The Pres calls and says there's this meeting of the education committee and why don't I come. And since I haven't seen her in over a month I say Sure - one things leads to another and I found myself doing a class on the "Branching Out" scarf. But with a twist - see if you can "branch it out" into a shawl for an intermediate group of knitters. I does love me a challenge so this is what I came up with...
I combined the Branching Out (sort of) with the Annis (shaping...sort of). So here's my recipe without stepping on copyright infringement...
cast on...I used some Blackberry-Ridge lace weight and a size 8 needle to cast on using a long tail cast on and some stash beads. I turned to page 312 of A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara G. Walker - there it sits "Leaf Shadows" - this is a simplified version of the Branching Out Scarf - the difference is it uses a centered double decrease (slip the next two stitches together as if knitting, knit the next stitch, pass the two slipped stitches together over the stitch just knit) this makes for a much easier to remember lace pattern...
That means that I have a 19 stitch pattern and since I wanted it to look as familiar as possible I added a 3 stitch garter ridge. So I knit my swatch which turns out to be about 4 inches...which if you do the math means that my 19 repeats of 22 stitches plus 3 end stitches will yield a piece of knitting about 76 inches long. So I cast on using some stash beads on a size 8 needle, dropped down to a size 6 immediately after casting on - knit 3 ridges of garter (boring) and started knitting the lacy bits! Then life stepped in and my rectangle needed to be finished ASAP, so I'm panicked - yikers - I know I've knit an Annis before - why not use the short row shaping and get this thing done!!! But even that wasn't going to save me so before I started the shaping I kindda fudged...I needed to get rid of a bunch of stitches so...you know those 3 stitch garter bands between the lacy bits well I did a centered decrease which took it down to 1 stitch and then you know the centered decrease in the middle of the pattern well I threw in a centered decrease there too... so there went 76 stitches - which felt really good - so I did it again poof there went a total of 152 stitches all hidden in 3 ridges of garter stitch I did before starting the shaping...I was pressed for time and did a short cut - so sue me! Now take a look at the shaping of the freebie pattern called Annis over on Knitty - knit to the center of your shawl and begin the shaping. I'm not going to spell this out - the Annis pattern is not mine to publish or quote - but you know how to short row and I'm guessing you've passed math so go forth and knit! And to finish everything off I used an I-cord bind off!
Before blocking I gave my shawl a bath in some Pantene For Dry Hair shampoo (it's sheep hair people) and followed the lather, rinse, repeat instructions faithfully (just an aside - it does not say to complete this task in a washing machine - I took this as a hint and did my laundering in the kitchen sink) I then followed it up with some Pantene Conditioner - filled the sink 1/2 full of water, dissolved about 1/4 cup of conditioner in the water, plopped in the shawl and watched All My Children (time for some new writers - please - Rev Ricky - really?). Then rinsed the shawl in cool water - threw it in a salad spinner to get rid of the excess water and pinned it out to the bed. And since I was in a rush hit it was a fan - cause I needed to teach the next afternoon.
And as a final note - well kids - this same recipe/shawl will work with whatever stitch tickles your fancy - take out a stitch book and sub in something you like! Impress me - I double dog dare you!!!
