Johanne's Shawl

Once a year, the Rowanettes get together and do a knitting exchange. The theme for the 2004 exchange was extremities. All the things that keep hands, feet, heads, noses, wrists, and necks warm. Since the exchange occurs during the summer, I wanted to make something suitable for the warmer weather (well, more suitable than a hat in big wool) and since my recipient suffers from an extreme allergy to wool (she had to give her wool stash away, ), I thought why not try hemp.

Hemp is far more exotic than cotton, rarer than linen and more affordable than silk. I didn't have a particular pattern in mind, but I was moved to get going as the yarn arrived in mind June. After a few goes, I settled for a simple, open lace fabric and a slightly scalloped edging.

The hemp will soften with wash and the open work gives the fabric more drape. I can imagine tightly knitted hemp to ber very abrasive. The yarn is a little irregular, you have some thick bits and thin bits but I can say in the 300g than I worked with, there were no knots. The yarn also has a slight sheen. Definitely buy the dyed yarn. The undyed yarn is very abrasive, and although it's a great colour and will soften after wash, it'll be hard on the hands to work up.

Pattern Source: Yarn: # of balls: Notions: Needles: Meterage: Yarn Source: Colour: Size: Started: Finished: Resting Period: Recipient :

All Tangled Up House of Hemp 2 ply 220g none 3.5 mm 170m/50g House of Hemp Ah approx 24inch wide, 72 inches long 22 June 2004 5 July 2004 N/A {surprise}

The hemp gets softer with wear. How do I know? I did a lot of trial and error swatching and ripped and reknitted several times. The frogged yarn was just as strong (try breaking this yarn without a pair of scissors) but felt softer. The House of Hemp 2 ply knits to a fine 4 ply (well 3 ply is more accurate but you don't find that gauge in most commercial yarns).

I love the colour and there's a very slight sheen to it.

To make Johanne's shawl.

Main lace Pattern

I generally prefer using charts for lace. I find them much easier to follow, however, I've included written instructions as well. The pattern repeat is on 10 stitches. Should you wish a wider shawl, cast on extra multiples of 10 stitches.

R1: p3, *skpo, yo, k3, yo, k2tog, p3* Repeat * to *
R2, R4: wyif, s1, p to end of row
R3: p3, *k2,yo,s1 k2tog po,yo,k2, p3* Repeat * to *


Cast on

Provisionally cast on 103 stitches. You can use whichever method that you are most comfortable with. I used the one that Fiber Trends seems to favour in their patterns. With a crochet hook and a smooth waste yarn, single chain 105 stitches. Bind down. With shawl yarn, pick-up and knit the center loop. (The effect is that when you undo the loop on the waste yarn and pull, the crochet chain is undown and the shawl yarn just zips off. If you pick up the wrong loop though, you'll have a fiddly time undoing the waste yarn.)

Shawl body

Work 4 rows garter stitch. Work main lace pattern, remembering to slip the first stitch of every row with yarn in front. You can stop when the shawl is 6 inches shorter than the desired length. Do keep in mind that the shawl should be the armspan of the wearer, so eventhough you are bored stiff with the pattern, don't stop until it is at least 60 inches. Work 6 rows garter stitches and start lace edging.

Shawl Edging

I used the edging from the Fiber Trends Estonian



Garden shawl. I was planning to do my own edging and flipped through some patterns for inspiration and noticed that stitch count and lace pattern would suit perfectly. For the second edging, I undid provisional cast-on, knit 2 rows garter, then did the Estonian Garden edging.




Blocking out lacework makes all the difference.

Project Notes


Dragged out into the garden on a Friday evening for a photoshoot. The neighbors know that I'm nuts, but that's OK, if it wasn't for the barking American, what else would they gossip about?.





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