Jun 8, 20182 min read

Lime Chamraj

Does your color palette change with the seasons? I've noticed that as we move into spring and summer, I yearn to knit green. And so it was again this year.

Lime Chamraj is the second pattern in a series of tea-inspired shawls. It's zesty, zingy, refreshing… yet soothing as the lime-scented green tea it was named after. (What was the first one, you might be asking. That was Shawlands, released in October last year.)

Lime Chamraj is an asymmetrical crescent-shaped shawl. The shape is achieved by increasing as you normally would for a crescent-shaped shawl: two stitches at both ends on every right-side row and one on every wrong-side row. But this shawl also has sweeping garter-stitch wedges that are wider on one end of the shawl, creating an unusual asymmetrical shape.

Can you spot the cast-on point in the photo below? It's not in the middle, the point that hits the back of the neck, as it normally is on crescent-shaped shawls.

The shawl has alternating sections of simple eyelet lace and garter stitch, which makes great TV knitting: it's both relaxing and stimulating knitting at the same time. The eyelet sections are the perfect switch-your-brain-off knitting. It's a really simple four-stitch, four-row repeat: one row to do the eyelets, three for just plain knitting. Both written and charted instructions are given for the eyelet lace pattern.

The garter-stitch wedges are shaped with German short rows, my favorite method for knitting short rows. There's a little counting involved in the short-row sections but nothing too complicated — it is garter stitch after all.

To knit the shawl you need approx. 600 m / 655 yd of fingering-weight yarn. I used three skeins of Isager Tweed, a single-ply yarn made of wool and mohair. It's a wonderfully rustic (yet soft!) yarn that's ideal for really simple, textural stitch patterns. For a smoother look, pick a slicker yarn such as single-ply merino or a merino/silk blend.