in this tutorial, we're going to learn tomake the shawl that i'm wearing right now. it's called sharbella, and it's by mari chiba.and sharbella means beautiful scarf in italian, and that's exactly what this is. and for thisshawl, we are using louet gems sport. it is merino yarn, it is so nice to work with, andit has a beautiful color palette. i'm going to give you a link here onscreento take you to my website where you will see links to louet websites where you can lookat the different colorways of this yarn. this pattern takes two of the sport weight hanks.i'll also give you information about how to get your pattern and everything else. louet has a bunch of new colorways. if you'refamiliar with this yarn, you should take a
look. there are a bunch of new colorways ofin yarn. they are all gorgeous. and the one that i'm wearing right now is in fact oneof the new colorways. this is called brick red, and i love it, and the pretty leavesin the pattern actually end up looking like fall leaves in this color. everyone agreedwith me on facebook when i posted the picture. if you've knit lace before and you're familiarwith knitting lace, you'll find this a fun pattern to knit. and if you've never knitlace before, this is a good first lace pattern for a few reasons. the first is that thisis sport weight yarn, it's not lace weight yarn, so it's much easier to see your stitches.you're going to have an easier time working the pattern when you can actually see thestitches that you're working.
another reason is that the designer, mari,has given us both written and charted instructions. and if you already have a preference for whichof those you prefer, they're both there. of if you're a new lace knitter, you can tryout both and see which one you like better. the third reason, this is a good first lacepattern, is that the actual lace panel itself isn't very wide, so it's a lot easier to keepcount and correct any mistakes right away if you just have just this little bit of lacegoing. anyway, i'll give you a link here, the samelink to my website where you can jump to the louet website and take a look at the differentcolorways. you'll find information on getting your copy of the pattern. i'll also give youa link to mari chiba and you can check out
her other designs. and in the next section,we're going to talk about the construction of the shawl and working the different stitches. if you have your yarn and your pattern andyou're ready to get started on the shawl, first up we're going to talk about how thewhole shawl is put together with the construction. and i'm going to leak a little informationbecause in the last section, we're going to talk about lifelines. and one thing i knowthat causes people fear and problems with lace is that a lot of people have startedlace patterns and they have messed up somewhere, and they start trying to rip out a littlebit, and then it gets more messed up, and then they don't know where they are, and theyjust abandon the project.
and in the last section, the next sectionof this tutorial, i'm going to show you how to work lifelines so that that never happens.you're going to start the shawl and you're going to enjoy knitting it and not be afraid,and you're going to finish this shawl. and hopefully that will give you the confidenceto move forward. but first up, we're not there yet. let's talkabout the construction of the shawl. let's take a look. here is a close up of the shawland the lace. this is the cast-on edge. and you can see the lace makes this cute, little...i'llscoot it up a little bit...this little petal down here. the shawl starts narrow. the lace patternis always the same. this runs up the side
and never changes. it starts out narrow andthen the shawl gets bigger, wider and wider. and then it starts to...i'm moving quickly...andthen it narrows back down again at the end of the shawl. so that's the basic constructionof what the shawl looks like, the whole thing. things that never change. the only thing thatchanges is the width of this panel here, it gets wider, and then it straightens out, andthen it gets narrower again. we always knit the first three stitches. there's always ayarn over, knit two together, yarn over, to make this eyelet pattern on the edge. and then we always maintain the last stitchesin the lace pattern. and the only other difference is how we increase, maintain the same numberof stitches, or decrease along this edge.
this is where that all happens, but withoutever changing this eyelet pattern. that's how this is. that's how the whole thing comestogether. and after you work a few rows, you really do get the get the gist of it. now, i'm going to show you how to work thedifferent stitches in the patterns so that when you come up against them, none of themare a mystery to you. and i'm using a worsted weight yarn, and much bigger needles thanthe pattern calls for. and that's only so that you can easily see the stitches thati'm working. this is not the yarn used in the pattern. we'll come up against that ina moment. the first stitch that you'll see is a yarnover, and that's what gives us the holes in
the work. and so i'll knit the first stitch.and then a yarn over is just pulling the yarn forward between the two needles, and lettingit flop over the right needle. that's the whole thing. and then you follow up with thenext stitch in the pattern. so the yarn over is just that. it's not a real stitch. it leavesa hole in the work under the stitch, a good one, we want it to. and for continental knitters, the yarn overis the same thing. it's just like this. i know a lot of continental knitters will usetheir first finger to hold down that yarn when they go into the next stitch so thatit doesn't slip off. so that's a yarn over. i'm showing you everything besides knit andpurl obviously. you probably should be good
at those before you start a lace pattern. the next one is knit two together, which mostknitters know because everyone accidentally does it when they're a brand new knitter.instead of just going through one stitch, you go through two stitches, just like a normalknit stitch. just like that, going through two. and that's a right-leaning decrease. the next one is purl two together. so youpull your yarn forward to purl, and instead of going through one stitch, you go throughtwo. that's the whole stitch purling two together. and the next one is knit three together, whichi'm betting you can guess how this one works, instead of going through one or two, you gothrough three stitches. wrap it and pull out
through. that's a knit three together. the next one is a left-leaning decrease. wedid knit two together further back for a right-leaning decrease. a left-leaning decrease called sskor slip, slip, knit is worked like this - slip one stitch as if to knit, slip the secondstitch as if to knit, take the tip of your left needle and put it into the front of thosetwo stitches, wrap the back needle and pull it through. now everything is done. the first two stitchesare slip separately and then they're both knit through the back loop. and that givesthe whole thing enough of a twist to be a left-leaning decrease. so slip as if to knit,slip is if to knit, take the tip of your left
needle and put it into the front of thosetwo stitches, wrap it and pull it through. that is an ssk. the next stitch is probably the most complicatedone that we're going to come up against. and it's only once, it only comes up once in the16-row repeat. so it doesn't slow you down much. it's purl two together through the backloop. so you pull your yarn forward as if to purl. and this is the craziest stitch.i think this is the craziest stitch. you want to put your needle in, count one, two stitchesback, put your needle in through the second stitch and the first stitch, like so. yourneedle comes through the front, wrap it and pull it through.
i'm definitely going to show you that again.you line your needles up like this, and take the tip of your right needle and put it throughboth the second, starting with the second and the first stitch. and i actually haveto change positions to make this happen. like so, wrap the front needle and pull it through.one more time. through both of those stitches, wrap the front needle. after you get your needle in, it justturns into a normal purl stitch. wrap the front needle and pull it through to the back.that's purl two together through the back loop. and the last stitch we have to work is a doubledecrease. it's called sk2p. and you start by slipping a stitch as if to knit, then knittwo stitches together. then take that slip
stitch, grab it in your left needle, and pullit over the top like you're binding off, pull it over the knit two together you just did.so you decreased by binding off one stitch and you decrease by knitting two together. let's do that again. slip one stitch as ifto knit, knit two together. the second stitch in is your slip stitch. grab that stitch andpull it over the other one, and you've decreased by one. so those are all of the stitches used.i'm just going to knit up the rest of those stitches so i can have this as a handy pointer. now, i have part of the pattern here thati want to show you. this is just a little bit of the first five rows of the pattern.and there isn't a lot of explaining to do
in this other than rs. all the abbreviationsare explained in the pattern. rs is right-side, and it tells you exactly what to do and stitcheswe just went over. you just follow along. and then most of the right-side rows are justpurling in the lace. so there isn't a lot to explain here. mostpeople understand written instructions. and this is just the written instructions forthe lace panel, and you'll see how that comes together in the pattern. now, this is what i do need to explain becauseif you've never worked with a chart before...a lot of people really love them. i actuallyprefer to work from the written instructions, but a lot of people really love charts, andi know that they find it a much easier and
faster way to work through things. now, when you're looking at a chart, whetherit's a color chart or a stitch chart, each square represents one stitch. and this numberone right here means row one. and the designer has been very nice to us and put it on thecorrect side to start reading from. so every right-side row, we're going to read from theright to the left. so row one, we read across this way. and thewrong-side row, starting with row two, we read from the left to the right. right-siderow, row three, wrong-side row, row four. you see how that goes through the whole 16-rowrepeat. again, this is a tiny section of the pattern and not the whole pattern.
but as we're reading across, these instructionsgive keys for both the right-side and the wrong-side of the work. so when you have ablank square like this, it is right on the right-side. it's knit, knit. this is a yarnover. this is a knit two together, yarn over, knit two together, knit two together, knittwo together. knit, knit, yarn over. knit, kit, knit yarn over. and this is different,this is ssk, yarn over, knit two. that's how you read it across. maybe the reason i don't like charts is myeyes are always darting back and forth to the key. i think people who enjoy readingcharts are usually able to memorize what the symbols mean, and so their eyes just...ofcourse, it would be quicker to read it this
way than the written instructions. and then row two is just only these emptyspaces. and on the wrong-side of the work, that means just purling straight across. andthen row three, we come up against different stitches, which are knit three together, acouple of those. and the last thing i want to explain to youabout the chart because i know this gets really confusing for people, but the designer herehas been nice enough to tell us that a gray box means no stitch. so you're working alongrow three and you get to the end of a chart and there are two gray boxes. but by the timeyou get to the stitch, you've run out of stitches in the row. that's because we've decreaseda couple of times in this section. and these
are not stitches, they don't exist. the chartshould actually just be shaped like this, minus the stitches because there are no stitchesthere, you don't have to do anything. and then we get to row four. there are evenfewer stitches. and the stitch count throughout this lace pattern actually changes, but thepattern tells you how many stitches you should have at the end of each row so you can't getconfused that way. yes, i think that's all. phew! so much to explain with reading charts. you definitely want to use a row counter.or if you don't have a row counter, you can just do tally marks on a piece of paper becauseyou want to keep track of where you are in the pattern. because like i said, it's a 16-rowrepeat, which isn't hard or isn't a big deal
at all, but you don't want to ever have toguess what row you're on because it'll make a difference in the way the lace looks. next up, as promised, we're going to talkabout the way to use lifelines so that you can knit and not be afraid of making mistakes.and we're also going to talk about washing and blocking your shawl. if you've watched videos i have out on lifelines,i explain how to string lifelines through different stitches, different work. and mostof them explain how to do reactive lifelines where you've already made a mistake and youwant to get a lifeline in there, so you can rip back and have the stitches safely held,and nothing's going to unravel.
but if you're nervous at all about knittinglace, knitting this shawl, and you don't want to mess up because you want to be able tofinish it confidently, i'm going to show you how to do proactive lifelines where at everyinterval, every pattern repeat, the end of every pattern repeat, you can string a lifelineusing some lightweight yarn, and then you have a place to rip back to, where you canalways get back to easily, it's never going to unravel, and you can knit on and be confidentthat you're not going to abandon this project in frustration. anyway, let me go ahead and show you how todo that. we'll actually rip back to a lifeline, too. okay, i have a little bit of knittinghere and i have deliberately left this unblocked
so that you can see what it looks like beforeit's blocked because lace doesn't really show itself very well. here's my blocked shawl.see how pretty that is? lace doesn't show itself very well until after it's blocked.so if yours looks like this, you're doing it properly. now, you can also see here that i have thisred yarn running through at different intervals here. and every after i work row 16, whichis one complete pattern repeat, i put in a proactive lifeline. and i can just leave itthere and knit on it, it's no problem. and i'm going to show you how to do that now.i've just finished row 16. so i have a tapestry needle, and i have some lightweight yarn ina contrasting color; something that i can
easily see against the yarn of the shawl. and this is a good reason to use circularneedles because you can certainly do a proactive lifeline on straight needles, but slidingthe stitches down to the cord gives you more room to do it. i think it's much easier thisway. so the stitches around the cord. i am justgoing to slide my tapestry needle through the stitches as if to purl. and when you getto a stitch marker, don't go through the stitch marker. they'll get caught on the lifelineif you do. just go in front of the stitch marker. and we just slide it through all the stitches.and it won't change the way your stitches look, or it won't change your work at allas long as you use a lighter weight yarn.
you can even use sewing thread. i know somepeople use dental floss. and again, in front of the stitch marker, not through them. okay, that is one lifeline installed. i'mjust going to shorten it up a little bit. and you can break the yarn. and then you justcontinue on with your knitting as before and you don't have to worry. you know that youcan easily rip back to this point, and that's what i'm going to show you how to do now.i don't think i've ever shown you how to actually rip back to a lifeline. so what i'm going to do is we're going toignore this lifeline that i just did. i'm actually going to take it out. because wewant to make...not really make a mistake...we
want to pretend that i noticed that i've madea mistake right here. and i need to rip back and i'm going to rip back to this lifelinehere. and luckily i've got one there just a few rows back. and so this is want i'm goingto do, i'm going to take my needle out of these stitches. careful with my stitch markers there. andthen without worrying at all, i'm just going to rip back. and you can see here why we do lifelines becausethese stitches don't look very difficult to pick up. that's not very hard. but when youget over into lace section, you've got yarn overs and decreases. and what do you pickup? it's not easy. and i've had it happen before where i thought i was doing a prettygood job picking up lace stitches, and i work
a few rows and find out that i wasn't. thisis the way to go. okay, i'm just about down to the lifeline.there we are. we're down to lifeline row, and i can't rip out anymore because the lifelinestopped me. and all those stitches are just there and safe and awesome. and what i'm goingto do to make this easier on myself is i'm actually going to grab a needle in a smallersize. this is a couple sizes smaller than the pattern calls for, and it just makes iteasier to pick the stitches back up. we just slide the needle through the sameway that the lifeline yarn goes through the stitch. it's always as if to purl. and then once you get all the stitches backon the needle, if you've been consistent and you have run the lifeline through the workafter row 16 each time, once the stitches
are back on the needle, you know that youare ready to work row one again. so putting them through, running the lifelines throughat even intervals is important so you know which row to pick up with next. so i've picked up all of those stitches, slideit to the cord, and i can actually just pull the lifeline out. easy as that. the mistakeis gone and i'm ready to go again. and because i've put them onto a smaller needle so it'seasier to run through the stitches, i'm just going to knit onto the correct size needlein the next row, and then everything will be on the right-side needle after that. now, the last thing we want to talk aboutis blocking your work. because like i said,
there's a big difference in lace between blockedand not blocked. and what you want to do with this yarn, i think it's actually machine-washable,but i'm always more gentle with my knits than that. something like this and baby clothes thatare machine-washable, sure, throw them in the washing machine, but something as likea shawl, it's easy enough to hand-wash in a sink with some wool soap. and you can followthe directions on, for the wool soap, usually you want some lukewarm water in the sink,and you let it soak with the wool soap. i usually let it soak for 20, 30 minutes. andthen i always take the knit out and put it in the washer on the spin cycle so that itspins out all the extra water, and then i'm
ready to set it out and block it. the designer, mari, she recommends using blockingwires. i think i need to try out new blocking wires. i haven't had the greatest successwith them. i always prefer pins. so you want to pin it out to the measurements for theshawl. and when it's wet, it will do anything you want. this is merino wool, it'll do whateveryou want. pin it out and make sure your edges are straightand everything. actually, mari recommends using blocking wires on the straight edge.and it would be easier if you have good blocking wires and you're used to using them. to usea blocking wire on the straight edge would make it a lot easier and not have to use asmany pins. my blocking wires keep sticking
to my yarn, i don't like that. i need to trysome new ones. be sure to remove your lifelines before you start blocking. you don't wantany color transfer, if that's possible. so when we're looking at this pattern, andwe're looking at blocking this pattern, you want to really open everything up around eachleaf. you can see that's what i have here. all the yarn overs in the pattern give thisgorgeous outline to each leaf, and that's what you really want to make stand out. actually on facebook, people were saying thatthey look like tulips. if you look at them from this side, they look like leaves, ifyou look at them from this side. it's all perspective, isn't it? so what i did to makethat happen is i took my fingers, i pulled
on the lace just on the outside part of theleaf, and i put in a couple of pins there to hold...that's actually a little...i'm stretchingit a little far. i just want the yarn overs to open up just enough. that's nice. theni have another one down here just enough. and then there's going to be another one therebut, well...i was going to say i have to knit that part, but i did already knit that partand i just ripped it out. so take a look at it and just put pins inwherever it looks like you need to open up the lace so that you can see the beautifulyarn overs and everything. and then once it's finished drying, it will actually hold thisshape. this is a very nice yarn that will hold the shape of the blocking once you takethe pins out and start wearing it.
i think that's everything. i really hope thatthis tutorial will give you the confidence to try lace or try lace again if you're worriedabout it because the worst that can happen is you have to rip out a few rows to yourlifeline, right? and again, if you're an experienced knitter, this is just fun to knit, and theyarn is gorgeous, and the pattern is pretty simple. it's good netflix knitting, if you'rean experienced lace knitter. anyway, many thanks to mari chiba and hergorgeous design that was very fun to work. and many thanks to louet for sponsoring thisvideo. they're gorgeous gems sport yarn. at the end of the video, we'll have another linkto my website where there's information about getting your yarn and getting your pattern.i look forward to seeing your finished shawls.
good luck.