Violetta - a spring shrug

I wear shrugs all summer long at work, just enough to keep chilly airconditioning off my shoulders, small enough to stuff in my bag at the end of the day

They are also quick knits and use a relatively small amount of yarn so they are an opportunity to get fancier that usual yarns for me.

This is my first of the season, named Violetta for the wild violets the little bit of purple in the trim brings to mind, they are just in bloom after an exceptionally long and snowy winter.

the black yarn was an unlabled gift, the varigated yarn was leftover from another project several years ago…. 

The shrug is knit side to side…you can decide how much arm coverage you want and try it on as you go, put point protectors on the needles so your stitches don’t slip off (or in my fancy world a couple of hair elastics wound around the ends) 

The cable on my needles was 16” long and just worked, you could use dpn’s but that would make trying as you go more difficult. 

I cast on 50 stitches on size 10.5 US needles with a long tail cast on, knit row one and row two then joined in the round, knit until the sleeve measure from halfway up my arm. 

The back section is straight stockinette stitch, for the first few rows after the knit in the round sleeve I turned it inside for the purl rows to make handling it easier and too avoid stretching the armhole. 

Once it measured across my back I rejoined the edges and knit in the round until the sleeves matched, just don’t forget to purl the second to the last round, knit one more round and bind off. 

This was super simple and easy to try on as you go…

The inside edge is trimmed with two rounds of double crochet to keep it from rolling and to be pretty, Violetta comes from the purple in the shrug and the wild violets now in bloom

    

 And as with all of my knits it has been inspected and approved by the quality control kitty, she found it soft and snuggly and especially like how the black showed off her light gray fur.