Waiting For Rain Hack (Pattern) [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

Hacking Waiting For Rain

www.softsweaterknits.com

1

This document is more of a recipe for how to do some of the mods I’ve been hearing people are interested in doing! It will also include the mods that I used to make the striped two colour Briggs & Little Sport version of Waiting for Rain. A few notes though, this document is not straight forward like how the actual Waiting for Rain pattern is. It’s tips and tricks, not directly written out step-by-step instructions. Even for the mods I used on the two coloured sample. If you’re wanting to work a written out step-by-step pattern I strongly recommend you work Waiting for Rain without any of these modifications. That being said, this pattern is VERY adaptable! There’s lots of room to change yarn weight, add more lace, work it in two colour stripes or even three colour stripes. Once you understand the concept of the shawl you will be able to modify it to suit your creative spirits! Details for the Briggs & Little sample of Waiting for Rain. Yarn: 2 skeins of Briggs & Little Sport in colourway “Sheeps Grey”, 1 skein of Briggs & Little Sport in colourway “Fawn”. Needles: 4.5mm (US7) circular needles. Gauge: 20 stitches x 28 rows =4” (10cm) square knit flat in garter stitch and blocked. Size of shawl: 90” (2.3m) along the wingspan of the shawl, 25” (64cm) deep at the deepest point.

Can I make it bigger? There are a few ways you can make it bigger 1) Add more WS/RS rows (garter) in between the short row lace sections.

2) Add more short row lace sections in. 3) Use a thicker yarn or a larger needle size. 4) Add more WS/RS rows (garter) at the very end of the shawl before you cast off. Substituting yarns: Honestly I think this shawl would look lovely in all types of yarn. The original was worked in shiny, gorgeous, fingering weight yarn (Plucky Primo Fingering) and the striped sample was worked in lovely rough single-ply Briggs & Little Sport. If you want to do this pattern in a thinner yarn (lace) or a thicker yarn (worsted, bulky) then just choose a needle that’s a little bit bigger than the size that the ball-band calls for. So worsted is typically a 4.5mm (US 7) or 5mm (US 8) you could go for a 5.5mm (US 9), Bulky uses a needle size like a 6mm (US 10) or 6.5mm (US 10.5) so you could go for a 7mm. Using a different weight yarn than the pattern calls for does mean that it can be hard to say how much yarn you’re going to need. Changing the gauge will change the yarn consumption. I would just play around and just make sure you have lots of yarn on hand if you’re planning on doing yarn substitutions.

softsweater knits - all rights reserved

2

The first building block: The crescent shawl shape. This shawl is worked from the top down, and it’s made larger by increasing at the beginning and end of the row. In the pattern the WS and RS rows are the rows you’ll need to keep repeating to create the crescent shape. Wrong Side (WS) row: K2, YO, knit until last 2 stitches, YO, K2. Right Side (RS) row: K2, KYOK into the the next stitch (which is a yarn over), knit until last 3 stitches, KYOK into the next stitch, K2.

Adding stripes: To add stripes you just start knitting with a contrasting colour on a RS row. For small stripes, like how I have in the Briggs & Little sample, you’re just working two rows. The RS row you started the contrasting colour on - and then the WS row directly afterwards. Then you change back to the main colour. If you want bigger stripes, just work however many rows you feel like, making sure that you just change your colours on a RS row.

You’re increasing two stitches on the WS row and four stitches on the RS row. If you were just to work the increases on either side you would have a nicely shaped crescent shawl. If you’re new to shawl shaping techniques like this one I recommend knitting a tiny version. Casting on this shawl and following the instructions for the WS and RS rows until you start to see the shape take place.

Lace short rows in a contrasting colour: There are two ways that I’m going to mention:

Tight top edge fix: If you notice the top edge of the shawl is feeling tight when you pull on it there’s an easy, quick fix. On the RS rows put a YO in between your first and last K2 stitches. When you work the WS row drop the YO. It will make your 2 stitch border a lot looser and less likely to feel tight!

1) start knitting with the contrasting colour at the beginning of the row, so including the lace short rows in a stripe that will extend to either end of your project. 2) Midway through the row, right before you’re about to start working the lace stitches, swap to your contrasting colour. This way will need lots of ends woven in as you’re starting with a contrasting colour in the middle of a row. Work the rest of the lace short rows and then switch back to the main colour once you’re done working them.

softsweater knits - all rights reserved

3

Adding or removing repeats from the Adding more lace short rows: lace short row chart: Top secret tip: You can put a lace short row The best way to do this is by looking at the section at any point in the shawl. You could charts. The charts have two sections. The stack them on top of each other, you could bottom section and the top section. Both the have multiple per row. All you need is to bottom section and the top section have their be on a RS row and to make sure you have own red-outlined repeat area. enough stitches to work the lace section, wherever you want to put it. The chart, at it’s smallest, needs 88 stitches to work. You need 5 repeats of the Result of adding more short row red-outlined area on the bottom to have 1 lace sections: repeat on the top of the chart. The more short row lace sections that you So the very smallest you can make the chart add, the deeper the shawl will get. is with 5 repeats on the bottom and 1 on the top. Because you’re adding depth every time you add a short row, and you’re not To work more repeats is easy. Every time you increasing on the edges to add to the add a repeat of the bottom red outlined area, length of the shawl. you just need to add one more repeat to the top. So if you have 6 repeats underneath you’ll have 2 on top. 7 underneath, 3 on top, etc, etc.

softsweater knits - all rights reserved

4

Lace-y picot-style cast-off: You may hear rumours of an “alternate” cast-off. Here it is. I heavily modified this cast-off from one found in a book many moons ago. I originally used this version in my pattern, Shine! You can see the traditional version on my patterns Late August, or Solarium. I kinda love this cast-off, canya tell? This is a knitted-on cast-off, which is different than any regular cast-off because you’ll be working each picot one at a time from side to side and joining with live stitches from the edge of your shawl as you go. To start you should be on a RS row. Cast on 3 stitches using the knitted cast-on method.

softsweater knits - all rights reserved

Row 1) K2, K2tog with one live stitch from body of shawl. Row 2) K1, double yarn over, K2tog. Row 3) YO, K1, knit and purl into the same stitch, K3tog with two live stitches from body of shawl. Row 4) K5. Row 5) Bind off 2, K1, K2tog with one live stitch from the body of the shawl. Repeat rows 2-5 until you’ve worked all the stitches from the body of the shawl. You’ll still have some stitches on your needle once you’re done working the knitted edging, cast them off in the usual fashion and weave in the ends!

www.softsweaterknits.com

5