Design ideas looking for a good home, No.2

Last March, I posted some ideas for shawl layouts to clear out my mental clutter. I have no idea if they sparked inspiration for anyone else, but that’s okay. It’s time to do it again!

I’ve been thinking about different ways of making shawls that have a curved shape to fit nicely on the shoulders. I have a pattern in the works for one, in fact. But here’s two more that I don’t think I’ll have time for any time soon.

Shawl layouts looking for a good home.

In both cases, almost all the triangles have a narrower shaping than usual in shawls – most knitted triangle shawls increase one stitch at the edge of each triangle, every other row. I drew these narrower triangles so that they increase (or decrease, if working from the wide end toward the point) one stitch at each edge every fourth row.

Borrowing a schematic notation from Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, here’s how that looks in practice:

Rate of increase for a narrower knitted triangle.

(The circle indicates a row with a shaping increase near the edge, the vertical line indicates a row with no shaping increases near the edge.)

Not all stitch patterns work in either this triangle style or in the one that goes with the usual wider one, but both these layouts can accommodate different rates of increase. One increase at the edge of each sixth row? Or each third row? (Or do the following edge sequence: increase, knit, increase, knit three rows, increase, knit, increase, knit three rows…)

Shawl layouts looking for a good home.

The rectangular portions in this shawl could use any of a number of types of rectangular stitch patterns, regardless of proportion.

25 May 2017: I’m pleased to say that I now know of at least one pattern using this shaping: Spears of Barahir (Ravelry link), by Raven Knits Designs.

Shawl layouts looking for a good home.

The edge triangles on this one have the outer edge increasing one stitch every other row, but no stitches along the inner line, as shown with the schematic notation.

25 May 2017: I ended up using this shawl shape for my Sycamore Creek (Payhip link) pattern; you might see it in future designs as well.

One could substitute the shaping for half a crescent shawl at each edge of either of these shapes, for that matter.