Harbour Taxi Shawl is an asymmetrical shawl. Designed by Alla Saenko it is available to buy on Ravelry or as a digital pattern in the shop.
It's mostly garter stitch but knitted in different sections with lots of interesting bits to keep you motivated - but it's still quite straightforward.
It's a decent size and can be worn in different ways.
You start with a few stitches and increase up to the full width. You work eyelets, some old shale lace (an impressive but simple lace pattern) and short rows.
Short rows are when you don't knit all the stitches on your needles. You literally turn your needles around and go back along the row.
There are different ways to work short rows which aim to minimise the hole made by turning mid row.
The short rows in the Harbour Taxi Shawl are worked using the wrap and turn method and it's fully explained in the pattern.
The designer also specifies a stretchy cast off and this is described in the pattern too.
I used one ball of Crazy Zauberball in shade 2542. This is a self-striping 4ply with long runs of colour. It works really well over an increasing number of stitches giving thick and thin stripes. It works exceptionally well in short row sections.
The lace sections are written and charted. For this shale lace I just used the written instructions as it's very straightforward and you can see what you're trying to achieve.
You must block this shawl. Straight of the needles it looks small and underwhelming as the combination of different stitches makes it crumpled and undefined.
Harbour Taxi Shawl unblocked
First you must wash the shawl so all the fibres are soaked. I used Eucalan liquid detergent which means I can soak the shawl and then simply drain the water. I don't need to rinse the detergent out.
I take my wet shawl and squish it in a dry towel to remove as much water as possible. This towel drying makes it easier to handle and accelerates the drying time.
I then laid out my foam blocking mats (actually kids playmats from B&Q but often found in large supermarkets too).
I used blocking wires and pins to stretch the shawl into it's triangular shape. Stretching opens up the lace, straightens the edges and if you stretch it hard (like I did) it creates an incredible drape and floaty feel. And obviously makes the shawl much larger!
Blocking wires do make it slightly easier to achieve the long straight edge and it was quicker to evenly pull out the pointy bits of the short edge by weaving a wire through the peaks, then pinning out the wire.
To pin the wires I used Knit Blockers. These are 8 (or 4) pins joined by a 'block'. I used them (without wires) on the top edge of the Souvenir Shawl.
I didn't use a wire along the top of the Souvenir Shawl as there were no obvious holes to weave the wire into. I was worried I'd actually distort the edge more. For the Harbour Taxi Shawl there is an obvious 'hole' so I used the wires.
For the pointy bits along the long edge I used individual T-pins, aiming to keep the points in line with the stripes created by the yarn.
If you're thinking that looks like a phaff, you are right. 😆
BUT it makes a HUGE difference.👇
Harbour Taxi Shawl blocked
You can really see the impact of using a self striping yarn for this type of wavy lace stitch pattern.
I definitely recommend Harbour Taxi Shawl for a more-than-interesting-garter-stitch project that's not tricky or if you fancy trying out lace or short rows.
Plus it has a wow-factor
To recap
You can buy a copy of Harbour Taxi Shawl on Ravelry or as a digital pattern in the Pittenweem shop.
You can buy Crazy Zauberball here. I used 1 skein of shade 2542. I had 5g left, so you do need at least 400m of yarn. You can see our other 4plys here.
I used a 3.5mm circular needle. You'll need at least 80cm to hold your stitches. I started with a 60cm and moved to 100cm as the number of stitches increased.
We do sell blocking wires in the shop but they're not available online as I can't post them easily.
