Designing a Shetland-Type Shawl
Fergus's shawl was my first attempt at designing. I was quite pleased with the result. It's not as difficult as it looks. James Miles-the-Younger's was the second, and in some ways I am less pleased. I tried to throw too much in, inspired by the recent publication of Sharon Miller's wonderful book, Heirloom Knitting. (Visit her website for a lace-knitter's treat.) Joan Schrouder memorably said, during a shawl course I took from her at Camp Stitches in 2000, "Don't try to do too much at once." It's good advice. The third shawl, for my friend Jenny, doesn't have a centre square. It turns out to be much easier to construct a harmonious-looking design that way.
I started, in all cases, with Gladys Amedro's book "Shetland Lace" -- any serious Shetland-shawl knitter should have that one. I used the system she prefers, of knitting the entire border first, then picking up stitches and knitting inwards. I used her lace-weight "Philip and Michael" shawl as a guide to stitch numbers.
My yarn was Lorna's Laces "Helen's Lace": Fergus's shawl is in a shade called "Watercolour". James-the-Younger's is in a shade called "Flames", chosen to suggest the colours worn by a Hindu bride. Jenny's is "Gold Hill". I love that yarn. Yarns by Design carry a full range of Lorna's Laces, and I have found their service very friendly and helpful. My needle-size was 3.75mm.
I used a 16-row pattern for the edging of Fergus's shawl, slipping the first stitch of every row with the yarn in front, and therefore creating a eight-stitch-long edging chain for every repeat of the pattern. I worked 18 repeats per side, 72 in all. I picked up 144 stitches on each side, slipping the needle into the stitches as shewn in a most useful photograph on page xxiv of Amedro's book. Then one complete round knitting into the back of each stitch. Then a couple of plain rounds, decreasing each side from 144 to 140 stitches. I marked the corners and centres, of course.
When I finished the whole thing, I thought Fergus's shawl, which blocked to 48" square, was the slightest bit too small. So for James-the-Younger's one, I did an edging with a 34-row repeat (the "Double Scallop Shell" on page 123 of Miller's book), nine repeats per side; picked up 153 stitches per side, and reduced to 149. The result was 50" square, and I liked that better. Jenny's edging, the "Rippled Diamond" from p. 75 of Sharon Miller's book, has a 20-row repeat. I did 15 repeats per side, and picked up 150 stitches per side.
I have the wonderful computer program "Stitch and Motif Maker" but I found that it was more trouble than it was worth for the trapeziods of a shawl, because I had to keep scrolling back and forth. So I used paper and pencil to chart one-half of a trapezoid, 70 stitches in Fergus's case, 75 for Baby Miles.. The trapezoids were respectively 70 and 75 rows deep.
I found that in Fergus's case, it was perfectly easy to knit the second half of each trapezoid without charting it -- even though I reversed the position of my motifs on each side, as the photograph shows, so that roses and thistles alternate all the way around. So I thought I could do the same thing for James-the-Younger, and I came nastily unstuck. Perhaps because the pattern is less-than-identical on either side of the centre stitch. Perhaps because I was knitting back and forth rather than round-and-round. I had to rip back about a month's work, and start again with the whole border charted. Not a happy experience.
I was knitting back and forth because I wanted to do a shawl in garter stitch -- but I also wanted the convenience of circular knitting, and the no-seam finish. Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer of the Lacelist came up with the solution -- obvious, once someone thinks of it, rather like the invention of the wheel. You knit around, wrap the next stitch, turn, knit around in the other direction. Repeat. The mitered corner with the wrapped stitches looks slightly different from the other three, but only slightly. Certainly neater than a seam.
My advice is to start by making a rough drawing of the trapeziod, with the main features. Then start the chart with the largest feature. Chart from what is going to be the centre of the trapezoid outwards towards the corners. The mitred corners will look orderly, no matter how the pattern hits them. Add your main motifs and then scatter in other motifs as desired. If you're designing a motif yourself, or if you're using one from a book or another pattern which is charted the-other-way-up, you'll HAVE to swatch to make sure it works when knit from the top-down. Lace isn't always, or even often, reversible.
I think the lacy zig-zag holds Fergus's pattern together, whereas James-the-Younger's one lacks an organising motif.
I knit the first 16 rows of the trapezoids straight, in both cases, and then began decreasing one stitch at each end of each trapezoid on alternate rounds until I was down to 84 stitches per side. Then a round of yo, k2tog. followed by a plain round on which I decreased to 80 stitches per side. The centre was then knit back and forth on 80 stitches, (81 for James), taking in one stitch from each side at the end of each row (160/162 rows in all). Finally, the live stitches were grafted to the stitches of the fourth side.
Jenny's shawl doesn't have trapezoids. After the initial straight bit, I just decreased as before and kept on decreasing until I got to the centre. About the only thing you have to do to construct a design like that is to count rows so that your chosen patterns fit into the space remaining.
For the Greek cross pattern in the centre of Fergus's shawl, I had to graph the whole thing. The pattern is based on ideas in Barbara Walker's Fourth Treasury. The centre pattern of James's shawl, Rose Lace, Miller p. 105, isn't properly centered. That was stupid. A 44-row repeat goes into 162 rows three times, with 30 rows left over. That means that at the beginning I should have worked the last 14 rows of the pattern, and at the end there would have been 16 rows left over to work the first 16 rows of the pattern. Pretend you don't notice.
Most of the knitting in all three shawls is "lace knitting" rather than "knitted lace", by the way -- every other round or row is plain knitting. (The "Ladders and Drops Chevron" pattern in Jenny's shawl is a partial exception.) You don't need to include the plain rounds or rows on your charts, but it helps to number the rows 2-4-6-8 etc., just to remind yourself how it works. .