The pig wot got married - wedding shawl

I was going to post about this at a point when it fitted into the story of our wedding day as told on my other blog, but a couple of people asked and I can't resist showing off. Here is my wedding shawl, in one of my favourite photos from our wedding day, taken on the portico of the Fitzwilliam Museum.



The pattern is Aeolian by Elizabeth Freeman, which seems to be a popular patten for wedding shawls, judging by Ravelry.

The yarn is a 4 ply silk I bought several years ago from Fyberspates. It's gorgeously soft and shiny, blocks beautifully and was the perfect colour to complement my ivory dress, purple shoes and purple and pink flowers. I didn't have quite enough to cast off, as the pattern uses a double strand, so I went stash-diving again and came up with a small quantity of aran silk from HipKnits, left over from this scarf. The weight of the aran is a little heavier than 2 strands of 4ply, but not much. The colours are similar to the body of the shawl, but darker, giving an extra pop of colour to the wavy edge.



In this photo (ignore my windswept hair and veil), you can see the beads better. They're creamy pearly beads, size 6, I think. Looks like I neglected to record where exactly I bought them. This was my first time knitting with beads and it wasn't as hard as I'd feared. I don't think I'd like to tackle the sort of project where you have to start by threading all your beads onto your yarn, but placing each one on the right stitch with a thin crochet hook was not too fiddly and very satisfying.

I'm very very pleased with the result. The shawl actually didn't get much wear on the day. I didn't put it on until after the group photos when we went off on our own for some more pictures and, once we got to the reception, I didn't need it for warmth. But it will always be my wedding shawl and when I wear it again (which I will, unlike the dress) I'll remember our wedding day and smile.

Photos by Dave Routledge.