Shawl Shapes
Let's dive into the knitty-gritty of shawl shapes!
Why Should You Try a Shawl as a Project?
Shawls are amazing and versatile. You can make one at any time of the year, for any kind of weather or occasion. If you want to make an outfit shine, a shawl is perfect. At night, when you are knitting and your shoulders and top of your arms get cold, a shawl is a less heavy option than a blanket. Not to mention, if you wear the right shawl shape, it can restrict your movement less than a blanket would.
A shawl can keep your shoulders warm, your neck warm, even your head warm, depending on how you wear it. If you get too hot when you wear it, it is easier to remove and carry or put in your bag/purse than a sweater is.
You can easily crochet a shawl or knit a shawl. Therefore, this post is not knitting specific.
In the summer, when it is hot, you can knit a shawl and not have it be too large and hot and heavy in your lap. It can be a pretty portable project and finished item.
Lastly, a shawl can really show off special yarn or beautiful colorways. Shawls often only take one or two skeins of yarn. Projects like socks also shine in that realm. Indeed, a sock is a wonderful thing to make. Yet not everyone gets to see your socks. A shawl shouts, "LOOK I AM GORGEOUS," and at the same time, it is extremely practical.
Why Do Shawl Shapes Matter?
There are multiple types of shawl shapes out there. Every type of shawl wears differently. We all have find comfort in different shapes. Thus, before you start a shawl project, it might be helpful to learn a little bit about some of the types of shawls and how they wear.
Shawl shapes matter because they wear differently and they use yarn differently. A single yarn can look drastically different based on the shape of shawl you use.
Furthermore, some shapes work very well to a small amount, or unknown amount of yarn. In that vein, some shawls need more yardage, and might even need you to be aware of exactly how much yarn you have left.
Ultimately, the shape you pick will likely affect the happiness level you have at the end of your project.
Truth be told, I have personally knit a beautiful pie type shawl. It took me almost 2 years on and off (I put it away for long periods of time). When all was said and done, I went to wear it, and realized that it didn't really work for the uses I intended.
I had intended to use it as an everyday type, throw over my shoulders and knit on the couch piece. When I put it on, I realized that it just isn't going to work for that purpose. Honestly, it feels more like a show piece now. It is something I might put on when I want to dress up an outfit on a date night. I might get use out of it once a year, UNLESS I decide to use it as an art piece on the wall.
How Many Shapes Are There Really?
There are so many different shape variations it would be hard to go over every last one.
There are broad shape categories of shawls. Also, within those categories we have subcategories. If you want to get even more in-depth, there have different techniques which create those subcategories as well.
It might feel a little overwhelming if you were to just watch shawl shape videos on YouTube, or look it up on Google.
However, to get you started, we are going to go over some common shapes and their basic strengths and weaknesses. We will then go more into depth on each shape in further posts in this series.
So, fear not. Let us break some of this down for you. Hopefully you will gain inspiration to knit a shawl of your own.
Shawl Shapes:
Basic Shape: Triangular Shawl
Subcategories: Symetrical, asymetrical (middle focused), asymetrical (edge focused), elongated
Techniques: Side to side, Top-down, bottom-up, short rows
Where Triangular Shawls Shine: These tend to be extremely versatile in their wear ability. You can take a triangular shawl and wrap it multiple different ways to get numerous looks. In addition, they tend to be very comfortable. Moreover, these are the easiest patterns to find so you will have a large amount of designs to choose from.
How much yarn do you need?: This depends on if you are knitting or crocheting. In general, you will need more yarn for a crochet project. That being said, there are plenty of 1 hank, crochet, triangular shawl options out there. In general, most of the projects out there use something in the range of 1 to 2 hanks of yarn. Doing a quick Ravelry Search on triangular shawls I can see that a large amount of the patterns use 2 hanks and about half as many use one hank of yarn.
General Ease: This can somewhat depend on the sub-categories and techniques you use, of course. However, these are generally easy to do. They have pretty darn predictable increases or decreases and can be great craft while watching TV projects. This is a great starter shawl
Pitfalls: There are so many patterns and subcategories that it might feel overwhelming to choose your first triangular shawl pattern. The best thing you can do is to find a semi simple one and just go to town!
Basic Shape: Crescent and Semi Circles
Subcategories: Bat- wing, elongated, sideways, Ring segment, half circle, circle segment
Techniques: Top-down, bottom-up, short rows, side to side.
Where Crescent Shawls Shine: First and foremost, these are easy to wear. You can also do a subcategory that doesn't have wings or tips that might consume yarn but not add to the wear ability. In addition, these are 1 hank wonder superheroes. A lot of the patterns available call for only 1 hank of yarn, and they wear very well within the 1 hank.
How much yarn do you need?: 1 Hank will get you taken care of on a vast majority of crescent shawl knitting patterns. 2 hanks will take care of a crochet crescent.
General Ease: There are many beginning crescent knitting patterns. However, the rate of increase tends to be greater than that of many triangular shawls. Depending on the sub-category of crescent shawl you work on, you may have short rows to work. Short rows can be very fun, but they can be a new technique to learn for many beginning knitters. Similarly, a new crocheter might find the short row technique new.
Pitfalls: While blocking can be big portion of any knitting, and of shawl knitting in particular. Crescent shawl blocking can be absolutely critical. If you hate agressively blocking, be careful with the crescent shawl pattern you pick. Also, some of the subcategories require increases on both sides, so you don't have what I consider to be "break rows," where you can mindlessly knit or purl for a row.
Basic Shape: Rectangle
Subcategories: Standard, long, points added at ends, points added at begining, arrow
Techniques: Side to side, top-down, bottom-up, on a bias
Where Rectangle Shawls Shine: There are technically subcategories, but let's face it, mostly a rectangle is a rectangle. In saying that, what I mean is, you won't have a hard time choosing a sub-category and this can be great. They are kind of just wide scarves, in most cases. You do not have to deal with a slot of shaping. Therefore, they shine as great beginner projects. If you make the shawl big enough, it offers a ton of wear options, probably more that any of the other shawl shapes.
How much yarn do you need? The majority of knitting patterns on these are 2 to 3 hanks. More is better with rectangular shawls.
General Ease: Very easy. Knock-out beginner project.
Pitfalls: If you have one hank of yarn, rectangular shawls might be possible, but they aren't the best choice for smaller amounts of yarn.
Basic Shape: Pie Shawl
Subcategories: None that I can think of (although there might be some that I can't think of)
Techniques: Middle out, Outside to middle.
Where Rectangle Shawls Shine: Lace shines on a circular shawl! Both lace weight yarns, and lace patterns work immensely well with a circular shawl. These can be absolute works of art and show-pieces.
How much yarn do you need? This is somewhat more dependent on what weight and gauge of yarn you have than other shawls. 1 hank of lace weight on larger needles goes very far on these. If you have a tight gauge for your larger yarns you are looking at closer to 2 or 3 hanks. Also, this depends on the way you want to wear your shawl. If you are going to wear it halves like a semi-circle you will probably need that second or third hank.
General Ease: These can be mind numbingly easy if they have simple eyelet increases spaced around. They can also be brain-meltingly hard if you have a complicated lace pattern.
Pitfalls: Smaller Pie Shawls are not always easy to wear. They don't really follow body shapes so they will likely need a shawl pin. Putting folds in this type of shawl can obscure the pattern if you have a lovely lace pattern, and wearing it in its full glory may require some work and quite a bit of yarn. However, as you can see in the picture above, that work is well worth it in the end.
Ending-points
As you can see, there is a lot more than meets the eye when it comes to crafting a shawl. My advice would be, try one of every basic type. You might fall in love with one or all of them. Crafting is an adventure and shawls are an amazing and useful way to show off your progress along the way!
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