Some people bring home t-shirts as souvenirs from their travels (boring!) while I bring home something much more interesting--yarn. I always seek out the lys wherever I am so I can throw a little business their way. This time I was visiting Moscow, Idaho, and stopped in to the awesome little lys there: The Yarn Underground. I fell in love with the deep gorgeous colors of their house brand yarn and had to indulge in a variegated skein and a matching solid (among other things!). And in so doing, set several intriguing design challenges for myself.

What to make was easy: time for another shawl. But how to integrate the two yarns together so that they truly complemented each other while still shining on their own was a big concern. More importantly, how should I tackle that variegated yarn without it eating up my pattern and rendering it invisible? How do I still work in some lace into the design? And: can I make this pattern simple enough that it can be knit to any size depending on how much yarn is available?

Well, I’m happy to say that I solved all of those design challenges—yay! The result is this triangular shawl, Pride of the Palouse, which I have named for the unique geographic region in that area of Idaho, the Palouse. By using the variegated yarn for the central portion on its own, the colors can streak and pool as they like and really show off. Just plain stockinette or garter stitch is rather boring, IMHO, so I have used an easy to memorize stitch pattern that results in vertical stripes of stockinette and garter stitch. The solid color edging complements the central triangle and adds some lace without being fussy. What’s more, the edging is knit sideways onto the live stitches of the central triangle, so there is no sewing at the end and no set size limit either.

This shawl is knit from the top down starting with a garter tab. After the central portion is finished, edging is knit onto the live stitches at the bottom. Stitches are then picked up for the top garter stitch border. The shawl as shown was made with 2 skeins of fingering yarn, using up the variegated yarn in the center and using about ¾ of the solid. Finished measurements as shown: ca. 60” x 30”. The lacy border measures 5” wide at the points.

If you wish to make a bigger shawl, however, it’s easy to just keep on knitting and use more yarn. All of the stitch patterns used are amenable to additional repeats without needing to calculate anything.

Yarn recommendations:
Main color for the central triangle—variegated fingering yarn! A little or a lot of variegation, it doesn’t matter—don’t hold back if you’ve been saving that special hand dyed skein. This is the project! The contrasting color for the edging should be a matching solid color of fingering that picks up a hue in the variegated yarn.