A friend of mine, who I shall refer to as Madam A (codenames make knitting so much more exciting!) has a whole bunch of weddings to attend to, and as well as searching for a dress, was thinking about what shrug to go over it, since most of the dresses she was looking at were sleeveless and at least one of the weddings was in October. Being the helpful person I am (and this was in no way linked to avoiding working on The Beast or yet another pair of socks), I offered to make one for her. This was interesting, since a) I hadn’t made a shrug before, b) I’d never made anything more complicated than gloves and socks that needed sizing that wasn’t for me and Madam A is a little more statuesque and about a foot taller than me, and c) I was going to be making up the pattern. She wanted a shrug that was fairly tight over the upper arms and back, and then in to big bell-shaped lacey sleeves over the lower arms. Also, to make it more interesting, Madam A finds most wool yarn really irritating on her skin, but has a weakness for sparkly things. This meant using lovely Debbie Bliss alpaca silk (aran) for the body, and then sparkly yarn to be used on the ends of the sleeves where it won’t irritate so much, and she can see the sparkly.

Enough with the words! Pictures ahoy!

So this is the first sleeve in Debbie Bliss and the accent yarn.

I started by casting on 60 stitches using waste yarn, then knitting stocking stitch for 25 cm before joining and knitting in the round (starting from the back since I hate sewing up and I needed the lace to go in the same description on both ends).

This is 25 cm of back and about 35 cm of sleeve (her wrist to midback measurement is about 85cm). The sleeves are knit stocking for about 6-8 cm, then decreased every 5 stitches 11 times, then knit 5 rows stocking

And this is the first repeat of the lace pattern. Unblocked, but pretty!

For the lower sleeves, I’m increasing one stitch per row, but not exactly. I’m trying to increase to match the lace pattern, so it blends better. I think it’s working okay– better than just kf&b every row, anyway. You can judge for yourself below.

I’m going to be moving up a size (0.5 mm) in needles with every pattern repeat to make it more open and lacy as the sleeve goes down, which is also why I’m knitting on reasonably tight 4.5 needles for the stocking/first pattern repeat.

I’m thinking three or four pattern repeats in the main Debblie Bliss, then either a pattern repeat in the accent yarn, or just the last couple of rows in it.