This shawl made with an entrelac stitch turned out gorgeous. The pattern I sort of used (I say sort of because I didn't follow the pattern the way it was written) was from Jojoland, desiged by Lijuan Jing, but, as usual, I made some changes to the original pattern that suited my taste better. The yarn is Jojoland's Rhythm, color 09. It is a self-stripping yarn that makes for a beautiful effect with the entrelac pattern.
The original pattern called for 10 balls, but the shawl actually took 12. So beware. If you have knitted an entrelac pattern before and are familiar with the technique to achieve this entrelac/trellis effect, then you probably won’t have trouble with the pattern the way it is written. However, if like me, you had never before ventured into the land of entrelac, the pattern did nothing to enlighten me or allow me to knit this shawl. Faced with this dilemma, and having made the investment in the yarn and the pattern, and really wanting to actually knit the thing, I went on a hunting expedition to see if I could find better instructions on how to master this knitting technique. I hunted through my books and in the “Knitter’s Bible” by Claire Crompton I found some instructions that were more friendly, but I was still not able to quite wrap my head around how to do the thing.
So, I went looking on The Net and found a wonderful blog that had step-by-step instructions with pictures of every step along the way. That did the trick. The blog with these fabulous instructions on how to do entrelac is a blog called KnittyOtter, (just click on the link to go to her tutorial). Her instructions are great. To make the shawl is a little different than to make a rectangle (which a scarf is).
This particular shawl is a triangle. The way you accomplish this is by not doing the side triangles as you would to make a scarf, instead you are binding off the last square on each side so that you eventually end up with one square, thus, forming a triangular shawl. This shawl is not a project for a beginner. In fact, I am an experienced knitter and it took me quite a while of fooling around with the instructions until I figured out what I was doing. Once I figured it out though, it really was a piece of cake. It is the initial trying to wrap your head around the whole doing one square at a time and then picking up stitches on the side of that square and then working that until the next one that is complicated at first but then becomes second nature. I know, I know, what I just wrote makes no sense if you are not familiar with the technique. And I am not even going to try to explain the technique here since the KnittyOtter site does such a great job of doing it, so I am not going to attempt to reinvent a wheel that is already rolling.
The other thing that I did totally different from what the Jojoland pattern called for is that the pattern calls for knitting the ribbing separately and then attaching it to the shawl. The only reason for this is that they have these goofy loops on the bottom of the ribbing. Frankly those loops seem like knob catchers to me. I could see myself getting caught on anything and everything, that plus the whole idea of knitting the ribbing separate and then doing a whole attaching it to the body of the shawl by sewing it was totally not appealing. Instead, I used a 60 inch circular Audi needle and picked up stitches at the edge of the shawl and proceeded to do the ribbing. It is a much easier way of doing things and I didn’t want the annoying loops on the bottom anyway. So, my finished product, in fact, turned out gorgeous and with less fuzz than the pattern called for. I purchased both the pattern and the yarn from “Webs” Webs is a great site for yarn and other knitting supplies. They also have a paper catalogue that they send out every so often, plus if you sign up for their e-mails they keep you posted on their sales and new yarns, etc. Happy knitting and I hope that my comments, tips and photos here are of help.
