Denise's NeedleWorks
Name:
Location: Ames, Iowa, United States

I am wife to Jeff, homeschool mom to 8, a knit and crochet teacher and totally addicted to knitting, crocheting and other fiber arts. After knitting, crocheting and sewing my own clothing from the age of 10 on, I studied textiles & clothing in college. That lead me to 25 years of custom dressmaking and alterations work, while sewing, knitting and crocheting for my growing children. I have worked in the yarn industry for the past 3 years and have been designing my own knitting patterns. Visit my web site at http://www.denisesneedleworks.com Find me as DeniseInIowa on Ravelry.com

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Faroese Shawls

Back in February, my knitterly friends and I decided to knit Faroese Shawls together.  These shawls originate in the Faroe Islands northwest of Scotland and halfway between Iceland and Norway.  They have a specific features and shaping that is unique to them. Traditional Faroese Shawls are always knit from the bottom up in garter stitch, they have a center panel that is wider at the bottom of the shawl, and there is shaping at the shoulders that helps the shawl lay over your shoulders just right and stay there. The shawls usually have a bit of lace along the bottom and often have lace patterns continuing up the center panel.  They are beautiful in their simplicity.

I started with the pattern Lilta Dimun from Cheryl Oberle's book Folk Shawls. The yarn I used was a fingering weight that was very grayed, muted colors and I had decided I wanted something a bit brighter so I got out the food coloring and started a little dyeing project with the yarn.

The two on the left are done with Wilton food coloring and the right one is a mixture of  red and blue McCormick drops.  The photo doesn't do it justice. It is a nice plum purple.  I liked that one the best so started dyeing the yarn. It took a LOT of food  coloring drops! I had 2 skeins and ended up running one of them through the dye process twice and the other one three times to get what I wanted. It is beautiful!

Here is the finished shawl. More information


The others in the group were still knitting on their shawls so I decided to make a second shawl. This one is from a pattern by Elizabeth Lovik called Torshavn Shawl.  I finished all but weaving the last few stitches together and blocking it and then got sidetracked by other projects. I need to get back to it and finish those details so I can wear it. It is also a lovely shawl. More information




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