Knitting: Cable Edge Garter Stitch Shawl

I mentioned in my last post that knitting had been keeping me calm and fulfilling my need to create while I was moving house. Well, today's project is the result of all that knitting. I'd cast it on a couple of months ago, then it got a bit overlooked for a while in favour of the excitement of my first socks, but I picked it back up again when I needed something simple and relaxing to work on.

This little shawl is the cable edge garter stitch shawl from the February 2017 issue of Knitting Magazine. It's a really simple pattern; as the name would suggest, it's mainly garter stitch with a very simple cable down one edge, an eyelet row down the other and an optional cable bind off. Once I'd worked the first few rows and had got the pattern established, this was a nice easy project - good TV knitting!

While the pattern is simple, there is something a bit odd about the instructions. The stitches are gradually increased, and you're meant to end up with 170 stitches. I'd come to the end of the wool called for by the pattern by the time I'd got to 132 stitches and, with the way the stitches are increased, that's a massive number of rows away from reaching 170 (I'm not the only one who's had this problem). I had some of the same wool left from knitting a hat for my sister last year, so I used a bit of that to make my shawl a bit longer. I only knit a few inches extra and cast off when I was at 142 stitches but, after blocking, the dimensions of my shawl are roughly the same as the ones in the pattern.

I used the optional cable bind off but, if I were knitting this again (I'm not ruling that out), I probably wouldn't bother and just use a simple bind off instead. I'm not sure whether I did something wrong (always possible), but the cables just don't really stand out as well on the bind off as they do on the edge of the shawl and just look a bit "blah" (you can kind of see this in the photo below if you look at the difference between the edge that runs across my back and left arm, and the one across my right arm).

For once, I used the exact yarn recommended by the pattern - right down to the colour even! It's Stylecraft Head Over Heels in the Eiger colourway. This pattern is knit at a fairly loose gauge on 4mm needles, which makes the yarn feel quite different from when I've used it at the recommended gauge for other projects, and the finished shawl drapes really nicely.

In spite of the slight oddities about the stitch count/yarn amount and me being not too enthused about the cable bind off, I'm happy with the finished shawl. It's the first shawl I've made of this size, and it feels like it'll be very wearable - hopefully it'll do a good job of keeping my neck cosy over the next few months!