Lately I’ve been hooked on the mockumentary series “What We Do in the Shadows” on Hulu that follows the misadventures of a modern day group of vampires on Staten Island. Nadja (played by the outstanding Natasha Demetriou) is the main female lead character and she is a delightfully sexy, strong-willed and campy character who is always dressed in rich Victorian finery. I was so taken with the beautiful costume design for the show in general and for Nadja in particular that wanted create my own contribution of a lacy shawl suitable for the character’s esthetic. Thus, the shawl displays some traditional shawl characteristics in being triangular and lacy while still bringing in the more unusual elements with boldly delimited motifs that are picked out with beads at the bottom.

Another challenge that I set for myself in this pattern was writing out each and every row. I had two reasons for this: Large or complex motifs almost never fit in neatly to the increasing edges of a triangular shawl. Often designers just leave the knitter to muddle through by writing something like “continue on in pattern as established”. This command can be very challenging if not outright problematic for many knitters leading to an unsightly mess as they attempt to do this thing without any real instructions at all. I wanted to eliminate ALL confusion and very specifically write out exactly what to do as you add new motifs at the growing edges of two triangles. No confusion. No unsightly mess. Just new motifs growing neatly from the edges as shown in my photographs.

The second reason was to finally create a more complex shawl pattern for those knitters who can’t use charts for whatever reason. For every shawl pattern I publish, I always have a few folks who ask for completely written out instructions and not a chart(s) only or chart(s) in combination with written instructions. So here is your pattern, folks! I am actually still including charts for those who like to cross use them, but each chart will also be completely written out so that folks who can’t deal with charts can safely ignore them.

You should know, however, that writing up a knitting pattern for a shawl in this format had some unavoidable drawbacks for me as a designer. The first being that this pattern took much more time and effort to produce the final product than any of my previous shawl patterns. You will see this reflected in the price I have set for this pattern (sorry, not sorry). Another drawback is that this baby is LONG—30 pages when all is said and done. Nothing I can do about that—you want each and every last little instruction? Ok, but it’ll cost ya in length of the document. So those folks that fuss at me about long patterns and that they are using up their printing ink can just flounce right back out the door and give this pattern a pass.

This shawl is knit from the top down starting with a small garter tab and has a double triangle format that features a central “spine”. Lacy vines begin at the top of each triangle and extend downwards, develop paired leaves, flower buds and finally, fully open flowers. The buds and flowers are embellished with beads (optional). After moderate blocking, it measures 100” from tip to tip. I have chosen to use two allied colorways to create an ombre effect but you can certainly use just one color.

Please note that the stitch pattern charts and their written out directions are given in a separate pdf—be sure to download those as well (even if you’re not using the charts)! Thus you will need to download 2 pdfs to complete this project.