These patterns are all of my own design, and I retain the rights to them. Feel free to print them out for your personal use, but please do not sell them, repost them without my permission, or claim them as your own work. --Lizzi Jennings, 2005
The Amazing(!) Inverted V Shawl
No picture until I knit another one--the first was a gift that's currently beyond my reach.
This is one of the many variations of the oddball shawl, with the stripes forming--you guessed it--an inverted V running up the center back. It's knit in three sections: the center back, left triangle and right triangle.
Materials
~anywhere from 800-1500 yards of assorted yarns, depending on gauge and desired size
needles of an appropriate size to give a slightly loose gauge with chosen yarns
Gauge
Not critical, but should be slightly loose for the yarn. Just decide on the length you want the center back of the shawl to be (from the base of your neck down)
Finished Measurements
You decide! It will be roughly 2x as wide (tip to tip) as it is deep.
*Pattern*
Cast on 3 stitches, mark center stitch. On every RS row, increase one stitch on each side of center stitch (yo for double row of eyelets marking the center back, M1 for a solid piece). On WS rows, knit even. This increase pattern gives a square piece of knitting. Change yarns as needed to get the desired stripes.
If you're changing yarns every two rows (one ridge), you can leave long tails for fringe when you join new yarn, instead of trying to hide the ends. You can also do this even if you're not changing yarns that frequently, if you plan on adding more fringe later.
When the diagonal of the square (bottom point to current increase stitch) equals the desired back depth of the shawl, on WS row, knit into front and back of center stitch (inc 1) to get an even number of stitches and place marker between the two center stitches.
Begin decrease section: K to two stitches short of marker, K2tog. Slip remaining stitches onto a holder or waste yarn. Work back and forth, decreasing one stitch at the end of each RS row until two stitches remain on a WS row. Bind off. Return remaining stitches to needle.
Now, this is the part that took me a few minutes to figure out. If you were doing a solid color shawl, this wouldn't have been a problem--just attach the yarn at the center where you left off, and decrease at the beginning of the row instead of the end. But I wasn't--I did a fringe-as-you-go striped shawl, so the new colors had to start on the outer edge, and end there as well. But starting there necessitates one major change--working in all-purl rather than all-knit garter stitch. Before I figured that out, I thought I was going to have to try hiding a lot of ends at the neck edge, which didn't make me happy at all!
So, working in garter as described, begin each RS row with an SSK to decrease for the neck edge, and work the WS rows even. When only two stitches remain on a WS row, bind off knitwise. Weave in ends (if you have to!) and you're done!
