast on with the same sized needles, I thought this gave a slight upward protrusion 

The bottom one - I thought I would try the tab with smaller needles, so used size 2.5

Tab trials 

In the actual knitting I used the bottom method of these three above and am pleased with how it turned out. 

As you can see this time I naturally dyed the yarn a glorious shade of yellow. This is from Genista Tinctoria which was my first dyeing of the year. I used the prunings I took and left those to soak for about a week. The yarn was scoured and mordanted by my normal methods. It was a jolly colour to get from dyeing and to knit with during which can often be called ‘dull January’. 

I was delighted with the shawl. The crescent shape appeals to me and I hope to have a go at using the ‘methods’ of this shawl to see if I can scale this up, whilst using some different motifs before too long. 

Earlier I had knitted the Fladda shawl pattern from Elizabeth which again is worked from the neck down. (The outer edging of this shawl is knitted on much like in the circular one described in the last blog post. ) I have described much more about the Fladda shawl in the post of 14 Sept 21 and I can vouch for the ease and comfort of wearing a crescent shaped shawl compared to a more traditional triangular one, simply expressed… it stays ‘put’ better! 

I have enjoyed these workshops very much and learnt things I didn’t know I needed to know, which is always great. I am a great believer in learning for life. A dear uncle ( I only had one uncle) once wrote in a book he gave me: ‘Live as if you would die tomorrow, learn as if you would live forever’. Wise words. 

1. More details available from elizabethwilliamsonknitting which also included details of Elizabeth’s online workshops.