Sunday 27 January 2008

Curving Shags

I've had a couple of enquiries from new joiners about the fact that the Shag they're trying to knit has developed a curve.
The first time I started Shag, I found that it curved and I worked out that it was because I wasn't counting rows properly and was sometimes picking up on the same edge as the previous flap instead of the opposite side - the flaps should go / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ but I was going / / / which makes one edge curl, as shown above.
This is how the underside should look:Tante J has some much better photos below that illustrate this. The trick is always to count your rows properly or, failing that, always to do an uneven number of rows between casting off and picking up.

2 comments:

Merna said...

Good point.

I was counting rows obsessively for the first few flaps until I was able to read the knitting. Then I could just count the garter ridges when the rectangle looked about right and make sure I got those pie shaped wedges.

Instead of "pick up and knit" on the diagonal, I slid a needle under the stitches to pick them up, then knit those stitches with an empty needle.

What a great book! I'm doing Linked Ribs now.

Portlandia said...

And...after a few flaps are done, the 'reading your knitting' becomes extra easy because all the flaps are on the same side. Just be sure that the new stitches you are picking up make the flap fall to the flap side, not the back side.

I just love that scarf...