Friday 18 January 2013

The most beautiful shawl in the world


The pattern used in this shawl became very famous in America, and is known as "the world's most beautiful lace pattern". Hundreds of shawls with this pattern were ordered from Haapsalu in Estonia to the United States. Personally, I think the pattern looks like the flower of a thistle. This is a very beautiful pattern and it's easy to see why it became so popular in the U.S..


This shawl is made up of a centre with the pattern known as the most beautiful in the world and an outer border. "The world's most beautiful lace pattern" can eg. be found in Siiri Reimanns book "The Haapsalu Shawl". I have chosen a classic Estonian rounded border as the pattern for the outer border. This pattern can be found in Nancy Bush's book "Knitted Laces of Estonia.

For this shawl, I have chosen a mixed silk and mohair yarn, called Alchemy of Haiku in a beige colour called 124m - Husk. If you do not have  much training knitting laces, this type of yarn can be a bit challenging, and it may be an idea to switch to a smooth and slightly more elastic wool yarn. It will probably bring forth the pattern a little better as well. However, laces knitted in such a thin and fluffy yarn becomes very beautiful, and the shawls are very warm, light and airy at the same time.

The world's most beautiful pattern requires some practise to knit, as the number of stitches changes across rounds. However, if you follow the pattern, the structure in the pattern will suddenly appear. After that, it's not as difficult to knit as it looked at first glance. If you have some experience in lace knitting, or is sufficiently motivated, it should be okay to knit this shawl. However, it might be an idea to knit a sample patch first, so you get the intuition of the pattern before starting on the actual shawl.

3 comments:

  1. So nice! I can really see the halo from the mohair -- beautiful yarn and beautiful product! It reminds me a bit of the Russian shawls.

    I love your blog!

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  2. Thank you.
    Yes I really love this yarn. There is absolutely nothing like the combination of silk and mohair :-D

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    1. PS: It was -19C when I took the pictures, which made the mohair electric. This created the the halo around the shawl.

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