Victorian Scarf

The scarf from page 80 of Victorian Lace Today was finished a while ago but lay and lay and lay until I got round to blocking it. I finally blocked it on my bed, and actually found a pin the hard way a couple of days later.

It's pretty but I did get bored towards the end; I think if the pattern weren't in garter stitch I would have loved it more. I must remember that the next time I'm choosing a lace pattern. The yarn is an alpaca and nylon sock yarn from Fyberspates and is quite beautiful, has many more flashes of pink in it than you can see here. I took about 17 photographs of it at different settings to try and capture the subtleties but they all came out looking much the same. I'm going to give it away, as I have scarves the way some women have shoes, and I think the colours would suit my niece better than they do me.

Because I made the scarf quite short, there is yarn left over and it's so delicious to work with that I couldn't bear to put it away, so I'm using it for some of the flowers on Nicky Epstein's Anniversary scarf in the latest Vogue Knitting (Fall 2007). It goes very well with some of Natalie's sock yarn in a slightly purplish denim-blue (cool blue needles from Natalie too). I'm looking for a third shade; I tried some Lorna's Laces in Georgetown but it's too icy a blue so I'm still looking.


What about Kauni? Well, the indecision continues and is expanding exponentially. I spent a long time looking at child-sized patterns while the little voices in my head kept saying, 'But if you make a child's sweater then the blocks of colour will be wider, probably too wide,' and 'If you try to make up the shoulder shaping yourself it will go wildly wrong,' and 'Why didn't you buy the blue / green / purple colourway instead of the rainbow?' So I spent another long time looking at Kauni pictures on blogs. I've wondered about making a sort of sleeveless thing for myself but that brings me back to the colourway. I've thought about a bag, but I don't really like knitted bags very much and anyway I have trouble using the bags I've already got. I could make a blanket, but I'm not very into them either. Oh, wait a minute, what about a cushion? A big enough one to let the stripes be fairly narrow... I could use the cast-on for Ruth Sorensen's cardi to start me off and then it would fit one of my big sofa cushions. No shaping, no different sizes of stripes, just lots of lovely colour changes and some pretty patterns. I think I've got it.