The yarn is the now discontinued Kaido Lame by Elann.  At first I resented the twist of gold thread spun into the yarn, but my obsession with finding large amounts of mohair yarn for a reasonable price outweighed by mild displeasure.  I worked on this over the course of 2 years, as evidenced by the Wee Girl’s sweet young face!  One of those random, brilliant places where parenting and crafting sometimes intersect for me: letting the tomato sauce covered toddler play with the light colored, one of a kind, heirloom knitting I’ve painstakingly been working on.  Over the course of two years and a great many stitches, the gold grew on me and started showing up elsewhere as an accent color, until there was a touch of it in just about every decorative aspect of our day.

The pattern was a combination of a number of things.  I changed the direction I was going in 3 or 4 times in the course of working on it…first it was going to be an oval in the style of a knitted mantilla veil, at one point I was considering sewing lace to the edging, at another adding on a bridal illusion blusher.  As it came along and I changed my mind time and again, I really wasn’t certain how it was going to turn out and I just kept on knitting until around a week before.  Our photographer said that it reminded her of the intricate veils traditionally worn by Pakistani brides.  And I agree that it does have something of that flavor.

It started with a heavily modified EZ 100th Anniversary Gull Wings Half Circle.  I picked up stitches all along the top edge and worked an overall lace pattern called ‘Starlight Lace’ (found in A Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara G. Walker) for several feet.  Then I found a scalloped trim- though I can’t at the moment remember were- and knitted that to sew all along the top edge.

I was away over the weekend and missed posting my 52 portraits for the week.  I think I’ll just double up next weekend.

Top two photos by: Me

Third photo by: Iain

All the rest by: Dawn Joseph