The Knitting Fiend

I thought I’d try to answer a question posted by Liz at knitflame:

Subject: ernest knitting question

Since we’re (sort of) talking about knitting & geometry, I’ll throw out this question - What’s the formula for knitting a partial circle using the short-row ‘pie wedge’ method?

And if some details about the project in question will help - I need to make a horseshoe shaped shawl (like EZ’s ‘pi R square’ shawl) with a lace pattern for a relative. No problem except the lace pattern really would look much better knit straight rather than with the miters in the piRsquare shawl.

Now, my answer: I’m not familiar with EZ’s ‘pi R square’ shawl. However, reading the question, it sounds like Liz wants a shawl shaped something like the one I sketched to the left. She wants to cast on at one front opening, knit around in a semi-circle, then bind off. Getting the desired shape would involve knitting rectangles separated by regions of short rows which form wedges. Doing it this way would require using short rows; so I think this is what she means.

I’d also hazard a guess that Liz found a pretty lace pattern that looks nice knit in a horizontal band, and would fit well into the rectangles. Placed on a sideways knit shawl, the horizontal bands will display vertically, which would look beautiful.

As it happens, I do know “the formula” to knit this shape. I use quotes because, “the formula” depends on exactly what she wants to knit.

Maybe she wants to knit something that looks more like a “U” with a very square bottom; sort of like this turned upside down: Π? (That’s a capital pi, by the way.) That requires two sets short row wedges, each turning 90 degrees.

Maybe she wants to smooth things out just a little bit; then she would want to increase the number of short row wedges to 3, each turning 60 degrees. That would still have distinct kinks with a point right in the back. ( But then, there’s nothing wrong with points; this might look like nice points if knit in lace.) Maybe she wants something with nice smooth circular edges? Then, I’d advise making at least 4 full short row wedges, although more would be fine too!

Heck, maybe she wants to fiddle until the rectangles have just the right number of rows to fit her lace pattern in nicely. Hey, that’s what I might want!

In any case, since coding to excess and answering unasked questions is my policy, I wrote a calculator. Now, anyone who wants to calculate out the shaping to knit a half circle shawl, ( aka a U turn shawl, aka a pi wedge shawl ) can do so easily by entering numbers here: Knit short rowed half circle π shawl.

With any luck, Liz will actually knit this, and we’ll see a pretty shawl.