Transom Shawl in Valley Yarns Valley Superwash Bulky - 962 - Downloadable PDF

Transom Shawl – Cable and Lace Knitting Pattern by Julie Turjoman in Valley Yarns Valley Superwash Bulky

The Transom Shawl is a beautifully crafted knitting pattern designed by Julie Turjoman and published as part of WEBS' celebrated collection of giftable scarves and wraps. This pattern, available as a downloadable PDF, produces a long, elegant shawl that pairs a striking cable and lace design with a warm, chunky-weight yarn. The finished piece measures 12¼ inches wide by 77½ inches long (blocked), making it a generously sized wrap that drapes beautifully and provides real warmth. It is rated Intermediate in difficulty, making it an ideal next step for knitters who are comfortable with basic techniques and ready to explore more textured and visually complex stitch patterns.

What Is Being Made

The Transom Shawl is a long rectangular wrap or scarf, worked in a single size. Its generous length allows it to be worn draped over the shoulders, wrapped around the neck, or styled in a variety of ways. The design is part of WEBS' signature line of wearable gifts, and its combination of cables and lace gives it an heirloom quality that makes it especially suitable as a holiday or special occasion gift. The blocked dimensions ensure the lace opens up fully and the cables settle into their characteristic raised texture.

Construction and Techniques

The Transom Shawl is worked flat, meaning it is knitted back and forth in rows rather than in the round. This straightforward construction keeps the pattern accessible while allowing the textured stitch patterns to be clearly visible on the right side of the work. Key structural details include:

• Ribbed borders at each short end of the wrap, providing a neat and elastic finish at both cast-on and bind-off edges.
• Garter stitch edges running along both long sides of the shawl, creating a tidy selvage that lies flat without curling.
• The body of the shawl features a combination of cable panels and lace panels that work together to create the "Transom" design — an interplay of structured, raised cables and airy, open lacework.
• Stitches are cast on using the Long-Tail Cast-On method, which produces a firm, even, and attractive foundation edge well suited to a textured garment like this.
• The cast-on begins with 43 stitches, and the work proceeds in established pattern sections separated by stitch markers.

Cables

Cables are a classic knitting technique in which stitches are crossed over one another to create twisted, rope-like or braided textures that stand out in relief from the background fabric. In the Transom Shawl, two cable crosses are used:

• 3/3 RC (Right Cross): Three stitches are placed on a cable needle and held to the back of the work, the next three stitches are knitted, and then the three held stitches are knitted from the cable needle. This produces a cable that twists to the right.
• 3/3 LC (Left Cross): Three stitches are placed on a cable needle and held to the front of the work, the next three stitches are knitted, and then the three held stitches are knitted from the cable needle. This produces a cable that twists to the left.

These six-stitch cable crosses give the Transom Shawl its bold, structured character, which is especially striking in the chunky-weight yarn used for this project.

Lace

The lace sections of the Transom Shawl are worked using a Left Lace Pattern that repeats over a multiple of 10 stitches and 16 rows. Lace knitting creates decorative open holes in the fabric by pairing yarn-overs (which add a stitch and create an eyelet) with decreases (which remove a stitch and maintain the stitch count). The specific stitches used in the lace panels include:

• YO (Yarnover): The yarn is wrapped over the needle to create a new stitch and an open eyelet in the fabric.
• SSK (Slip, Slip, Knit): Two stitches are slipped individually