I hope you tried the colorwork design element idea I shared with you yesterday, making matching hats and cowls can be so much fun with very little effort.
The Flying V Shawl is a free pattern from Universal Yarn, but it was not made for Amphora. I have been on a really huge shawl knitting kick lately, I’m not sure why, I don’t even wear shawls. Nevertheless, they are very fun to knit. I’ve been having a great time figuring out the construction and all the different shapes and patterns you can create with them.
The product photo of the Flying V from the Universal Yarn website.
The Flying V Shawl is a very basic pattern with a little bit of lace thrown in to jazz it up. The product photo is done with a solid and a variegated yarn, but I chose to knit this in two solid colors. I think the pattern is shown off a lot better with just two colors. The eyelets are really cute and, if you’re not used to that kind of pattern, you worked hard on them and want to show off.
The contrast of the dark blue with the light gray highlights the eyelets and puts a little sign on the shawl that says “Hey! Look here!.”
The eyelets along the edge of the Flying V shawl
As you may notice from my picture, my shawl is a little bit smaller than the pattern. I decided to end mine a little early and make a shawlette. If I were to knit any of the other projects I went over this week, I needed to stop relishing the shawl knitting and get a move on.
I think shawlettes are a lot more versatile than shawls. You can wear them as smaller shawls, but you can also finagle them into a scarf. It’s smaller, but the triangular shape makes it perfect to cover your hair when it’s snowing outside and you’re headed to a special function. Curly haired ladies who straighten their hair know what I’m talking about.
My Flying V sitting out blocking. You can’t tell from here, but I couldn’t find my T pins when I went to block this, so I had to use quilting pins. Talk about carefully pinning a garment.
On the other hand, nothing beats wrapping yourself in a warm luxurious shawl while the weather is doing crazy and freezing things outside. The Flying V has an amazing wingspan of 62” when it’s finished up. For those of you doing the arithmetic, that is just over 5’.
The pattern was made for a yarn the same weight as Amphora so there’s no arithmetic needed to adjust for gauge. I just followed the instructions on the pattern and there were no issues. The needle size recommended by the pattern for gauge is a US 5 [3.75mm] and the needle size on the ball band is a US 6 [4mm] so it isn’t too far off. I liked the fabric that came out, it was not too dense, but not too open. The yarn’s halo really makes the shawl look warm and fuzzy.
Amphora colors Dusky and Blue Shadow looking cozy for the winter months.
If you’re looking into shawl knitting, the Flying V is a great pattern to start with. If you’re a very beginner knitter looking at starting a shawl pattern, you can definitely do it without the eyelettes and just knit a stripe of a different color. This is one of the reasons I love shawls, the patterns are so easy to adjust.
This is part 4 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 3: Taking colorwork design elements from a cowl as a detail for a hat
