Purple beaded Viajante

Yay, it’s finally off the needles! I’ve been working (or mostly not working, obviously) on this project since July. The pattern is usually a quick knit for me but this time, I had eleventy million other things that somehow took priority over finishing this lovely piece.

The yarn is Miss Babs Katahdin and the color is called Violaceous. Isn’t it awesome? It’s a huge skein, at 14oz. and 1,750 yds. The best thing about a big skein like that is that it’s all one continuous piece of yarn. No extra ends to weave in. Perfection, I tell you. It’s 100% Bluefaced Leicester wool. This is the first time I’ve worked with BFL. It’s really lovely. Soft and springy, a joy to knit. And after blocking, it relaxed into a wonderful drapey fabric.

The drapiness is helped to some degree by the weight of the beads. I’ve made this pattern three times before but this is the first time I decided to add beads to the lace section. Now I want beads on all of them because they add just that little extra sparkle. These beads are silver-lined Rainbow Purple 6/0 seed beads (Dyna-mites) from Fire Mountain Gems. I had considered a lighter purple too but there was just something about the rainbow finish that really made it work beautifully with this yarn.

I wore it today to our knit group. It was a gorgeous sunny day, around 50F (a nice change from the arctic cold we’ve been having), and the beads caught the sunshine, sending sparkles everywhere. It’s hard to capture that on camera, at least for me. (Peeps, I was patting myself on the back for figuring out how to use the self-timer when it turned out that the battery in the remote is dead. Capturing sparkles is currently beyond my skills.)

Notes for future reference

Needles used: 2.5mm and 3.5mm

Mods
Increase is kfbf at the center stitch, with marker replaced after the first stitch through the front loop.
Decreases are only every fifth round, worked as a centered double decrease.
Worked 108 rounds. (Next time pay attention and work an odd number of rounds to avoid having to fudge the first yo round of the lace at the tip.)

Beaded lace mesh
One bead is placed on every 6th stitch in the following rounds:
R3: starting with stitch 5
R7: starting with stitch 1
R11: starting with stitch 3
R15: as R3
R19: as R7
R23: as R11
R27: as R3
Worked to RC29, then bound off using the stretchy bind-off method.
(A big thank you to mirielgw on Ravelry for figuring out the bead spacing.)

Measurements before/after blocking
Across neck: 8.5”/10″
Short side: 15.5”/18.5″

And that’s it for now. Happy holidays to all of you and I hope you all find some time to relax with fabric, yarn, or whatever your preferred creative medium.

See you soon!