Knitting & Designing Shawls With Slits

Welcome to the next episode of my Shawl Design for Everybody series! Today’s topic in our shawl design course are shawls with slits.

Slits can be implemented vertically or horizontally. Usually, slits will be worked vertically (when working shawls top down or bottom up) but horizontally when working sideways.

Shawls With Vertical Slits

When working back and forth, a slit is achieved by dividing the stitches on the needle into two sections which then are worked separately. For instance, if we got 100 stitches on our needle and want to make a vertical slit into our shawl, we would do the following:

• Work back and forth until you want to start the slit.
• Slit start: k50, turn work.
• Next row: knit to end of row.
• Repeat the last two rows until slit is of desired height. Break yarn and rejoin on the second half of your stitches (stitch #51 on your needle).
• K50, turn work.
• Next row: knit.
• Repeat the last two rows until your second section is of same height as the first one.
• Next row: k100.
• Repeat the last row until shawl is of desired height.

Shawls With Horizontal Slits

Horizontal slits are achieved by binding off as many stitches as you want your slit to be wide, then casting on the same amount of stitches in the next row again.

An example: (100 stitches)

• Work back and forth until you want to work your slit.
• Next row: k30, BO 40, k30.
• Next row: k30, CO 30, k30.

Now go and try it – and let me know how it goes by leaving a comment below!