A wonderful scarf/shawl from Barbara Benson, her ...and Curiouser takes its name from some earlier designs she created plus borrowing from the marvelous mind of Lewis Carroll (as Alice said, "Curiouser and curiouser...").
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Get the pattern on Barbara's Ravelry page. This will give you a copy in your Ravelry library and automatically receive any updates. What we have set up is a kit with yarn plus beads.
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The Design
The piece itself, to quote Barbara, can be knit in just about any weight yarn.
She writes:
Button holes are incorporated into the lace to provide multiple options for styling the length of this scarf/shawlette - it can be worn as a cowl, scarf or shawl.
And as with its predecessor, you can keep on knitting and end up with a piece of whatever length you desire. Testers used yarn in weights from Lace to DK and they all worked beautifully.
Yarn and Colorways
The yarns we have for our kits arenot the same as what Barbara used in her original. You can see ours in the insert photo on upper left-hand corner of the top picture and again below that.
As one of our great test knitters (hi, Peggy!) went through the graphs of the pattern, she planned out some beading with two colors of 6/0 beads.
The result is what you see in first few the photos on this page! The piece as seen here was knit using a total of 5 lace inserts so the final scarf measures 17" at the widest part and 54" in length. You can, of course, vary that easily.
Peggy knit using Breathless from Shalimar yarns which unfortunately we can no longer get. We have instead chosen two different yarns --- read on for more data.
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Kit A:
This kit is a bit more expensive than Kit B as the silk of Fino has silk makes it both more luxurious and raises the cost, alas.
One skein of Fino which is composed of 70% merino + 30% silk. It feels marvelous. Each skein has 490 yards(448 meters) per 100g skein.
This colorway is called Admiral, a deep rich blue also with very gentle color variations. Dramatic and rich.
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Kit B:
One skein, from Araucania, one of their Huasco Sock Kettle Dyes, with intriguing variations on one color throughout. Made up of 75% superwash merino, 25% recycled nylon, this yarn is hand painted by Peruvian artisans.
This colorway is Blackberry, rich royal purple in myriad tones from lighter to darker. Delicious!
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Beads
Peggy used a total of 360 beads divided into two colors, all size 6/0. So each kit will include , two 20 gram containers of beads (each with roughly 240 beads of two different colors; there will be plenty of extras).
I am thinking perhaps a Silver Lined (S/L) Crystal or S/L Crystal AB combined with a bright S/L bead in a color that mirrors the yarn.
If you have a preference on colors, let me know. Otherwise I will choose for you.
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About the Pattern
The pattern is not automatically part of the kit and its cost has not been factored in.
Follow the link given above to get the pattern from Barbara on her Ravelry page.
Once you purchase this kit you should find Peggy's additional notes in your Account folder here on EarthFaire. If you run into any trouble finding this, just contact me and we'll get it sorted.
