Building in Lace - Getting Started

To begin this shawl, you will cast on using the Provision Cast On with scrap yarn. This way, you can eventually zip the scrap yarn out to reveal live stitches to complete the Saw Tooth Edging.

Your scrap yarn should be smooth and solid colored, and a different color than your main yarn. Mercerized cotton or mulberry silk yarns are great options. 

This is my favorite way of doing the Provisional Cast On. It's fiddly, but you will have your stitches on your needle instead of chaining how ever many stitches you need, and then searching for the bumps to pick up afterwards.

After you're done casting on, chain a few more stitches, cut the scrap yarn leaving a tail, and pull the tail through the last chain to fasten off.

Because you'll be picking these stitches up towards the end of the project, it's a good idea to thread a lifeline through these stitches so they don't unravel when you pull the provisional cast on out months from now. 

For your first row, you'll knit every stitch with your project yarn. After that, you will slip the first stitch of every row purlwise WITH THE YARN IN FRONT, and then take the yarn to back and knit to the end of the row. This creates a beautiful chained selvage that looks much nicer than simply knitting the first stitch every row.

Now you're ready to complete your first border and move onto Section 1!