Shrug design in February issue of Knitting

I recently designed a shrug with a reversible cable rib pattern which was published in the February issue of Knitting magazine. The magazine only showed the cable pattern on one side, (the simpler cable pattern at that) so I thought I would upload some pictures to show both sides of the shrug.

This is the shrug on my maniquine work with the more complicated cable showing. Photographed from the front it doesn't show the pattern very well but the picture below taken of the back shows the pattern much better.

As you can see from the pictures one side of the shrug has a large diamond cable pattern whereas the other side of the shrug (the side pictured in the magazine) has columns of cables, see below.

The shrug was contsrtucted as a large rectangle with a buttonhole/button band along each of the long edges. The idea behind this was that the shrug could be worn in a number of ways. The most obvious way to wear it is to button the 2 sides to make the rectagle into a tub to wear as shown above. However it can also be worn by buttoning the right and left edges at the front so it is more of a stole or cape as shown below.

The third way of wearing the shrug is to button the left and right edge at the back so the shrug becomes more of a bolero shape. Unfortunately the magazine didn't show these alternative ideas but I hope you like them anyway.

In the original pattern I did also include some information about the casting on and casting off methods I used for the shrug. The rectangle starts and finishes with a knit 1 purl 1 rib so I used the knit 1, purl 1 invisible cast on and the sewn knit 1 purl 1 cast off.

I will try to post instructions for both these techniques in the next day or so but in the meantime I think you can see a demonstration of both the cast on and cast off on www.knit1.tv or I expect there are other demos on YouTube.