Hap Shawls are traditional square shawls usually worked in garter stitch throughout. They generally have a garter stitch square at the centre with a lace border and edging added on around the square. They can be worked from the outside in or the inside out. The designs I was looking at were worked from the inside out starting with a garter stitch square knitted diagonally with increases and decreases. The edge stitches where picked up all around the garter stitch square and a lace border, typically Old Shale, was knitted out from the garter stitch square. The shawl was finished with an edging which also cast off the border lace stitches.
I decided I didn't want to knit a square shawl, I would rather have a triangular shawl hence the half hap. I worked out the stitch patterns I wanted to use but I have to admit I didn't work any gauge swatches before I started the shawl. I also decided not to use a traditional Shetland yarn but a hand dyed yarn from an indie dyer.
I have a fairly local yarn shop 'Handmade Studios' in Rowlands Castle who stock a range of indie dyed yarn and every month have a number of 'dyers of the month' featured in the shop so there is always something new to see. I visited the shop and bought a number of skeins including two skeins dyed by Felt Fusion . The yarn is an extra fine merino/silk blend 4ply/fingering weight yarn. One skein was a semi-solid reds colour and the other was rainbow colours.
I chose the semi-solid red to be the colour for the centre garter stitch section. I also wanted to put some lace into this garter stitch triangle so worked out a repeatable motif based on the 'Cat's Paw' lace pattern. The garter stitch triangle starts with one stitch and increases by one stitch every row using the yarn over increase method.
I did work out the placement of the lace pattern and how it would repeat on a chart using the Stitchmastery software which I use to create all of my charts now. The knitting of the triangle went smoothly and I decided once I had 6 repeats of the Cat's Paw pattern that would be large enough. The triangle stitches were but on a holder as I still hadn't decided how I wanted to finish the shawl.
I then picked up stitches from the edge yarn overs for the border pattern and started to work the Old Shale border. As I was knitting I started to feel that the centre triangle could do with being a bit larger and the edges of the knitting seemed to be quite tight, distorting the centre triangle. I decided to undo the border and add another pattern repeat of the Cat's Paw pattern.
While working on this new section I also realised I needed more stitches before starting to knit the border pattern. I can pick up one stitch for every ridge each side, but the length of the edge of the triangle is considerably longer than the vertical measurement of rows up the centre of the triangle. Therefore I need more stitches for the border than the number of loops to pick up.
When I started the border the second time, I picked up the stitches as before but on the next row I increased stitches to match with the edge length. The knitting now sits much better as you can see from the images below. I now need to finish knitting the border and then add the lace edging to cast everything off. When I have done this I will write an update and show the finished shawl.
Right side of reworked garter stitch triangle.
Wrong side of garter stitch triangle.
