Fringed Shawl – Little Tip

Yesterday I received a lovely comment from Tracey about the fringed shawl that I recently made and also a query about the pattern. So it struck me that maybe other people are also having the same problem.

The pattern is from Issue 4 of The Art of Crochet partworks. Now the pattern itself is easy but the really hard part is keeping the diamonds evenly matched and spaced out as you increase. I must admit I found it very difficult at first, just couldn’t get my head round it. I reckon I must’ve ripped back at least a dozen times before it finally clicked.  It took an awful lot of staring at the photo illustrations in the pattern and lots of counting  and scribbling but this is what I did.

Have another look at the close up picture of the pattern detail below and see if you can follow where I’m going

There are 3 rows to the diamond. Notice that when you complete the row that ends the top of the diamond, the following row will commence the bottom of the next set of diamonds. With me so far? Cool

Now, the open weave pattern of 5ch, 1 dc in next 5ch arch is what separates the diamonds. If you notice, when you place the bottom of the diamond it is exactly 2 sets of open weave from the top of the diamond on the previous row. Using this you should be able to work out where to start placing the bottom of the diamonds as you increase at the sides.

So, going back to the original pattern instructions in the part work. The 8th row and 9th row would finish the diamonds following the pattern as set. The next set of diamonds would start on the 10th row and the open weave would be repeated as follows.  5ch, 1dc in 2 ch sp, (5ch, 1 dc in next 5ch arch) 5 times. I then placed the diamonds as set in the pattern.

The next set would start on row 13. This time I would start the row as above but work the open weave 4 times. The set after would start in row 16, repeat open weave 3 times. Row 19 twice, then row 22, once. Then start again at 5 times.

I found that this worked for me and all the diamonds matched up perfectly.

I hope I’ve explained that properly as I’m pretty lousy at written instructions.

Hope that helps anybody who’s stuck with this out there. If not you can always leave me a message on the blog and I’ll try to explain myself better directly in a personal email.