It's been secret for a while, but finally I can share my Utsukushii Wrap, which is this week's free featured design in the Classic Elite Yarns Web-Letter.
Utsukushii is a long, rectangular stole knit in Classic Elite Yarns Silky Alpaca Lace. It's cast on at one end and knit with a Japanese Feather lace border on each side of the central stockinette panel. For my prototype I used almost all 880 yards of 2 balls of yarn, which made a nice wrap that blocks to about 22" wide and 64" long.
As I say in my description,
Utsukushii means lovely or beautiful in Japanese, and this lovely stole knit in Silky Alpaca Lace features a Japanese Feather lace pattern framing simple Stockinette panels. The lace undulates gently from side to side, creating a feeling of lightness and movement. Knit at a large gauge, and generous enough to enfold you comfortably, Utsukushii is a warm yet weightless wrap that lends any occasion a touch of loveliness.
Some of CEY's lovely phototgraphs:
The backstory is that when I was asked if I would like to do something for the Web-Letter, I of course said yes - the weekly Letter always has something great, from accessories to home dec to sweaters. And it has 30,000 subscribers! But 880 yards of laceweight takes a bit of time to knit, so I had to move steadily along.
As it turns out, I bound off and blocked just before Worldwide Knit In Public day back in June, so I brought the wrap to Princeton where I met my knitterly friends. They liked it, so I cajoled them into modeling.
I couldn't be happier with how it turned out, and I learned some stuff, too. 1) I can wear alpaca next to my skin. 2) The Japanese kanji or character for utsukushii looks like this:
And 3) I can pronounce it, because I listened to the audio file on this site.
Lace and learning, what more could one desire?
5 comments:
It's beautiful!! What an amazing design, congrats!
This is BEAUTIFUL both the color and design!
I loved the design so I downloaded the pattern and than went to my favorite yarn star and bought the silky alpaca yarn. This will be my third project with this yarn...I just love working with it. However I have a few questions...I'm not good at reading the charts. So I usually write each row out on a card and knit from that ... flipping from row to row..keeps me from getting messed up when doing lace knitting projects. The direction confuse me. Talk of panels but no idea of the number of stitches for each panel. And written directions are given however I'm not sure if that is the whole scarf or just one of the leaf pattern without the wave?
I love lace knitting however I'm very literal and I need to write or have each row written exactly as it should be before I feel comfortable can relax and enjoy the kntting. If I follow the rows as written on the classic elite pattern..do I get the shawl or do I need to insert the wave panel in. Does this make any since. Thank you
That is utterly gorgeous and I am going to knit it. Now, to find the perfect (blue) yarn ... Ellen
Hi Lynnc; The stole begins (after the garter 2-row edge) with an edging that is 9 reps across of the 28-row Japanese Feather chart. Then the main section consists of 3 reps across of Japanese Feather, 3 reps of Stockinete Wave, and another 3 reps of Japanese Feather. Continue for the length of the stole until the ending edging, which is the same as the edging at the beginning. Also remember to maintain 4 edge st on each side in garter stitch.
If you take a look at the big picture of the stole hanging sideways, you can see the pattern as a whole. I hope this helps!
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