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As the name suggests, this shawl uses yarn I bought at KnitCamp 2015* to make a Nurmilintu shawl like that worn by Inner City Guild friend, 1funkyknitwit, during camp. It will come as no surprise that there are, cough, cough, a couple of changes to the original pattern.

I love the drape of 1funkyknitwit’s shawl (Ravelry project link) so decided to follow her example and knit mine on 4.5mm needles, which is larger than suggested in Heidi Alander’s pattern. Blue lace scarfHowever, once I got started, I began to wonder about the tension. Is 1funkyknitwit a tight or loose knitter? Would the 379 metres of yarn be enough if I were using larger needles? I decided to play safe and start the first lace section a little earlier – when I had 9 stitches fewer than instructed, since the pattern repeat is 9 stitches wide. I then continued to knit each section so that I finished with nine stitches fewer than stated in the pattern. I knitted the final lace section and still had yarn over. A not-insubstantial amount for someone who likes to use every last inch. I knitted the first 6 rows of the lace section again. Still plenty of yarn. I knitted the middle 6 rows. Yarn left? Yes. I knitted the last five rows and realised I didn’t have enough for the picot cast-off so I just did a stretchy cast off. I cut it more than a little fine – that tail dangling down is all that was left!

Since there were no picot points I just threaded a wire through the edge and blocked the two shorter sides straight. I pulled the curvy hypotenuse side into shape and pinned it.  This meant far less back-breaking time crawling round on the floor. The result is a shawly-kind-of-scarf that works as well over your shoulders as round your neck.

Woman holding blue lace scarf Woman wearing blue lace scarf

*The yarn is Debbie Bliss Fine Donegal (95% wool, 5% cashmere). It comes in large 100g balls and has lovely tweedy flecks in it. My teal colour has flecks of blue and turquoise. KnitCamp 2015 was run by the Knitters’ Guild of NSW  and I wrote in more detail here.