Free Shawl Pattern (Beginner Friendly): Vuelo

 Here is a pattern for a three sided shawl using a "top down" approach.  This means that you can knit a triangle as small or as large as you like, stopping when you are "done." The shawl uses two different yarns.  This is kind of a sister to my Flyde shawl which is a crescent, but uses the same row sequence.  As in  Flyde, the rows are either knit or purl, in a sequence as described below.

Gauge is not very important but you should like the "fabric" that you are knitting, so doing a swatch is helpful. You could even use just one yarn. My gauge was 4.5 stitches per inch. 

As with Flyde,  I used two laceweight yarns: a mohair and silk yarn, together with a soft merino single. For this version pictured here I used : 

Yarn A: Stitch Together Stitch Skinny in "Rusty Nail." 

Yarn B:  Hedgehog Fibres Kidsilk Lace in "Guppy" 

Yarn A creates a garter ridge, Yarn B creates a recessed stockinette row.

I'm a tight knitter and I used a size 3 US circular needle

The knitting is knit  in the classic top down triangle shawl manner: 

Cast on 7 stitches in yarn A.  Mark center stitch "spine stitch"

Row 1: k2, yo, k1. yo, k1  (spine stitch) , yo, k1, yo, k2

Row 2 knit all

Change to yarn B

Row 3; k2, yo, k3, yo, k1, yo, k3, yo, k2

Row 4:  k2, purl until final 2 sts, k2

Change to yarn A

Row 5: k2, yo, k up to spine stitch, yo, k spine stitch, yo, knit to last 2 sts, yo, k2.

Row 6: knit all

Change to yarn B

Row 7; k2, yo, k up to spine stitch, yo, k spine stitch, yo, knit to last 2 stitches, yo, k2

Row 8:  k2, purl until final 2 sts, k2

Continue with rows  5 through 8.

When the triangle is as large as you would like or you have ALMOST run out of yarn, you can just bind off. OR if you would like a pointed lacey kind of border (see photo above) you can do this, you will want to count your stitches to be sure that you have a multiple of 10 plus 4 . I often misjudge and need to add or subtract some stitches! I like a "point of the lace to  be centered over the spine stitch so I will count stitches from either side of the point and adjust as needed so as to have a k2 tog as the last stitches on either side of the hypotenuse.

Row 1: k2 tog, *k3, yo, k1, yo, k3, slip1 knit 2 tog, psso*. Center the yo k1 yo over the spine stiitch. Continue until the last 9 sts,   k3, yo, k1, yo, k3 k2 tog.

Row 2: k2, purl to last 2 sts, k2.

Repeat these for  two or. four  times. 

You can place beads where ever you like in the border, I put them in the stitch between the two yarn overs and on the sl 1 of the  "slip1 knit 2 tog, psso" (see photo above) . 

Bind of loosely! I like this method:

K 2, pass 1st stitch over 2nd and move remaining stitch to left needle. Repeat.

Have fun with this! It's a bit more like a recipe than a pattern. 

Use this pattern as you wish, but please credit me and don't claim it as your design, thank you.