Knitting Tutorial - Chestnut Hill Shawl

[Music] [Applause] [Music] in this tutorial i'm going to run through the techniques used in this shawl behind me this is the chestnut hill shawl by vanessa ewing it is a big satisfying knit of stripes and lace and all kinds of stuff going on we can cut away to a picture here you can see it's a big generous shawl it's very fun to knit this uses kramer yarns perfection sport and i've used perfection yarns in a lot of tutorials before because i love this yarn it is a great value it comes in a bajillion colors and it is easy care it knits up like wool but it's easy care so even if you knit it for someone who you know is not going to hand wash on their knits it's okay if it ends up in the washing machine and the dryer that's all right kits are available for this if you click the little i in the upper right hand corner that will take you to my website i'll also put all the links in the video description field below and the links that i'll give you are to the the site on the kramer website where you can get a kit and the kit comes with your yarn in your color choice and uh the pattern or you can just go to the kramer perfection sport yarn page and pick your own colors you know i've said before i personally like when experts pick colors for me but you are allowed to pick your own colors just be sure to drop the pattern in your basket as well so that um because you're building your own kit um i'm gonna put this at an advanced beginner level because if you watch the tutorial and you see that the the things that we established early on in the shawl are what you continue throughout the rest of the shawl so if you can get the first little section of the shawl done you've got the rest of it this pattern comes with both written and charted instructions so either will work depending on what you like to read i'm also going to give a quick knit companion chart setup tutorial just because if you if you haven't used that feature a lot it might seem like a complicated thing it's quick quick to set up what else do we have here kits fun knit i think i said all of it i should mention it looks like i'm shooting in the middle of the night right now it is the morning we are having the rainiest texas summer ever and it's thunderstorming outside right now at 10 in the morning i think it's about 10 in the morning and uh so it looks like i'm shooting at night but i'm not i'm bright and fresh and awake and it's the morning so first up we're going to talk about the first little section of the shawl which is a stripe section and then in the last part of the video we're going to talk about lace reading and working the lace i've got you covered here be sure to click through to get your kit to follow along and we'll get started with the stripe section next okay we're ready to get started on this shawl first we're going to give i'm going to give you an overview of kind of how the whole thing comes together and the whole thing works and then we'll dive right in with the first few rows of the knitting so let's take a look okay let's first take a look at the the shawl close up before we look at the bigger picture of the construction so this is where you start and we start with a lace section or a stripe section and we move on into the lace section in just one color and we have the spine i'm going to point it out on the bigger picture that runs through the entire shell and that's a double decrease line so let's take a look at the the big picture this is a shawl completed it's a photo of a shawl completed by beth at cramer yarns and i thought it was a pretty picture i thought i should use this for an example this is where her shawl starts over here and you see the spine that i'm talking about and we start with the the stripe section and increasing and the lace section and increasing and you will establish kind of the pattern of how things are going to go it's going to get really really familiar and then it's going to change up because you see how the spine has more stitches on this side and fewer on this side that event the the chart eventually changes and that um you don't really have to put a lot of thought into it you just follow the directions and that's how it happens but it ends up being a really interesting and pretty shawl okay so the first part of the pattern i need to make some room here i'm running out of room um the first part of the pattern is written instructions we're not into the chart yet and i'm going to get my yarn and my needles and which you'll have a color a and a color b and the color a is going to be the the color you're not using in the lace section so the color b is your lace section color so i'm going to start with color a because you saw i'm using the same colors as i did in my shawl i used this this blue color for the lace so i'm saving that for color b and we start by casting on just five stitches five little stitches for that whole enormous shawl and i'm going to use double pointed needles just because it's easier for me to demonstrate over the table like this with dpns so we've got five stitches and this first section you're really going to want to carefully follow the pattern because it's you're still figuring out how this whole thing is going to go and things are a little bit different right off the bat so we cast on five stitches and we start with the wrong side row the first thing we're going to do is slip the first stitch with the yarn in front so you put your needle in there as if to purl and slide that stitch over then grab your working yarn and pull it back between the two needles i just pulled it back like that and then we're going to kfb which is knit front back a one stitch increase so i knit the stitch normally swing the tip of my needle around to the back loop of the stitch knit it pull that stitch off and then i've made two stitches out of one and i'll go ahead and put links to all of the stitches that i'm using here i'll put links to them in the video description field so i slipped a stitch i kfb i'm going to purl one kfb again and knit one so that was row one row two we're sticking with color a and i'm going to slip the first stitch with the yarn in front this is something we're going to do every row on the first stitch slip that stitch with the yarn in front grab it and then pull it back between the two needles because our next stitch is always a knit front back um slip one with yarn in front knit front back slip two knit one psso okay remember that spine that we saw now we're going to start the first of those double decreases that's going to create that spine and to do this double stitch this double decrease you'll put your needle in to two stitches this time and slip them over and then knit the next stitch and then take the tip of your left needle and put it into those two stitches that you slipped create some tension on the working yarn and pull those two stitches over essentially binding them off and now here on row two we want to bring in a stitch marker because that's going to be that's going to mark our center spine stitch from here on out and now i'm going to kfb and knit one okay turn the work we're on a right side row again oops no we're on a wrong side row this time slip the first stitch with the yarn in front pull the yarn to the back and kfb of course knit one slip the marker and now we're going to slip our double decrease stitch we're going to pull the yarn in front slip it put the yarn back knit one kfb knit one okay the reason that we're slipping that stitch let me pull this back in here the reason we're slipping that stitch on the wrong side is so that our double decrease doesn't have i mean it just looks really tidy because the stitch is slipped with the working yarn on this side so it keeps that line really pretty okay row four we're switching to the next color to color a i know i had my yarn end ready for me okay here we go first i'm going to slip the first stitch in the old color right this is how i do this i put my needle in i grab the new yarn that i'm attaching and leave myself a tail to weave in later get that around the back needle and pull it through but don't finish that stitch because remember the first stitch or the next this stitch is a kfb swing the tip of my needle around the back loop of that stitch drop the tail end wrap it and pull it through and we're attached we're done and now um i'm going to knit to two stitches before the marker this is row four and that happens to be knitting one stitch because now i'm two stitches before the marker and this is the first time that we're coming to the double decrease with the marker already in place i'm going to slip those two stitches to the right needle remove the marker knit that next stitch grab those two stitches that i slipped and essentially bind them off over the knit stitch and put the marker back because we need to remember where that double decreases and now the pattern says to knit to last two stitches which means in this case just knitting one stitch and then kfb and knit one okay this row that row that we just finished is how things are going to look from here on out so i don't really have a whole lot more to teach you let's see on the wrong side i'm going to slip the first stitch with yarn in front pull my yarn to the back kfb knit to the marker slip the marker pull the yarn in front slip that stitch pull the yarn in back knit to last two stitches kfb and knit one okay now we have both colors attached we have established what the doesn't look like much right now we've established what kind of the pattern is going to be from here on out so the next let me just double check my pattern here i'm going to repeat these last two rows but with color a so to switch colors the reason we're slipping the first stitch let me pull my finished shawl in here it gives us a really nice edge if we slip that with the yarn in front every time the edge looks really good so i'll slip this with the yarn in front well all the yarns are hanging there in front right now grab the color that i want to use and pull it back between the two needles kfb knit to two stitches before the marker and right now it's pretty short as the as the shawl gets wider and wider there are more and more stitches just to knit before you get two stitches before the marker slip those two remove the marker knit decrease those replace the marker knit to two stitches before the end kfb knit one excuse me and now the wrong side row slip one kfb knit to marker slip the marker yarn forward slip that stitch yarn back knit to last two stitches kfb knit one okay we'll do that one more time with color b again a couple more things i want to show you it's actually starting to look like something now look at that okay slip this first stitch grab the color i want to use and pull it back between the two needles now something i want to say this this kfb that you work right after you slip that first stitch it is going to tighten up the the last knit stitch that you did in this color you see what i'm saying we haven't used this color for a while it's way back here don't pull that stitch like crazy tight because you don't want to get a really tight edge so when you work this kfb just kind of keep it don't don't pull don't pull too tightly to tighten up that stitch just let it kind of be a little bit loose because it's just going to keep your edge from um from getting too tight it won't look sloppy if you leave it a little loose it'll just keep the edge from getting too tight knit up to two stitches before the marker slip two remove marker knit one pull those two over replace the marker don't forget to replace the marker i do a bad thing and i usually put it in my mouth i know you're not supposed to do that kfb knit one and another wrong side row slip pull the yarn to the back kfb knit to marker slip that yarn forward slip the stitch yarn back knit to two stitches before the end of the row kfb and knit one and look at that and you're just going to follow the pattern because really those two rows have established what you're going to keep doing for this for this section it's all spelled out for you okay you're just going to keep following the row by row instructions for the first little stripe section and next up we're going to dive into the lace okay if you're finished with the stripe section you are ready to dive into the lace in this section we're going to talk about lifelines and reading the chart and really once you get the first few rows of the lace chart done you are set the rest of this pattern is going to be a breeze but first attempt let's take a look at the chart okay when you finish your first striped section this is what it will look like it looks very good and now that i have it on the the circular needles it's taking its own shape and it looks really good and right here right now we are ready to get started with the lace section but before we go any further i want to make sure that you understand about lifelines because especially if you're new to lace you might be nervous about starting the lace section might be nervous about messing up and it isn't easy to pick up stitches in lace if you've made a mistake so the best thing to do it only takes it only takes a minute is to take some thin yarn i use this cotton thin yarn kind of crochet thread and i'm going to work a proactive lifeline which means i'm going to slide all of my stitches to the cord and i'm going to run the needle through all of the stitches and what this does you can work this anywhere in the in the any pattern really in this shawl also is you run it through there and then if you going forward if you do make a mistake when you rip back all of the stitches are safely held on this scrap yarn and it's it's not a problem to get them back on the needle you don't have to worry about stitches dropping or unraveling further you don't know what row you're on just make sure not to include the stitch marker go around the stitch marker actually i'm not going to finish this you don't have to watch me finish it you pull it through all the stitches and you just leave it there and you work you just work the rest of your pattern like it's not there no problem so that's uh that is a nice safety measure it only takes a minute to do and it will save you a lot of headache if you need it it's kind of like buying insurance you know sometimes people buy insurance just to make sure they don't ever need it that's kind of what it's like so um once that's in there if you want to continue to put in lifelines you might want to put in a lifeline after working like row eight of the lace pattern chart each time and it's just there for for safe safe keeping safety measures all right let's look at the chart and i'm actually going to be using my ipad but i have the lace chart a here this is the first chart that you'll be working and i want to talk about how the lace chart works and um i'm going to pull up my key because i didn't print out the key here we go okay if you're new to working charts the way that most charts are written is at the right side when you're reading a right side row you read it from right to left and wrong side rows are left to right it's when you're knitting a flat piece that's how most charts go and this chart makes it really easy because right side rows like row one here the number one is over here and then the wrong side row all of the even numbers are over here so it helps to remember which side and you'll see in this chart that row 1 is all full of symbols and row 5 is all full of symbols so the lace chart looks pretty complicated but really it's only rows one and five that really have you doing anything except just plain knitting and purling so and kfb and slipping stitches but you're used to that by now by the time you get finished with that stripe section you are used to the construction of how these how it works and so the lace is just kind of one more thing that you can easily take on so let's talk about what the stitches are and how but we're actually going to work a couple of rows here but let's talk about how this works this first symbol this first symbol here is slipping one with yarn in front we're very familiar with it i bet you can guess what this one is it's kfb this is standard in a lot of charts it is and knit two together and then yarn over purl yarn over and let me double check slip one knit two together pass slip stitch over a double decrease and you see this red box around this section this is a repeat that means you're going to complete up to here and go back to the first stitch complete up to here go back to the first stitch and you um in the first row the first time you work this i can tell you you'll repeat it four times but it's pretty easy to see you know as as the chart gets wider you're going to repeat be repeating this section more and more but it's easy enough to see that um here's the center double decrease when you only have this many stitches left which in this case is going to be three a purl and a decrease and then actually five you'll need two stitches before the marker for this one but we'll get there we'll look at this in in in real life right now we're just talking about the chart that will help you recognize how many times to work the repeat but it's pretty clear so you work the repeat work the repeat four times yarn over purl one yarn over ssk this is another standard in charts because it's a left leaning decrease this is the double decrease we've been working for the spine all along knit two together yarn over purl yarn over and here's our repeat again the red box all the way through the chart that is our repeat for these stitches a double decrease yarn over purl one yarn over ssk and then an empty box the first time we've seen an empty box in the chart is a knit one and then you turn the work and then we read the chart this way and uh something if you're new to lace charts don't let this confuse you but for instance this empty box is a knit on the right side and a pearl on the wrong side and it's all clearly explained in the legend so this is slip one excuse me all this rain is uh bringing up all the pollen outside this is a slip on with yarn in front kfb and since we're on the wrong side of the work it's pearl pearl this is a knit now because we're on the wrong side of the work purl purl purl knit purl purl there's our slip stitch purl purl knit purl purl purl knit purl purl purl kfb knit i had to think about it for a minute but it's a dot it's a pearl but once you um once you start working it you kind of see the stitches as a three-dimensional thing so it's a it's a what's a pearl on this side is a knit on this side even though it's the same symbol now all of this said you have the option of uh working through the written instructions instead of the charted instructions but for those of us who are using the chart and we're also using knit companion on our ipad with setup and essentials i want to give you a quick reminder of setting up charts in nick companion because if you don't do it all the time it might seem like a complicated thing to do but it is not so here's my lace chart a and my key i'm going to hit setup the plus key over here chart piece and what i want is on page six and it's telling me to highlight what i want i want that and i will tighten it up a little bit here and then hit the magic the magic wand button and yes it recognized it perfectly so i'll tap crop maybe okay and so there's my chart and i'll show you how this is all going to look in a minute i also want to have the key available to me this you'll in my knit companion videos a lot of times i talk about making the perfect pattern page and that's what i'm going to work on right now i'm going to tap the plus and make a new key and what i want is page six i'll highlight the key and i'll go ahead and tighten it up and crop it okay now when i go to knit i have let me get everything resized the way i want it i have the perfect pattern page because i have my chart and my key all here and it's all set up with one tap markers so that the row that i'm on is always highlighted okay that was your quick quick knit companion knit companion tutorial and now we're actually going to work through i'll pull the paper chart back in we're going to work through the chart i want to make sure that you're seeing what i'm seeing and not just seeing my balls of yarn there okay first i'm going to slip the first stitch and we've done this a million times already slip the first stitch with the yarns in front and i'm going to be using the red color this time so i will pull that yarn back between the two needles and kfb and now i have a knit two together yarn over purl one yarn over is next okay so i'm going to yarn over and that it that really just means pulling the yarn forward between the two needles at this point but the next stitch is a purl one so i kind of yarn forward so it makes it almost like a double yarn over purl one and i'm going to yarn over again but since my working yarn is in front it just kind of flops over the needle like this and i'm going to work my um my my decrease let me get let me make sure i get this decrease right because there are two ones okay two decreases this symbol here is a slip one knit two together psso pass slip stitch over now we're going to work this this repeat section a few times so we can get comfortable with it yarn over purl one yarn over and the second yarn over is just kind of keeping the yarn in front while i work the slip one knit two together past that slip stitch over yarn over purl one yarn over slip one knit two together psso now i am ready that would those were all the repeats i was going to work did i say it was four that seemed like three that was three okay oh i have uh more stitches to work here yarn over purl one yarn over that's why i thought it was four because it's the same thing yarn over purl one yarn over yarn over purl one yarn over and now an ssk slip is up to knit slip as if to knit knit those two stitches together without splitting the stitch there we go and now i'm two stitches from the marker we already know what happens two stitches from the marker we slip those two remove the marker knit one pass those two stitches over replace the marker isn't it nice that you got so familiar with all of that before now it's knit two together yarn over purl one yarn over knit two together yarn over purl one yarn over and now i'm into the repeat section which is slip one knit two together psso this double decrease yarn over purl one yarn slip one knit two together psso yarn over purl one yarn over slip one knit two together psso yarn over purl one yarn over slip one knit two together psso yarn over purl one yarn over now these last four stitches i'm going to ssk slip slip knit and now kfb so decrease and increase right next to each other and knit one and after you finish the first row of any lace section you have established the lay section it becomes pretty easy to make sure that you're on track and i'm going to talk about how to do that okay now on row 2 remember we start over here and i'm going to slip one with yarn in front as always and then kfb whoops as always and now this section is um we were working garter stitch before this is more stockinettes there are more pearls on the wrong side so i have pearl pearl and then my repeat is pearl knit pearl pearl and i want to talk about something that is going to be it's going to help you a lot okay purl knit purl purl in the re in the re the repeat section the first pearl you notice it's right over uh yarn over and then we have the the knit and the second pearl is right over a yarn over so let's take a look at what that looks like see this stitch here that's obviously a yarn over it's just kind of flopped over the needle right so pearl knit look at there's another yarn over purl purl i know i'm on track because this should be into a yarn over this is not pearl pearl by looking at what the stitches were in the previous row it helps you know that you're on track in your current row now i'm down to the last few stitches and it's purl knit purl purl and then here is our slip the marker and slip that stitch with yarn in front then we have purl purl knit purl and then let's take a look at this one so i can make sure i'm on track purl purl knit purl the second and the last pearl of that repeat should be in the yarn over stitches right i can look at the row below to know if i'm on track here so purl purl knit purl let me slow that down the first one the second one should be into a yarn over sure is third one is not or the knit stitch is not and the last pearl should be into a yarn over right on track and the last few stitches are pearl pearl kfb knit you know something i didn't tell you [Laughter] when you um switch to the lace section you can you can cut the other color and just set it aside you don't have to have two balls of yarn flopping around like i just did it wasn't that much in the way but i didn't have to have it on there so that is how we have the lace established now rows three and four are going to be just as easy as that wrong side row that we we just did and then in five we have another row with yarn overs and everything else and like i said that only happens in rows one and five you can see it's not so hard reading the lace pattern you can do it and you always have the written instructions if um if reading the chart makes you nervous and that's it that's it for the whole shawl you have now seen all of the techniques used in this shawl and you can do it um many thanks to kramer yarns for sponsoring this tutorial i had such a nice time knitting the shawl i really don't do very many triangle scarves but triangle shawls i loved this one it was such great fun also many thanks to vanessa ewing for designing such a great pattern i hope you enjoy this as much as i did good luck [Applause] [Music] so [Music] bye

Channel: VeryPink Knits

Views: 18,152

Rating: 4.941606 out of 5

Keywords: knit, knitting, verypink, verypinkknits, verypink knits, very pink

Id: 2vNdP11qu4g

Length: 37min 29sec (2249 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2021