The Nurmilintu Lace Shawl by Heidi Alander is the perfect one-skein project for beginner lace knitters. The shawl is knit flat with sections of garter stitch interrupted with short lace sections and finished with a picot bind-off – and not a single purl stitch! You get some practice with knitting lace and reading a chart, then you get to take a break from lace with the garter stitch. This free lace shawl pattern is a quick knit and makes a budget-friendly gift.

Knit a Lace Shawl using Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Organic Cotton

Kelley knit Nurmilintu using Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Organic Cotton (Color 2343 Plan B) with long color changes for around 20 dollars. The benefit of using long color changing yarn is that the yarn does all the work for you! No need to break the yarn and weave in ends every time you change colors. Plus, you get a beautiful & trendy ombré effect without any effort to fade multiple colors together.

If you would like to use this lovely organic yarn, use the code “TECHTUESDAY” to get 15% off Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Organic Cotton through Friday, July 3rd at 11:30 PDT.

Knitting Lace from a Chart

In this episode of Technique Tuesday, Kelley covered how to read the lace chart & key for Nurmilintu. Nurmilintu uses basic lace stitches like yarn overs, decreases, and slipping & passing over stitches – nothing daunting for a beginner lace knitter. To avoid a whole row of mistakes, Kelley suggests marking each chart repeat of nine stitches with stitch markers. The chart repeats are outlined in red. She also shows how to identify the “rest row” in the lace chart. In the case of the Nurmilintu Shawl, the rest rows are the wrong side rows where you knit until the last two stitches, kfb, k1.

How to Frog Lace Without a Lifeline

When knitting lace, some knitters prefer to use a lifeline for ease in fixing mistakes in previous rows. Kelley shared a trick for fixing mistakes in lace without a lifeline! Kelley identifies the rest row before the mistake, rips back to that rest row, then places the stitches back on the needle in the correct direction.

Extra Finishing Touches for the Nurmilintu Shawl

Kelley added a few extra rows of garter stitch before binding off to use most of the ball of Schoppel-Wolle. After the first section of extra garter stitch, to add a decorative eyelet row, she did a row of K2,*YO, K2tog* to last 3 sts, K2tog, K1. Then she knit a few more rows of garter stitch before binding off on the right side with the Picot Bind-Off.

Look at how much yarn she had left, even with the addition of several more rows! Nurmilintu really is a great one-skein shawl pattern – and makes a wonderful knit gift for any occasion.

Gifting the Nurmilintu Shawl

If you plan to gift your finished lace shawl to a loved one, we recommend including one of our shawl pins. A shawl pin adds a special bit of flair while also holding the shawl in place. And who doesn't love a good accessory? 

Are you adding the Nurmilintu Shawl to your projects queue? Have you knit with Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Organic Cotton?

Be sure to post pictures of your progress in our VIP Facebook group and feel free to ask questions and we'll be here to help! 

Join Kelley for the next Technique Tuesday on July 7th at 9:30am Pacific. Kelley will go live on our Facebook page to talk about Baubles by Andrea Mowry, a beautiful knit shawl pattern available at Alpaca Direct. This shawl uses a variety of knitting techniques – lace, stripes, even syncopated brioche!