Learn How To Create Leaning Increases and Decreases

Kelly and I are still working on our Starting Point shawls. I'm really enjoying the process of this shawl, and seeing how all the yarns work together. 

This shawl is knit with five fingering-weight yarns, and the one that I like best in my shawl is Malabrigo Mechita. I look forward to doing sections with this yarn—it's so soft. It slides through my hands and feels good. It's the grayish color in the photo below. I will definitely knit an entire project with this yarn!

The shaping of this shawl is fun. The pattern uses paired increases and decreases: knit two together k2tog), make 1 left (m1l), make 1 right (m1r), and slip slip knit (SSK).

I made a swatch mimicking the shawl shaping on a smaller scale. It's labeled with the two increases and decreases.

If you can work these four shaping stitches, you can knit just about anything. They're so widely used, you'll come across at least one of these with each pattern you knit.

Here's a video demonstrating all four stitches.

Kelley is still ahead of me, because she's knitting her two sides section by section. I'm just going straight through one side. The Starting Point shawl is made up of two identical sides that meet at at the points when they're done, and then two triangles are picked up and knit on each side of the points. When the shawl is finished, it's one long rectangle.

Isn't it amazing how alternate yarn choices make this shawl look totally different? My knitting friends think mine looks like a licorice all-sorts candy, or Neapolitan ice cream. What's wrong with that?

Cheers,