Shetland Lace Mystery Scarf from 1876 by Maire Colclough

Shetland Lace Mystery Scarf from 1876

Knitting
November 2020
Lace ?
33 stitches and 56 rows = 4 inches
in garter stitch
US 0 - 2.0 mm
400 - 899 yards (366 - 822 m)
English
This pattern is available for $5.00 USD buy it now

Everyone loves a mystery. I found myself browsing through a collection of antique knitting books on archive.org, and realized that these early collected works were much like a mystery pattern - No pictures, and instructions that required a bit of translation to understand.

I made a YouTube video of my adventure, and folks have been requesting modern instructions ever since.

This is a modern interpretation of the original source pattern (available here). I have corrected mistakes, made modifications for current knitting techniques and fully charted the pattern. Charting helped keep me from getting lost in the original written instructions, and I hope it helps you too!

Most of the tricky bits are made clearer in the video. Otherwise, feel free to message me with any questions.

The pattern specifies fine lace weight yarn and 2.0mm needles, but could be worked up just as wonderfully on 2.5mm needles and fingering weight sock yarn. The scarf isn’t very long, so shouldn’t take anywhere near a full 100g skein.

This means, of course, that if you have a sizeable amount of leftover laceweight after a large multi-skein project, this could be your stash buster.

Otherwise, it would be a good single-skein sock yarn project.

I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone else’s re-creations!