Leafy Canopy

The new issue of The Knitter is out. Leafy Canopy is my contribution to this issue. 

I love this shawl. It's a very simple triangle knitted from the hem up. The lacy pattern around the hem is easy but does have patterning on both right and wrong side rows. To make blocking easier make sure you do a stretchy cast on. I recommend using the long tail cast on over 2 needles to get a nice stretchy cast on that'll be easy to block. If you're not sure your cast on is stretchy enough, just cast on enough stitches for 2-3 pattern repeats and knit through the pattern repeat rows once then try to block it. If you can't pull the lace section out properly then it's too tight.

The triangular shape is achieved by working decreases on every other row. If you've every knitted a triangular top down shawl with increases either side of a central spin and at the beginning and end of a row then this is similar but instead of increasing you'll be decreasing.

This shawl also has a pretty lace insertion instead of just one single stitch for the 'spine stitch'. After the deep lace hem has been knitted the rest of the shawl is worked in stocking stitch. As every row gets shorter it gets quicker and quicker which also makes it a fun shawl to knit.

The yarn is The Fibre Company Canopy Fingering which is a 4ply weight yarn and was new to me but it felt so gorgeous and I love how it blocked out. We were originally going to use a different yarn but I'd mis-calculated and we ran out and couldn't get any more in the same colour so had to use a different yarn. This meant that, the Craftie Pixie, who knitted this sample for me had to knit it twice. Which made me feel really guilty. It's a good thing she's a superfast knitter.

Leafy Canopy is great worn over your shoulders as in the picture but you can also scrunch it up around your neck if you want to wear it as a scarf. It'll keep you warm on a chilly autumn morning.