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I made the Northhampton Neckerchief by Cirilia Rose. This design comes from New England Knits: Timeless Knitwear with a Modern Twist by Cecily Glowik MacDonald and Melissa LaBarre. I found this book in a resale shop in Loveland, CO. Since I realized that older knitting books give me such a thrill, I have been going to many local book stores and resale shops to see what I can discover. This book has lots of great designs, that with some minor modifications, I want to try out. This neckerchief really caught my eye because I like the beading so much! I had never worked a project with beads before, so I have been keen to get one under my belt. I was pleased to find that it was not difficult to do! Tedious at worst but not impossible. I love the added bit of shine and glamour they provide for this shawl.
My love for shawl knitting has greatly increased for a couple of reasons. In the past, I trash talked shawl knitting til the cows came home! I was SUCH a garment knitter. How could I ever knit a shawl?! EEGADS! But, I am going to have to admit that I was wrong. I love garments and I know that won’t change, but they can be difficult to keep up with when I am spending time with my family. I want to be able to knit and keep my thumb strong in peace. By that, I mean that multitasking that much makes my head spin. It’s much easier to watch a movie or my daughter while knitting on a shawl like this one. It’s self correcting, in my opinion, with how the increases are handled. I don’t have to ay attention to every stitch or every row, which makes it great for “background” knitting. They are also a lot more transportable than sweaters up until the very end.
I know all these qualities will not be true for every shawl but it has at least opened my eyes to the possibilities and also what to look for when choosing a shawl pattern for me. The beads added a lot of intrigue but this project would have made me happy with or without them. I learned a lot with this project.
I have been wearing it even though its not cold enough to just yet. I don’t care. I love this Neckerchief so much! I believe this is as close to lace as I’ve gotten before. I’m certain that I made mistakes along the way but it looks beautiful and you can’t even tell! How luck did I get?
The Dream in Color Yarn I used were two limited edition colors from 2020. I purchased both from The Loopy Ewe, I love to go in there and see the new colors and yarns! I used the May Pop Up Club 2020 Colorway in the Smooshy with Cashmere Base. I also used Happy Birthday Loopy! 2020, which is also in the Smooshy base. It is so smooth and soft and SMOOSHY! It is a dream to wear and quite warm even though it is a fingering weight yarn.
This pattern is written well. I didn’t see any issues making it. I did change several details about it though. The biggest change i made would have to be that I used 2 yarns instead of 3 different colors. I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal, but I was wrong!. I ran out of yarn and was forced to use more of the May Pop Up Club yarn that I wanted to, originally! It ended up looking quite beautiful as a trim on this shawl around the lace.
I also moved the beading a bit. I chose to add the second row of beading sooner than written in the pattern. I used three colors in this design, instead of three. The pattern has the beads to follow the change in colors. I chose to center my second row of beading within the second color I used. I think it looks more symetrical and nice. This meant that I used less beads than what was required too. I was tempted to add some to the garter ridge that I used the May Pop Up Club color for around the outside of the lace, but decided against it.
Knitting Diary:
08-07-2021: I cast on with a crochet magic ring thing lol I’m using 4.0mm dpn because I couldn’t find my 3.75mm needles rn. My guage is usually too tight so I think it will be fine for this projects. I need to increase a stitch on the Orange marked area. The Orange stitch marker will be a progress marker for today. I like working this design. Plus the yarn is so nice! I’m glad I decided to start this project!
08-12-2021: I’ve got 53sts between the markers now. I got some Czech seed beads in a multiple colors for this project! I think they will look like sprinkles for my birthday neckerchief 🥳
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