I got the yarn from Louisa Harding's studio in the Byram Arcade in Huddersfield, along with the pattern. The design is Olena, and it makes a scarf so light and airy that one 50g. ball of yarn makes a good sized scarf (mine is about 135cm. x 25cm.).
Louisa intended the scarf to have beads in the lace for the first few pattern repeats at each end of the scarf:
But I'm not a beaded scarf sort of person, so I left those off. I also didn't do the picot cast on, though I did try it - I couldn't make it look neat, so just did a regular cast on.
The lace pattern is really beautiful. It's not one that I know, but could well supplant Print o' the Wave as my favourite lace stitch.
I did a lot of the knitting in public, i.e. in the various knitting groups that I go to, but that wasn't a very good idea. I made a few mistakes in the lace. the worst being near the beginning when I had to unravel about 15cm., which at that point was more than half of what I had already done. I did think about leaving it, because I thought that no-one else would see the mistake, which is probably true. But I am very glad that corrected it, because now it's perfect. I made a few more mistakes, but I made sure to check more often, so correcting them wasn't such a big deal.
Louisa promised that washing the finished knit, to get the spinning oil out, would make a huge difference - the cashmere would 'bloom'. And she was right - it felt quite soft while I was knitting it, but now it is delightful. Very soft, warm, and light, and the colour is gorgeous too - not quite solid, a lovely grey-blue. I love my scarf.
Congratulations. It's beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I think so too.
DeleteWhat a beautiful scarf. It makes me want to do some lace knitting - I'm so easily influenced!
ReplyDeleteIt's quite a long pattern repeat, and I never managed to learn it, so this is perhaps not a lace pattern to start lace knitting on. But it's certainly worth it.
DeleteWhen I was knitting my first cashmere project - a simple lace scarf - I used to make people hold out a hand so I could drop the whole scarf into their palm, then say, "Can you feel any weight? How about heat?"
ReplyDeleteI retrospect, I was probably quite annoying, but I just wanted to share my delight :)
p.s. Shortly after that project I bought my first cashmere goats.
I do sympathise - my own scarf is so amazingly light and soft, and I want everyone meet to feel it to appreciate how wonderful it is. I haven't yet felt the urge to buy any goats though.
DeleteI love this pattern and how beautifully your scarf turned out! I've just started it and could use your advice. I also want to leave out the beads. How is the stitch count worked without them? There are places where the pattern would read a double yarn over. How did you alter the pattern to make your stitch count work without the beads? Thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteApologies for the late reply - I'm sure I did write a reply much earlier, but there's no sign of it. I can't remember doing anything special to knit it without beads, so I'm not sure I can help, I'm afraid. As far as I remember, I just followed the pattern but didn't put beads in...
DeleteHi the pattern says you need a crochet hook ? Is this necessary
ReplyDeleteI don't have the pattern to hand, but you don't need a crochet hook if you don't add beads. The pattern presumably tells you how to use the crochet hook to add beads, if you want to. There are other ways of adding beads to knitting too, which you'll find on YouTube.
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