shawl

Crescent or sickle-shaped scarves/shawls are very popular and rightly so: because of their special shape, they stay better draped over the shoulders than traditional triangular scarves. I have designed and made several, take for example Art-Deco and Sunglow Forest as shown below.

The one thing that these shawls haven’t, is a well-know issue with this shawl shape: The Dreaded Hump.

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to construct a crescent-shaped shawl, without this “hump”.

Top-down crescent shawl construction

Before we go into details, it’s good to get clear what particular construction method I’m using. There are various ways to construct a crescent-shaped shawl. Some are worked from the bottom-up, some from the top-down, some with short rows and some without.

Here, in this tutorial I focus on the top-down construction in which increases are worked on both right side and wrong side rows. The stitch count is increased by 4 stitches at the edges on right-side rows and by 2 on wrong-side rows.

In order to know how to prevent the hump, we first must know why it appears in the first place. Take a look at the picture below:

The fast increase ratio, located at the edges only, creates tension in the piece and pushes the fabric into a “hump” at the center edge. In other words: The increases at the outer edges, force the edges outwards. However, the bottom edge of the work only has so much give, ultimately pushing the center upwards creating a hump.

The solution to prevent the hump

The solution: creating more slack in the bottom edge of the shawl, to prevent the tension from pushing the work upwards! Like this:

The secret: Strategically placing increases in the center of the shawl to create a pie-shaped wedge.

This gives enough extra fabric at the bottom edge of the work to prevent the hump from occurring! The type of increase is completely up to your own preference. In this example, a yarn over is used to make it very visible, in the Art Deco shawl the more discreet m1L and m1R increases are used. In a (reverse) stockinette fabric, extra increases once every 8 rows would do the trick.

Garter stitch has quite a different row gauge than stockinette does. The precise ratio of garter stitch to stockinette, however, depends greatly on the yarn used, and personal gauge. Perhaps the phase of the moon as well. Some sources say that the ratio of garter stitch to stockinette is 1:2. Others say it’s 3:5, 4:6 or even closer to a 5:7 ratio. Taking the latter as an example, this means that (for example) for every 26 rows per 10 cm/4 inches in stockinette there are 36 rows per 10 cm/4 inches in garter stitch when worked with the same yarn and needles. To know your exact ratio and thus the exact repeat for working a pie shaping row in garter stitch, swatching would be needed.

Based on the various possible ratios of garter stitch to stockinette, extra increases every 12 to 16 rows would do the trick in a garter stitch based fabric.

The top-down triangle must be the shawl shape I knit most often. So, it would be good to share with you how I go about blocking this type of triangle shawl. In this tutorial, I will be showing you how I blocked my Strawberry Finch. This one has all-over lace patterning, pulled into points at the bottom edge into points during blocking. In the below picture you can this shawl before blocking.

What is blocking?

Before we go into details, it’s good to get clear what I mean exactly with “blocking”. Blocking is nothing more than shaping your knit or crochet pieces when moist or wet. Think of finished items or components to sew together afterwards. By blocking them, you can not only even out stitches, but also bring the item to the intended dimensions. The latter of course within reason!

For a sweater or sweater components blocking usually is nothing more than washing the item(s) and patting them gently into shape. Lace shawls, on the other hand, benefit from a rather vigorous blocking by pinning it stretched out as much as possible. After the piece has dried, it will hold its shape until the next washing.

Please note, that not all fibers are suited for the magic of blocking. Only natural fibers like wool, alpaca, cotton etc. as well as some viscose fibers can be blocked in the sense that the dimensions can be adjusted. On synthetics, like acrylic, the process of wet-blocking as described in this post has virtually no effect at all, besides evening out the stitches. Acrylics can be blocked (“killed”) by applying heat through steam blocking or ironing, but that’s an entirely different process.

Materials needed

Since the subject of this post is the blocking of a lace triangle shawl, I go for a vigorous blocking using pins. I use the following materials:

• Blocking mats, these are usually foam mats that hold pins well. Think for example of insulation mats, mats for yoga or play tiles for children.
• Pins, I use regular pins, but other folks sometimes prefer stainless steel T pins.
• Wool wash.
• A towel large enough to comfortably hold your project.

Preparations

Before we can start with the actual blocking, we have to do some preparations. These mainly consist of giving your shawl a wash, since the FO must be a tad moist for the best blocking results. For completenes’s sake below how I go about it. If you’d like pictures of these steps, please visit the tutorial on blocking an asymmetrical shawl.

1. First I fill the sink with some lukewarm to warm water and add a dash of wool wash. Put the shawl into the water and let it rest for about 10-15 minutes to make sure the fabric is completely saturated with water.
2. Next, rinse the shawl. Don’t use cold water for this, as “shocking” warm wool may cause it to felt. If your yarn bleeds dye a bit, you can add a splash of vinegar to the rinse water to help fix it. After rinsing, gently squeeze excess water out of your project. Don’t wring it! This may damage the fibers, causing breakage.
3. Spread out your towel and place the shawl on top of half of it. Fold the second half of the towel over your shawl and roll it up like a sausage. Squeeze the roll well to transfer most of the wetness from the shawl to the towel. With bigger projects, I find it helps to actually stand a bit on it.

Also, prepare your blocking mats by laying them down in the shape and size needed for your project. I prefer to do that in my workroom because it can be closed off against “helping” cats.

Blocking a triangle shawl step by step

And the result is a beautifully blocked Strawberry Finch shawl! This how to go about blocking a triangle shawl.

And that hole?

I took a bit of extra yarn and did some duplicate stitch over a couple of stitches on the side of the hole. Then I caught the stitches in a manner very similar to how it should have been. The yarn ends I hid in those wavy decrease lines. Close up, you can see they’re a tad heavier than the other ones. But it’s quite invisible if you don’t know it’s there. Yay!