This shawl was a long time coming.

Lizzies’ Hap was an idea that I had been toying with ever since I knit the Roamin’ Hat for Kate Davies in 2018. It came into being in 2019/2020 as a result of Kate Davies’ design competition on “Place” and what it means to you. And then Covid hit and it languished as I struggled with the changes that Covid imposed and the emotions brought about by the concept of place and what it meant to me.

Place for me meant family. My Grandmother Elizabeth, Lizzie to her friends, was part of my place.

When I first started knitting, I would ask Granny what she would like me to knit for her. She asked me for a shawl, a shawl like the ones from home, Scotland. She loosely described it as a big square with a striped edge that was knitted. At this point I had no idea of where to begin. Instead, I knit her a sweater with thistles in pink and grey, her favorite flower and in her favourite colours.

I wasn’t a skilled enough knitter at that time and didn’t know quite what she meant. She passed away before I had learned. Since then, I have learned both about the type of shawl she had wanted and how to make one.

This is my second shawl for her, the first one was a very basic hap that I knit in 2010. Only the center square with the simple lace pattern was kept from that hap. This shawl has a “thistles and heather” fair-isle insert, a striped border and a fancy edging – just for her – because she was just that important.

This shawl features a totally reversible fair-isle insert that acts as almost a collar detail when wearing the shawl.

Notes on the pattern. In most ways this is simply a traditional hap shawl, in the stitches chosen and the construction techniques used. How this is not a traditional hap shawl is in the insertion of an additional border between the center square and the lace border. This fair-isle border is what sets this shawl apart from a more traditional shawl. The fair-isle border basically gets knit twice to keep the backside neat and the shawl reversible.

Materials:
Sample was knit with Kate Davies Yarn Milarrochy Tweed, a fingering weight yarn.
Main, 1800m gloaming (purple),
Contrast 500m garth (bright green),
Fair-isle – 100m campion (pink), 100m hirst (off white) and 400m smirr (blue) fingering weight yarns,

3.75mm US #5 needles, straight or 24-inch circular for the center square, 40-inch circ for the borders and a dpn for the edging, 3.5mm hook and smooth waste yarn for provisional cast-on, markers and the usual notions.

Gauge: relaxed, after blocking – center square lace, 16 sts in 4 inches – fair-isle border, 23 sts in 4 inches – crest of wave border, 23 sts in 4 inches.

Size: Approx 6 ft square

Dimensions: center square, 36 inches square – fair-isle border, 3.5 inches deep – crest of wave border, 11 inches deep – edging pattern, 3 inches deep.