I love designing shawlettes; they are a perfect canvas for showcasing the beauty of one or two skeins of gorgeous yarn. But how do you wear a shawlette?
You can wear it just draped on your shoulders.
(Rosaria, the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery KAL)
Or you can wear it with a big side swoop, which is my current favorite. Center the shawlette on one shoulder, let the end at your back come around the opposite shoulder, and swoop the end that’s in front of you up to cross over the hanging end. Give it a little scrunch at the neck; don’t try to keep it flat across the front.
I generally like to wear a shawl pin to help keep things in place if I’m doing the side swoop. I’ve been wearing this leaf stick by local woodworker Rod Wallace (husband of Bobbie Wallace, whom I met at OFFF many years ago) with Sophie’s Rose; it’s the perfect color for this shawlette, and it stays put really well.
The side swoop works with several shapes, such as the asymmetric triangle above, the crescent shaped shawl here
and this half circle pi shawl (please excuse the hotel room selfie pic of Midnight in Rosaria)
The shawl pin for this one was custom made by Jill Lawrence of Twisted Sister Arts, specifically for my Rose City Yarn Crawl Midnight in Rosaria Shawlette. Isn’t it gorgeous?
Longer, narrower shawlettes can be worn scarf style, like this Fern Shawlette. Scarf style is pretty close to the swoop, just scrunch it up more around your neck rather than your shoulders.
The Autumn Scarf pictured below actually *is* a scarf, but I use this method with longer shawlettes: Fold in half, wrap around your neck, and put the two ends of the shawlette into the loop at the fold in front of you.
And then there’s the bandana or kerchief style. It works well with triangles and crescents, and especially really long (wide) crescents. Put the center of the shawlette at the front of your neck, wrap the ends around your neck and bring them to the front. A pin is helpful if the ends are really long, but shorter shawlettes can just end on your shoulders.
As an aside, I was out at Black Sheep at Orenco on Saturday to knit with their Rose City Yarn Crawl KAL group.
We had a great time, and I saw this very lovely shawl stick pin by Rod Wallace. I love my leaf stick pin, but he has really upped his game. I may need one of these, too.
There you have it! I hope this gives you some new ideas for wearing your gorgeous creations. How do you wear your shawls and shawlettes?
PDXKnitterati 
Hey!!!! I LOVE that shawl pin that you said you had made…. Can I buy one somewhere? Its beautiful!! 😊
Yes! Click the link for Jill Lawrence/Twisted Sister Arts above the picture of the pin. Or see if this works (same link): http://www.etsy.com/people/twistedsisterarts
You can ask her for a custom design; and she can match colors for you, too!
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I love shawlettes worn scarf style or draped asymmetrically around the shoulders. They look so effortlessly chic!
That whole side swoop thing makes me feel almost Parisian! I agree, very chic.
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Great post. I knit a shawl and I couldn’t figure out how to wear it without looking like an old lady. I found some helpful info on Pinterest about how to wear shawls and now I love wearing it! 🙂
Thank you! I wore three different shawls all weekend during the yarn crawl; (Sophie’s Rose and 2 Rosaria) and it was fun to style them differently. The smaller of the Rosaria I just wore draped over my shoulders, but kind of scrunched up at the neck so it would hang better; it made the line of roses hit diagonally instead of horizontally, more like a deep V-neck. Fun! Now you can knit more shawls, knowing that you’ll wear them stylishly!
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