Shawl knitting

“How do they get that little triangle shape into the knit?” I remember asking myself when I first saw Purl Soho’s bandana cowl. Midway through the Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief by Orange Flower Yarn, I’m looking forward to finding out. Or, rather, I’m learning that the kerchief ‘triangle’ is the result of a series of increases around a midpoint-stitch, and at the edges. How cool is this?

The Brass and Steam kerchief shawl, a gift for a relative, has been a fun first shawl to work on. 

Worked flat, each knit row produces 2 YOs and 2 M1’s; each purl row yields another 2 YOs. In other words, the thing takes on size fast. Before I knew it, the 2 cast-on stitches that began the shawl had literally turned into 200 without a fuss. It’s mysterious how little of that growth I actually noticed. This shawl engages one of my favourite kinds of knitting – what I like to call subliminal knitting, or the knitting that happens just under your radar of perception. There’s an internally-generated endurance to this knitting; its quality of unobtrusiveness made for a lot of stitches in a short amount of time (the rows are getting longer and longer, so maybe I’ve spoken too soon?).

This shawl is the kind of knit that is “growing up too fast” and has you wondering, with the necessary headshake, where all the time has gone. Who knows?

Wishing you lots of good making-time in the days ahead.