Free Pattern: Celtic Knot Stole

I’ve finally finished writing up the Celtic Knot pattern. Sorry for the delay, I really have been so busy lately that it’s ridiculous. Thank goodness for bank holiday weekends.

The pattern is finished but in order to fit the charts into a document that would actually be printable I had to cut them up a bit. However, if you want to see the chart of the complete stole I have also uploaded an excel version of the chart. I’m afraid that the pattern is chart based, so I apologise for those who prefer it to be written out. When I have some spare time I’ll try and get round to doing this.

If anyone does knit this please could you let me know if there are any mistakes? I’ve checked through carefully but you know what those pesky little errors can be like!

The pattern is probably for intermediate knitters, but in lace terms it is quite an easy pattern. It requires a crochet cast-on for the border and I’ve done a quick tutorial on this in my post below (just in case).

ETA: Please see the pattern links in the sidebar.

Project Spectrum: Celtic Knot Stole

First things first: Monkey did the honours and pulled a name out of the (knitted) hat. The winner is Seahorse! Congratulations - please could you email me and let me have the address you would like it posted to?

Details of the finished Celtic Knot Stole

Yarn: Posh Yarn Camilla 100% cashmere in Memories
Needles: 3.5mm Inox circulars
Blocked measurements: 35” by 65”

This is the yarn I won from Posh Yarn in the photo competition last year. Thank you Dee for the yarn. It is so soft and has been a delight to knit with. Plus I’ve already had so many compliments on the colour.

I’ve seen a few posts recently about why people knit and this led me to start thinking about myself (Monkey might say that wasn’t unusual!). There are a lot of reasons but one of them is that it is a chance to extend the fantasy stage of acquiring an item of clothing. I’m sure that most women will understand this stage when I explain it. It is that period of time from when you first spot the article of clothing in a shop/catalogue/pattern book, during which you think that the said article will, for example, make you more popular, make you better at your job or make the guy you’ve always fancied at school finally notice you. After wearing the article of clothing a number of times, you usually realise that this won’t happen. However, by then you’ll have already seen that life-changing pair of shoes that will do the trick instead.

Anyway, as I was saying, knitting extends this stage for me and the fantasies I can build up about a particular garment can be pretty far fetched by the time I finally cast off. While I was knitting this stole, I pictured myself as the heroine of some Victorian gothic novel. Standing on the heathered brink of a lonely moor wearing a dove-grey silk dress and desperately trying to escape from some mad woman locked in an attic. But nope, here I am in my flat cooking gingerbread and modelling this in some rather crumpled old clothes. But I still love it and every time I wrap it round my shoulders I do feel a little closer to the windswept moors!

Lace update

Recently, I’ve been concentrating on getting my Celtic Knot Stole finished. I'm almost there now - just one repeat and the borders to go. I’m really enjoying knitting it. I love the colour, I love the yarn (Posh Yarn 100% cashmere) and I’m quite excited about the design. The photos that I’ve taken are truly awful. It is just dismal here today and I can’t find a way of getting enough light to take a pretty picture. But the lace is in the ugly-duckling, pre-blocking stage anyway.

Crafty Granny, you were asking about my sharing the stole. I’d be happy to let you have the charts once I’ve finished drawing them up.

This week I gave a new knitting group a try. I went to the Liberty group that meets on he 1st and 3rd Thursday of every week. It is a great place for a knitting group: large tables, delicious cakes and coffees, and a knitting shop close to hand. I did enjoy but I do have to admit that I prefer the I Knit London group. I think this is just because at the Liberty group everyone knew each other and, understandably wanted to spend their time catching up rather than meeting new people. I might give it another try some time though because the people seemed really nice.

By the way, I have bought Victorian Lace Today. It is wonderful. I adore it. It comes out top on every point: great photos, great designs, great writing, great techniques section, brilliant information on yarn and substituting yarn. If you love lace you can’t really go wrong with this book (unless you don’t like charts).

In Knots

This is a progress picture of the Celtic Knot Stole. It might not look like much but if you knew the number of times I have frogged, redesigned, and re-knitted this over the past week you would understand my joy at being safely on my way - I'll hurry up and finish the pattern repeat so you can see what it is actually going to look like. Besides, my faith in the blocking process has increased dramatically,so I‘m not too worried that it isn‘t looking that great right now. I’m so addicted to seeing the beautiful transformation that sometimes I haunt lace knitters’ blogs waiting for that final photo!

By the way you might notice the un-ironed sheet in the photograph and I am hanging my head (if only slightly) in shame. My Mum is one of these incredible women who even when working full time managed to iron everything (even the tea towels). I will never be able to do this - I find it hard enough to stay on top of the other housework. So tea towels and duvet covers rest easy - I will not iron you.

The Kim Hargreaves’ top (Hawthorn) is coming on well. I’m using it as my on-the-train knitting and I’ve almost finished the back. I’ve also ordered the wool to make a pair of Eunny’s Endpaper mitts. This will be a real challenge for me as I’ve only ever knitted big blocks of colour before. But I’ve been seeing so much amazing colour knitting going on that I couldn’t resist trying some myself.

I'm going to make an effort to post on this blog once a week from now on. I keep letting the days slip by.