An easy machine knitted shawl

It may surprise you to learn that there are some extremely active machine knitting groups on Facebook. A few months ago, people started to post photos of a faux-ribbed shawl that became known as "Christine's Shawl" after its designer, Christine B. Linfield.

The instructions are posted in the group's documents, free for anyone who's a member of the group to use. There's a link on the Ravelry pattern page.

Basically, you knit a long piece using the full bed (180 needles) of a standard gauge machine. Every 4th needle is out of work, which creates the ribbed appearance.

Then you do short rows, by putting the first group of 3 needles out of work and knitting 4 rows, and repeating with each successive group of 3 needles.

Then you bring all the groups of needles back into work in reverse order. This creates a line of eyelets and makes your shawl turn a corner.

The shawl has 3 such corners - one over each shoulder and one at CB.

The pattern is extremely easy and I originally thought it wasn't a very interesting shawl. However, I started to think about what to make for my 90+ year old mother in law who's in a nursing home, and realized that this shawl in her favourite colour could be just the thing.

I started it on Sunday and would have finished it in one go, but for the fact that I realized I was going to run out of yarn. I did the second half on Tuesday evening.

It took me longer to finish the ends of the shawl, which I did with a sort of backwards single crochet.

I may make another one of these. It's very cozy!