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/