Queen Susan Shawl

This is a Ravelry pattern. The 'original' was an old photograph in the archive of the museum on Shetland. A group of clever people on Ravelry got together and worked out the pattern from that old photograph. They published the pattern on Ravelry for those of us whose knitting skills greatly exceed our computer skills to enjoy.

I fell in love with this pattern and just had to knit it, but I didn't need yet another white cobweb weight shawl. What I needed was a big warm shawl I could wrap myself up in on cold days. And that means at least one cat on my lap, probably kneeding away happily. The shawl had to be considerably more robust than the dainty original, and if it was quite a bit bigger, more like a blanket than a shawl, that was going to be all to the good. So I opted for a yarn that was nearer to a laceweight than a cobweb weight. And since a white comfort blanket is really not a good idea with muddy paws around, I looked at my stash and chose a blue 100% cashmere industrial oiled yarn. I wasn't at all sure I would have enough for the whole thing, especially as I made the centre a more generous width than suggested, but I  thought a different yarn for the border would be just fine so I wasn't worried about that. I got so carried away with knitting this that I abandoned all my other projects to concentrate on this one. Having strong views on what I like in an edging, I used my own, and in a surprisingly short time I was finished. Blocking was a problem as my usual arrangements just weren't big enough and in the end I had to block it folded in four. It took longer to dry and the results aren't perfect, but the charcoal grey yarn is 50% silk and 50% cashmere so the silk helped it to fall into place.

It is warm, soft and comfortable. And it has stood up to my cats! The moral of which, I guess, is that just because a pattern you like  doesn't produce the result you want doesn't mean you can't play around with it until it does!