Bella -shawl

This is the first pattern I've ever written, so if you have any suggestions for corrections about the pattern or the text, I'd be happy to hear them. Also let me know, if the charts are too small/large, or don't show off correctly.

I came up with this shawl inspired by the rectangular shawls in Victorian Lace Today. I'd been dreaming about designing a shawl for a while, but had to admit, that designing a triangular shawl went way over my head. So when I realized, that shawls could be constructed like this as well (not much of an epiphany as epiphanies go :) ) Bella got started. The actual designing was surprisingly easy. I already had an idea what the shawl should look like and the rest was just about finding the right patterns to suit that idea. For yarn I chose Wetterhoff's Silvia, which is definitely one of my favourite laceweight yarns. I named the shawl Bella, because I knitted most of it watching "Mi gorda bella", a Venezuelan telenovela that I'm completely addicted to.

But enough with the ranting and on to the


Pattern:


Size: About 170 x 70 cm

Yarn: 3 skeins/150 g Wetterhoff Silvia (70 % wool, 30 % silk), colour 917 (red). About 500 m/skein, which makes 1500 m for the whole project.

Or similar laceweight yarn.

3,5 mm (80 cm circular) needles.

3 mm crochet hook for the edging


(Notes about altering the shawl's length to your liking:

To lengthen or shorten the shawl, you can add or delete as many repeats of Chart A as you like. Chart A and the pattern repeat of Chart B are both dividable by 8, so the stitch count will always match. You just have to pick up 24 stitches more or less for each repeat of Chart A you add or delete.)


Click the charts to make them larger.


Now let's take a look at how the shawl is constructed:


Chart A is knitted first. Then, according to Chart B, the centre is knitted to the side of A. Lastly Chart A is knitted again, knitting the stitches of the last row of B together with A, one at a time.


CO loosely 73 stitches. Purl 1 row.

Work the 48 row repeat of Chart A 12 times. Bind of loosely, matching the tension of the CO row. Cut yarn.


Now, with right side facing pick up the slip stitches of the straight side of the piece you've just knitted as well as 1 extra stitch from the CO and BO rows. You should have 290 stitches. Purl 1 row.

Start with row 1 of Chart B. Repeat the 8 stitch repeat, indicated with red borders in the chart, a total of 35 times. Work the 8 row repeat of chart B 4 times.


Knit 1 row.

Keeping the 290 stitches on the needle (and without cutting the yarn), CO loosely 73 stitches. Purl 1 row. Work the 48 row repeat of Chart A for 12 times. On the WS rows, knit 1 shawl stitch together with the last stitch of Chart A, as indicated in the chart. BO loosely, matching the tension of the CO row.


If you want, you can crochet a picot edging to both ends of the shawl. Make sure that you crochet the edge loosely. Otherwise you'll have trouble when you block the shawl.

Attach yarn, *3 sc, 3 ch, 1 sl st to the first ch.* Repeat to end, 3 sc. Cut yarn. Crochet similar edging to the other end.



Block to measurements.