stole 001

Originally uploaded by jamjarring.

The beast is dead! Done! Except for the blocking, and maybe me fixing some of the tendrils by reknitting them with smaller needles!

Dead and laid out for the wake!

The pattern is the Seaweed Stole from Needle Beetle, which is a nice, clear pattern. No mistakes, with charts and row by row instructions. The yarn is Lisa Souza Wild Things in Merino Lace. It comes in a loose skein, so the job was winding it into something useable:

This was not quick, as it was a about 2000 metres of the stuff. Lovely to use, though.

You can’t see the beads, but basically, there’s a bead at every hole in the pattern, except for the ones that run along the edges and on the tendrils.

The maths:
1 row = 152 stitches (6 x 25 +2)
1 pattern repeat = 40 rows, 21 beads
14 pattern repeats long, not including tendrils.
That makes 152 x 40 x 14 = 85120 stitches and 1764 beads.

The beads are hooked onto the yarn using a (0.75mm) crochet hook, rather than threaded on, which means you need to be doing it sitting down somewhere with good light and a flat surface to hold the beads. Not a project for knitting on the bus, aside from the tendrils at the start and finish.

This shows the stitch size:

And this shows the pattern a bit better:

The beads, which are small, mirrored Jaegar ones don’t show up that well in this, but they look pretty obvious in person -very starry against the dark wool.