wedding shawl beginnings

Wedding shawl swatches, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

It's time to do some knitting for me! I originally planned to make my own wedding dress, but having made bridesmaids' dresses over the summer, I decided I could do without the stress. So instead I bought one from eBay, which may need some adjustments (and I need to lose weight to get into it), but it is beautiful and I couldn't possibly make something like that myself. So instead, I will knit myself a wedding shawl. I'm getting married in March, it's bound to be a little chilly and a beautiful shawl is the perfect way to keep warm.

Some searching on Ravelry and posting on the Cambridge Ktog board lead me to Aeolian. Now I need to decide on a yarn. I originally thought I'd make something cream/offwhite, but talking to people made me think about colour. Then I found this silk 4ply yarn in my stash. It's softly variegated in shades of lilac and pink - perfect for my colour scheme and the romantic lace of my dress.



I love the colour and the feel of it. The only problem with it is that so far, I havent found beads which fit onto the yarn. I've got sime size 9s and size 8s, both are too small. If I found some beads which fitted, went with the colours (I'm thinking either a pearly bead or a metallic/pearly lilac), I'd go with this yarn.

There's also a laceweight option.



This is some hand-painted laceweight I acquired at the most recent stash swap. I think it came from Jackie and was painted by Heather? I should probably message them to check. If so, I could ask Heather to dye me some in similar soft colours to the silk. The beads on it are (L-R) pearly lilac, pearly cream and a metallic darker purple.

Of course, neither of these swatches have been near my dress yet. I'm going to my parents' house where my dress is hiding this weekend, so I shall take my swatches, see what goes and go from there. So, what do you think? Which yarn? Which beads? Decisions, decisions.

swatching

swatching, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This is what I've been doing with banana yarn and cotton. The swatch on the right is just banana yarn. I started with plain stocking stitch and then tried out some seed stitch and some bobbles. It's nice and shiny and gets softer when washed, but I'm not too sure what to do with it on its own and I've only got 200g. My first idea was a bag, specifically Coco from Magknits, but trying out the lattice pattern made it clear the yarn's just not smooth enough for the cables to show clearly.

Then I remembered the purple cotton I used last year to make a spring/summer cardigan (not worn much and now too loose since I've lost weight). So I experimented with putting the two yarns together. Holding them together gives just a little bit of shiny silk sparkle and adds weight. The bobbles were done with just the banana yarn. I like the effect, it would make a good sleeve border. Possibly not round the bottom of a cardigan though. I also tried some split stitch, as used in Revolution, although I hadn't quite thought about the maths and ended up with more stitches than I started with. I like the effect, when I get it just right, but getting it right is a fiddle.

I'm still not sure what this is going to be. A cardigan would be useful.