Jessica’s Shawl

We were delighted in 2011 when my nephew Ryan introduced his bride-to-be to our family. We were especially delighted (and slightly scared) that she seemed to fit right in. I offered to knit a shawl for her — not specifically a wedding shawl but a shawl in honor of her wedding. After electronic discussion, she chose exactly what I hoped she would choose: a Faroese shawl made from a red yarn that I had purchased in Italy.

The yarn: Pura Lana Zephir from Albozzi Filati Alma, Torino, Italy; 2/25; 1,250 meters/100 grams. The color is red most of the time, but in some lights looks like a deep magenta/rose. The shop has a huge selection (as you can see from the Web site) and the yarn is beautiful. If/when I return to Torino, I will definitely buy more.

The pattern is Barbara, from Stahman’s Scarves and Shawls by Myrna Stahman. I used 3.25mm needles. The only change I made to the shawl was to attach the border with an SSK instead of a K2tog. Just my preference.

Jessica tried on the shawl before it was finished to check the length.

The shawl used about 1,100 yards. With the remainder, I made a scarf for Jessica using Sivia Harding’s Little Leaf Lace Scarf pattern, one of my favorites for relatively small amounts of yarn. Finished size is 5 inches by 68 inches.

Jessica, I hope you like wearing these as much as I enjoyed knitting them!

The wedding, in 2012, was lovely.

What?! Another Scarf?!

Yes, another scarf, part of my ongoing effort to work through stash.

Details:

• Pattern: Little Leaf Lace by Sivia Harding.
• Yarn: Fleece Artist sock yarn, 1 skein
  
• Needles: US5 (3.75mm)
• Finished size: 9.5 inches x 72 inches

A Turquoise Angel

Sivia Harding's Angel Pearls beaded scarf, made with leftovers from Sivia Harding's Shetland Garden shawl (see September 17 and September 19 entries). My only difficulty with the pattern is that the purl and bead symbols on the charts look exactly the same. Fortunately the written instructions allowed me to mark where to place the beads — hooray for designers who provide both written instructions and charts.

• Yarn: Nature Spun fingering weight, approximately 1 skein
• Color: Hurricane Seas
• Needles: US5
• Beads: Silverline 6/0 Black Diamond (turquoise is darned hard to match, so I opted for contrast)
• Pattern repeats: 13 repeats of the middle section
• Size: Don't know; I gave it to my friend Liz before I measured it
  

More Garden

I have had a few requests for a detail photo of the Shetland Garden shawl with its mirror decreases, so here it is (I hope the detail is visible; clicking on it will make it larger).

And, the shawl is 27 inches long down the center back, which is a good size for me.

A Stroll in the Garden

A Shetland Garden, that is. Specifically, the Shetland Garden shawl from Sivia Harding. The yarn Nature Spun fingering weight, one of my favorite, all-purpose yarns. The color is Hurricane Seas (our sailing friends Michael and Nancy don't understand why one would deliberately choose anything hurricane-related but I seem to be in a turquoise phase). Knit on US5 needles. The shawl took only three skeins, about 930 yards.

The main body of the shawl — the daisies, ferns and leaves — is written with all of the single decreases as right-leaning (k2tog). With this yarn, I chose mirror left- and right-leaning decreases (k2tog and ssk). For most of the double decreases, I used the designated left-leaning decrease (sl 1, k2tog, psso). However, on the leaves, which have stacked double decreases, I used centered double decreases (sl 2 tog, k1, psso).

The rose trellis section is written with left- and right-leaning decreases.

This was a fun pattern to knit and, like other Sivia Harding patterns, is clear and easy to follow.