Noro Silk Garden 4-ply Shawl

This week I have finished something else – the shawl that I have been knitting for several weeks.

The pattern was on the front cover of Noro magazine Issue 5 (Fall/Winter 2014).  The original was knitted in much brighter colours and a completely different yarn.

It is called a Garter Triangle Shawl and was supposed to be “Easy”.  It wasn’t easy at all.  I know a garter stitch shawl sounds easy and normally I wouldn’t worry about tackling a project described as “Advanced”, but I wanted something easy – something I could knit whilst chatting.   I like the design and eventually I managed to knit it correctly – but to start with it is difficult – not easy.  The reason is that because it is in garter stitch - every row seems to the same but  you need to increase on some rows and not on others.

To solve the problem of mixing up the back and the front – I put a safety pin on the front, but it is still easy to go wrong when you get to a marker and are not paying attention – you can increase a stitch on rows when you shouldn’t and vice versa.  Every time you get to a marker – you have to look for the safety pin to decide whether to increase or not.  Alternate rows are just garter stitch – but it is not natural to just do garter stitch- you have to fight the urge to increase.

Unfortunately – you need to increase correctly – so that the holes come out in the right place.  I must admit there is the odd row when I found I had too many stitches and I just knit 2 together to get rid of one rather than take it out again.

I am pleased with the result and I would recommend the pattern - but if you try it – don’t expect it to be easy!