Belon Shawl & Scarf

I created this beautiful shawl for the Pearl Yarn from the YarnSisters. I may be the only person who has knit with this yarn. I had to knit the shawl on short notice so it could be used in a photoshoot for a special anniversary issue of Vogue Knitting. I don’t have a lot of time for knitting, so I had to figure out how long it would take to knit so I could make a schedule and finish it in time. The first row of pattern repeats (18 pattern rows, five repeats across each row) took about an hour, so I figured if I allowed 15 hours more to knit the shawl I’d be in good shape, even if there was some ripping involved. Fortunately, this is a pattern that is easily memorized. All tolled I spent about 12.5 hours knitting. There was some ripping, but I was listening to a great book and was able to get a big chunk of time on a Saturday afternoon.

After the shawl was finished and blocked and sent off to NYC, I realized I had only used about 400 yards of the 617 total yards in the skein I had.

Hence the scarf. I really liked the stitch pattern I was using (Oyster Shell) so I thought I would make a collar using the pattern with some beads as I had seen lots of lace and beaded collars in the fashion predictions. I bought several pearl beads types, but ended up choosing the seed beads as the most elegant option. I strung 220 beads onto the yarn. Every inch of yarn used after that had to be pulled through the beads. (You quickly find a system for efficiently doing it, and it gets easier as beads are used up.) It seemed like the yarn was just not disappearing. I got through 8 repeats and after blocking what I had completed and hanging it on the dress form, it seemed it was prettier just hanging rather than as a collar. I worked 9 more repeats, because that would just leave me enough beads to match my bind off to my cast on. I still had some yarn left, so I made an i-cord trim to stabilize the inside edge and encourage more rippling as the piece hangs.