Faux Russian Stole!
This is my second pattern from the wonderful book A Gathering of Lace edited by Meg Swanson. The first was the circular Feather & Fan shawl which I made with Malabrigo handpaintedyarn. The Russian stole is a very simple pattern, but I am modifying it. The suggested length and width are 24" by 72" but I added a couple of repeats to make it wider and will probably make it a lot longer as well. The challenge is going to be sticking to it, and not getting bored with the repeats. But it’s not so complex that I cannot watch a film while knitting, so hopefully it will be done this winter.
Isn’t the yarn a lovely colour? It’s Brown Sheep Naturespun Fingering, in some kind of berry shade. I bought a cone, and will probably end up using about 2000 yards out of the 2800 for the shawl. The needle size is 5.
I love the way the pattern includes the edging with the main body, but I have no clue why this is called a "faux" Russian stole.
Having now looked at the pattern, I think it’s because “real” Russian lace knitting only uses k2 or k3 for decreases; no ssl or whatevers. And it has two kinds of lace patterns, one with yo/k2 combinations every row separated by two garter rows, and one with them every other row.
So. There you go.