Monday, March 2, 2009

Margaret's Llama Estonian Lace Scarf

While I was in No. Calif. last fall to pick up my Alden Amos electric wheel, I stopped to visit my long-time friend, Margaret, in Vacaville. She raises llamas, especially for the fleece and for use as pack animals. She had a particularly lovely skein of two ply, lovely dark red color, about sport weight, and only about 400-500 yards. Not enough for a shawl from Nancy Bush's new book, "Knitted Lace of Estonia" .
But there was PLENTY for a scarf designed from patterns from the book. Using my Open Office Spreadsheet and the Aire River Knitting Font, I chose patterns that pleased me, and that would be fun to knit. I designed the scarf to narrow around the neck, and knit from the lace edge, thru all the three-st cross center stitches, and then knit the corresponding lace portion of the other end. I always seem to graft WAAY too tightly, so I grafted the seam over a wooden knitting needle a size smaller than the Addi's the scarf was knitted on.

Seam is NOT perfect, but much better than usual. I am very happy with the finished product, and think that Margaret, a new bride, will be as well. Here are pictures of Melody, another of my friends, wearing the scarf and a blocking picture.I loved the math of the gradual decreases around the neckline, weighing the remaining skein of yarn to make sure I used the MOST of the yardage I could.I





And here is the jpeg of my pattern:


3 comments:

Nan said...

That scarf is simply lovely, but I think I said the same thing when we saw pictures of it on plurk.

You do such lovely work!

Nan

cindy said...

I love the scarf, especially the way that you narrowed it at the neck. you are my inspiration as always. Cindy

hakucho said...

Checked out all your knitting...everything is exquisite!

happy knitting :)