When I wore my Sunset Alligator Wrap into Crazy for Ewe, the ever-brilliant Ellen pointed out a MUCH EASIER way to knit it. Instead of doing the tedious double yarn overs and then the tedious dropping of the double yarn overs, you can just switch to a larger needle!

I wasn’t quite convinced it would work until I tried it, and it is so much easier. So when I saw these fabulous Ella Rae yarns, I had to give the alligator another go.

I decided that this time I wanted more of a shawl than a wrap, so I made this wider and shorter than the original. I cast on 320 stitches (long-tail cast on, carefully holding long gaps between the stitches) and made a total of 31 wide-stitch stripes. At the end, I bound off loosely with a size 11 needle. Since I only had three colors I wanted to use, I expanded on the color interlock from the original pattern--instead of a 3-1-1-3 color transition, this uses 5-1-3-3-1-5.

If you make the alligator with this method, you need to be very careful about not dropping stitches when you knit off of the large needle and onto the small needle. I put stitch markers (key rings, which were big enough to slide onto the size 17 needle) every 40 stitches and counted carefully during and for two rows after the wide-stitch row. In the second row after each wide-stitch row (which is right after you’ve returned the knitting to the smaller needle), give the work some firm tugs as you knit along to even out the wide stitches.

It’s very easy to keep track of the rows; when you see three narrow garter ridges on the front of the work and two on the back, it’s time to go back to the bigger needle.

Somehow, I felt from the beginning that this shawl would want a long, knotted fringe, and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. My blocking board was an enormous help. I pinned out the edge of the shawl, making sure to line it up with the grid, and then I pinned down the knots as I went, which made it much easier to keep everything uniform.

I’ll post a picture of me wearing the shawl soon, I promise!