The official start date for our Greenwood Shawl KAL is fast approaching—Monday is August 1 and that’s when we get to start knitting this awesome asymmetrical shawl from designer Martha Wissing. If you haven’t already pulled together your materials, there’s still plenty of time to head to your local yarn store to choose your Berroco Ultra® Alpaca and purchase the Portfolio Volume 2 book (you can also purchase the individual PDF if your store participates in the Ravelry In-Store program, just ask!).
You’ll need six skeins of the worsted weight Berroco Ultra Alpaca, and you can use any color you choose, though we recommend a lighter color to show off all the delightful stitch definition in this shawl. The original sample as seen in the book uses the Barley color; I’ll be knitting mine in Pink Berry Mix. There’s already some discussion about color choice in the Berroco Lovers Ravelry group; if you can’t decide on a color, be sure to share your thoughts there and get some feedback from other knitters!
If you already have the Greenwood Shawl pattern in hand, take a moment to look over the pattern and identify any parts of it that you think present learning opportunities. For instance, the shawl starts with a picot cast-on. I’ve worked a few picot edges in my years as a knitter, but I don’t remember if I’d ever worked this particular cast on before, so I took a minute to try it out. Turns out, it’s a really easy cast on and adds a lovely little detail to this shawl. Follow along with this video to learn how to work the picot cast-on method.
I’ll be sharing more tutorials as we work through this shawl, and I’ll be sharing my progress updates here on Wednesdays, beginning August 10. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions along the way, either as a comment to this post, in the Ravelry group, or on social media using #GreenwoodKAL. I’m looking forward to chatting with you about our shawl knitting!
-Amy P
So looking forward to this and having it displayed in my shop ; )
Looking forward to starting tomorrow!
Love this shawl!
Emily, Have finished the first leaf pattern – could you explain a YO followed by a purl stitch also – my impression of Greenwood shawl is a rectangle shape – why the decreases? Thank you
Hi Norma,
To work a YO followed by a purl stitch, you can do one of two things: either wrap the yarn “backwards” (as in, bring it forward, then up over the needle, and then forward again so you’re in position to purl), or just skip the YO between the Knit stitch and the purl stitch and pick up the bar on the following side—you’ll have to remember to get all of the stitches as you’re working them, but this keeps the YOs looking even. If I work the YO before the purl stitch, my YO tends to be a little loose. (This is probably something that would be better suited for a video, so I’ll see what I can do about making that happen.)
Greenwood is an asymmetrical shawl—it starts out wide at one end and gets narrower as you work. You could omit the decreases at the left edge and make it a rectangular shape. Hope you’re enjoying the knitting! – Amy
Emily thank you for the immediate reply. Yes a video would be of assistance to those of us who are more visual than text orientated. The explanation re the decreases has planted a seed that may grow into two shawls – one with and one without decreases! My work does not exactly fit into the KAL – for economic reasons my yarn is from my stash a #4 wool using 5mm. Will this result a larger or smaller finished shawl?
The size of the shawl depends on the gauge you’re getting—I’m using Ultra Alpaca, which is a worsted weight (#4) yarn. I’m knitting on size 4 mm needles, but I know my gauge is usually on the loose side, so other people might knit this shawl on size 5 mm. Odds are your shawl may end up just slightly larger than the listed measurements—check the gauge that you’re getting against the gauge listed in the pattern to double-check.
o.k. then I might just be on track. thank you – will watch for the YO video
Emily, have now worked the second group of leaves. Is it correct to have only 10 leaves compared to the 19 leaves in the first group? The only decreases made were those actually indicated in the pattern lines.
Hi Norma,
I had 18 leaves in the first group, and I have 16 leaves in the second group. How many stitches are on your needle? -Amy
after row 24 (second time around) there are 82 stitches on my needle
Hi Norma,
Just to make sure I’m following correctly, you have worked Rows 1-76 once, and started over with Row 9 and are now on Row 24? You haven’t worked through Row 76 a second time? If you are only on the second pass of Row 24, I think you might be decreasing too much. On the second pass of Row 24, you should have 121 stitches. I’ve written out the stitch counts in a couple of Ravelry posts and will also put them in a blog post I’m working on that will go live today.
http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/berroco-lovers/3457026/76-100#95
http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/berroco-lovers/3457026/101-125#106
Amy, I went back to row 44 with 133 stitches. Worked bobble row 45 and row 46 There are 83 stitches left on my needle. Must be working row 45 incorrectly – between each bobble there is one stitch (Have always avoided patterns with bobble stitches so maybe there is a mental block)
Hi Norma,
Bobbles are tricky! I just recorded a video on how to work the bobble row in this pattern—I won’t be able to edit and post it until next week, sadly. Make sure you’re increasing the right number of stitches with the kfbf (knit into the front, back, and then front of the stitch)—you work that two times in a row and that gives you 6 stitches out of 2. Then turn the work, purl those 6 stitches. Turn the work again, and knit 1, slip slip knit, knit two together, knit 1 (four stitches remain). Turn the work again, purl 2 together, then purl 2 together (two stitches remain). Knit those two stitches, then knit the next three stitches before working the bobble again.
Emily, My husband is an expert cross stitch worker AND he taught himself to knit. This afternoon he sat down with me and seriously examined my progress. You have confirmed what he found. I missed th second K for each bobble. Thank you – will continue on.
Glad you got it figured out Norma! -Amy
Amy have finished shawl. I found the video for making bobbles, with text rather than audio, most helpful. This KAL expanded my knitting horizons by the combination of various patterns. Look forward to the next Berroco KAL
Hi Norma! I’m so glad to hear you found the video to be helpful, and that you were able to finish your shawl. I’m sure it’s lovely! We do have another KAL in the plans for October, so stay tuned. 😀