Yarn: Lodband Einband, Icelandic laceweight wool, purchased at Schoolhouse Press. The color number is 9808, and I used all but 1 gram of 5 skeins of yarn (225m each).
Pattern: Langsjal Jóhönnu, from Three Cornered and Long Shawls, by Sigridur Halldórsdóttir. I also purchased this from Schoolhouse Press.
Needles: Knitpicks Options circular, size 3.75mm
For: Me
Started: May 2006,
for the Amazing Lace knitalong. It went into an extended timeout in
September of that year, when I got sidetracked by other stuff. I did a
row here and there just so the poor thing wouldn't feel abandoned, but
started back in earnest on it over this winter.
Finished: April 5, 2008
Modifications: None, except for my possibly creative
interpretation of the charts. I also used way more yarn than what the
pattern called for, which was 500 yards of laceweight. I used 1230
yards of the Lodband Einband. I did use a larger needle than called for
in the pattern, as I liked the look of the pattern stitches better at
that gauge, so that accounts for some of the difference. The finished
shawl measurements given in the book are 25" by 75". Mine is 26" by
84", so that accounts for some of the rest. I think if you only went
with the 500 yards, you'd have a really short stole. I wanted something
that I can really wrap up in.
What I Learned: Where to start? This is easily the most
difficult thing I've finished. The original book is in Icelandic, and
the included translation is somewhat terse, at only 15 pages to the
original book's 77 pages. This shawl is one of the more challenging in
the book, as it is patterned on both sides, meaning no long purled or
knitted row on the return row. If you make a mistake, there's no "easy"
row to rip back to where you can get your bearings and get the thing
back on the needles. I did a lot of painstaking "tinking" to fix
mistakes. I used lifelines, and stitch markers to separate the
horizontal repeats.
The chart in the book also doesn't have the horizontal repeats
marked, so that required a whole lot of fiddling in the beginning that
I probably made much more difficult than it really should have been.
There's a really looooong grafting row at the end; 125 stitches to
be exact. It's done on a plain knit row, though, so it works just like
grafting a really big sock toe, and if you think of it that way it's
much less daunting. I also learned the hard way to make my grafting
much looser than I would think necessary. A lot of ripping and swearing
ensued, then re-grafting.
While I would not necessarily recommend this to a complete beginner,
any knitter with patience and an ability to read a chart can do this
one. After I first started this, I wasn't thrilled with the yarn, as
it's fairly rustic and plain, but it has grown on me. It goes with the
pattern perfectly, and will be a warm, yet stylish stole. It also
blocked out beautifully.
While this book is fairly expensive at $45, it has several other lovely patterns that I want to make someday.
Here's a close up of the pattern stitch: