Need Help With Centering Pattern

#1

Hi Everyone!! Need Help Again!!

I am in the process of knitting a communion shawl for my 2 cousins who are 8 and 9. I found a nice pattern chart of 3 crosses that I would like to have centered in the shawl.
How can I center it right in the middle of the shawl?
Here is the basic pattern for the Shawl and Cross pattern just to help you all out!
Thanks again for being saviors!

Shawl: CO 4 Sts; k2,yo, k to end. Rep till you have 150 sts for adults… 130 for kids.
3 Crosses:
CO 37 sts
Row 1-4: K Across
Row 5: K3, P31, K3
Row 6: all even numbered rows Knit Across
Row 7-12: Rep rows 5-6
R13: K3,p6,k3,p13,k3,p6,k3
etc: there are 59 rows in all.
Appreciate all the advice you can give!!!:cheering:

#2

You could always lay it out on a piece of graph paper.

You would start out with your 4 cast on stitches and then add a square on every row until you have your 130 stitches. Your pattern is worked over 37 stitches and 59 rows. Find the center of your graph and make that the center of the pattern. That would mean you would have 18 stitches on either side of the center stitch and 29 rows up and 29 rows down for your cross pattern.

So you would follow the shawl pattern and knit across the row until you got to the cross pattern. I’d use stitch markers to mark your pattern.

You can either work from your chart or translate that into row by row directions to follow if that is easier for you to work from.

#3

Out of curiosity, what are you knitting the shawls out of? Needle size? The shawl pattern is the same as the first half of the baby blanket I’m making out of worsted weight acrylic on size 9 needles, and 130 stitches was just over 30 inches wide on the long edge, which doesn’t sound right for 8 and 9 yr olds.

(of course, what do I know about kids and clothes, I don’t have/know any)

Regardless, if you’re going by the pattern, the shawl is going to be 127 rows of garter stitch. So you would start your 34 stitches … by my calculations, you should start on the 35th row (which has 38 stitches)

Someone check my math?

With this shawl pattern, row X has X+3 stitches.

The center of the shawl is Row 64 (which has 67 stitches). 64 minus 29 is 35. (38 st) You want the extra from the first row to be even, so you would k2, then start on your pattern. BUT, since your pattern has a YO as the 3rd stitch, I would LEAVE IT IN! That’s the eyelet along the edge of the shawl. On the second line of the cross pattern, you would k2, YO, start cross pattern. Next row, k2, YO, k1, start cross pattern.

Note that the first four rows of your cross pattern are garter stitch, so they won’t stand out from your shawl. You won’t start getting any definition until you hit row 5.

I would definitely chart this one out! I think I can visualize it, but explaining it without visual aids is very very tough.