Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Shawl Borders: A Third Method

As I begin the design of the Black Widow border, I am also thinking about the general construction. There are several ways to assemble these shawls, but the two methods under consideration are:

1. Pick up all the stitches around the four sides and knit circularly. This method requires purling every other round to keep the garter stitch background correct.

2. Pick up all the stitches and knit around, turn and knit back. This method requires grafting the fourth corner upon completion of the border.

As I wandered around the Web this morning, I found this very interesting post describing another method of working a Shetland border. The author of these posts works the fourth corner with a clever trick, so the entire border can be knit around, but there is, in fact, no grafting required.

There are two links: here and here. The first has the description, the second, the pictures.

Tell me what you think. I may swatch this in heavier yarn and see how it works.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

clever. i've avoided garter ground on my borders to avoid purling those gazillion stitches.

Anonymous said...

That's how I do picture knitting in the round (i.e. for the monogram in the Weasley sweaters).

Sue said...

I've done exactly that when working shawl borders, and it works a treat. Isn't it amazing how many people can, on their own, unvent the same technique!

fleegle said...

Janice, I looked at my Orenburg book this morning, and remembered that I once tried to make the sample and couldn't figure it out. You may be correct about the similarity.

I don't mind purling either, and the outer border pattern is already written with purl rows, but that's easily converted. I want to swatch it and see what it looks like first.