Triangle prayer shawl

#1

I am fairly new to knitting. I have become bored with the patterns for prayer shawls after making more than 80 with just three designs. I thought I could revise the triangle shawl pattern on my own but it ended up as a square.
After contemplating what I might do to make it a triangle I came up with a possible solution but I’m not sure it will work.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I was trying to knit a triangle shawl with YO down the center.
When I BO it was a square.
If I were to undo the BO and do a row of K1 K2TOG K1 K2TOG, would I then have a triangle instead of a square?
Thank you for any advice anyone can give me.
Blessings

#2

I don’t see how you got a square. What exactly did you do to get the “triangle with a yo down the center”?

If you do YO, knit to center, YO, k1(center stitch), YO, knit to end, yo
for every right side row, knitting or purling back plain, then you will end up with a triangle. Actually, you end up with two triangles with one shared edge.

it is upside down compared to the triangles produced by YO, knit to end every row; or the ones done as [YO, knit across, yo] every rs row.

#3

The basic top down triangle shawl is as Mmario describes - CO a few sts, YOs at both edges and on either side of the center k1 st on th RS rows and a plain row back. If you modified a pattern, it’s likely that the original did just that.

#4

Here is what I believe I did.
CO 3 stitches
K first row
K1 YO K2
K1 YO pm K3
K2 YO pm K1 sm K2
etc.
I never had a right side or a wrong side.
Guess that was my problem.

So, do I need to tear it all out and always have a RS and a WS?

Or, can I fix it by doing what I suggested?

Thanks! :heart:

I tried to upload a photo of the square/triangle but I don’t think it worked. :aww:

#5

Did you continue as k2, YO at the beginning of evry row, or did the number of stitches before you made the Yarnover increase every other row?

If it was the latter, I think I see how you ended up as a square. If so, no, there isn’t an easy fix, but you COULD continue knitting until the square is big enough for a lap robe.

#6

Yes it was the later, increasing each row.

I was afraid there wouldn’t be any easy fix that I would need to tear it out and redo it.

It turned out so nice because the yarn is variegated the pattern was lovely. Therefore I think I’ll just take it out and start again.

So, as long as I have a RS and a WS, increasing my stitches only on the RS and doing a straight knit or pearl on the WS, I will end up with a triangle that I can just BO, correct?

Thanks for all your help, even though it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.:hug:

#7

I believe so, but to be honest I’m having a hard time “wraping” my head around this :wink: .

My inclination would be to do increases on both ends of the right side row and then nothing on the wrong side row.

Otherwise your shawl is going to look off.

There are simple dish cloth patterns that start with a small number of sts and then have you increase at the beginning and end of one row and then knit the next.

The only way you’d square them is to do decreases after a certain point. So as long as you are increasing you shouldn’t end up with a square. Naturally I’m not talking about a dish cloth but using that idea :wink:

#8

I would not have expected a square either, obviously or I would not have done it the way I did. But I can assure you that once I BO I did indeed have a square with the open stitches going from corner to corner. I can fold it over so the open stitches are in the middle and then I have a triangle.
Apparently it has something to do with adding a stitch on every row instead of doing a straight knit or pearl row in between.

So, if you ever want a square with open stitches diagonally, do a YO on one side of the center stitch, in each direction.

The photo under my name is of the square that was supposed to be a triangle.

#9

The photo in place of an Avatar is one of the square/triangle shawl I tried to make.

#10

you all are giving me a headache with your triangles being squares, etc, etc! LOL

I’ve had this one http://www.knittersreview.com/article_yarn.asp?article=/review/profile/070412_a.asp on my to-do list for ages.

#11

You acually can do the incs on every row, but pick a number - it should either be k1, yo, k across, k2 yo, k across, or k3, yo k across. The basic pattern
CO 3 stitches
K first row
K1 YO K2
K1 YO pm K3
K2 YO pm K1 sm K2

Is fine, and you don’t need markers. Just repeat that last row - k2, yo, k across on every row until it’s the size you want. That way you don’t have to worry about WS/RS, just inc on every row, but keep the same number of k sts before the YO. In order to get a square, you would have had to dec sts somewhere along the way, unless it happens by shifting the YO over by a stitch.

#12

I can assure you I did not decrease at any time.
However, the number of knit stitches in each row did change each and every row so that I could have the open stitches always in the center.

I tried the K1 K2TOG K! K2TOG across the last row for two rows, and it somewhat worked, but it’s not a straight line. Therefore, I think I’ll just bite the bullet and take it all out and start again.
I don’t think I’ll have the nice design that I had before as the rows will be straight instead of showing an angle to the edge.
Oh well!
Thanks again to everyone who answered.
Blessings,
Phyllis

#13

I see how it shouyld work - the K1 st between the markers is your center stitch. If you YO just before it on every row, that should give you a bottom up triangle.

#14

If you ONLY increase on either side of the center it will give you a square. It’s the revese of doing a mitered square with decreases.

#15

Yep!
That’s exactly what happened.
Guess I should have asked someone who knew about knitting before I went to all the trouble of knitting something that I didn’t know how it would turn out.
It looked like a triangle when I was making it, but only because the open stitches were in the center of the design.
Next time I think I can come up with a design on my own I’ll ask some folks that know more about knitting than I.
Thanks again MMario!
Blessings,
Phyllis

#16

Suzeeq, That was what I thought too, but obviously I was mistaken.
You can see from the photo below my name how it turned out.

#17

Suzeeq, That was what I thought too, but obviously I was mistaken.
You can see from the photo below my name how it turned out.

#18

Guess you need to have 2 incs per row. Will have to try out what I was thinking of…

#19

I didn’t figure out what was going on until I saw the photo - so don’t knock yourself too hard. Sometimes shaping just does not do what you think it is going to do. It’s posible that if you did a lifted increase rather then the yo’s you might get a triangle , but I think the center would still distort towards a diamond or square.