Nineteen Twenty Shrug

©Aspiring Threads

I came across the Nineteen Twenty shrug pattern, by Liisa Nieminen a while back. It looked like a nice, easy project that would be very wearable.

The pattern calls for Sweet Georgia Merino Silk Fine, which is a bit rich for my wallet, so I decided to go with a less costly, but still very nice yarn from Sweet Georgia (BFL Sock, in the Cayenne colourway). I knit the shrug over the course of two months, even though it shouldn't have taken me more than a few weeks to complete. This project was put on the back burner a couple of times, so I could knit sweaters for my mum and dad.

The pattern doesn't come in a very wide range of sizes, but it is pretty simple to size it up or down if you need to. I found the two size options to be rather a bit on the small side, so I'm sure a lot of knitters would need to size it up by adding stitches to the width and length. I decided to live life dangerously, so I didn't do a gauge swatch. My rectangle ended up much wider than it was supposed to... by about 6", in fact. This turned out to be a good thing though, because the finished shrug would have been to small for me otherwise.

©Aspiring Threads

The construction is very simple. Basically, you knit a large rectangle, with the lace panel going up the center, then fold it in half, seam the edge on both sides, leaving the middle open. After that, you pick up stitches on the armholes and in the middle, and knit the edging on.

This is a very wearable shrug; it's almost like wearing a shawl, because your arms are exposed, but it keeps your shoulders nice and warm. You don't have to fuss and adjust it like you do with a shawl though, which is really nice.

I'll be making a second soon. The next one will be bright green, and also in Sweet Georgia BFL Sock. I'll be switching to a different lace motif for the second one however. I'm thinking about a leafy cable, or perhaps something Celtic inspired.

If you're on Ravelry, here's the link to my project page.