Victorian Pennies

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  • Designed by:
    Karen Butler

    Victorian Pennies is an elegant, heirloom lace shawl with a triangular construction, a central spine, a striking lace pattern and a delicate edging. It can be worn snuggled around the neck or draped over the shoulders, and in this alpaca, cashmere blend is both light but cosy. This beautiful shawl takes just one skein of this fine laceweight yarn and is the perfect pattern if you have a single skein of lacy goodness in your stash.

    This stunning shawl is worked with an overall lace pattern edged with a deep border. The variety of increases and decreases used to produce the reverse stocking stitch circles and surrounding halos in Victorian Pennies makes for an interesting knit. The shawl is worked from the top down, starting with Judy's Magic Cast-on. The Main Lace Pattern flows into the border and the shawl is finished with an Estonian Cast-off. While patterning occurs on both right-side and wrong-side rows, wrong-side row stitches are limited to knit, purl and knitting 3 stitches together.

    Victorian Pennies is knitted in Melissa, a luxurious 1 ply lace weight yarn, created from a blend of baby Alpaca, silk and cashmere. The shade shown here is Nile Green.

    Shawl size can be adjusted by working fewer or additional full repeats of the Main Lace Pattern. Yarn requirements will vary accordingly; as a guide the Border and cast-off will require at least twice the yarn used for the final 12-row repeat of the Main Pattern. If you run short of yarn, the shawl can be cast off after an earlier WS row of the Border.

    In addition to charted instructions for the lace, written instruction are also provided.

  • Yarn
    Susan Crawford Melissa, 1 Ply Lace, 70% baby alpaca, 20% silk, 10% cashmere
    (1200m / 1312yds per 100g skein)

    1 skein, shade Nile Green

    Gauge
    12 sts & 12 rows (a single pattern repeat) = 5.25cm / 2in wide and 5.5cm / 2.25in deep, over Main Lace Pattern (Chart B).

    Suggested needles

    Small needles:

    2.75mm (US 2) circular needle (80-100cm in length)

    Large needles:

    4.5mm (US 7) for casting off

    Notions
    Stitch markers

  • Following a lace chart
    Lace knitting
    Shawl blocking


Yarn Kit available

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