Ballybeg is my first knitting laceweight project. It is also the shawl I will wear for my wedding. The shawl is named after the venue we are getting married in, Ballybeg House in Wicklow.
I chose Fyberspates Scrumptuous Lace in Oyster. It’s a 2ply silk merino blend and I’m not ashamed that the one kilometer yardage terrified me. This yarn is indeed scrumptuous, it is so lovely to knit with, so soft with just the lightest sheen to it.
I also wanted to use some beads to give it the wow factor. I chose 4mm clear AB Swarovski crystals and I’m using a .5mm crochet hook to add the beads to the stitches as I go along.
I had initially swatched for Cold Mountain by Kieran Foley. I really like the geometric patterns in this shawl and also like the idea of choosing an Irish designer. But once I had chosen my dress I realised as beautiful as cold mountain is, it wouldn’t suit the dress. The photos below show the blocked and unblocked swatch.
Another Kieran Foley design caught me eye, Echo Beach. The pattern uses “shifting columns of dropped stitches” that flow through the pattern like little rivers, I chose to do the column of two dropped stitches version. I’m a tight knitter so am using 4mm needles for this project.
The chart is repeated three time across the shawl so I’m adding three beads to every second row, on the wrong side. I’m adding these on the purl rows, to the stitch immediately after the yarn over (YO).
This is costing an absolute fortune in Swarovskis but I think it’s worth it. I tried out some Bonarski crystals I got in Winnie’s Wool Wagon. These are considerably cheaper but I can see the difference in the sparkly-ness , so will switch back to Swarovskis.
So far I have 7 and a half pattern repeats done and pinned the shawl out this morning to get an idea of how it’s coming along and to take some photos.