Whisper Lace Making It Your Own
One of the goals for my patterns is to offer tips that help you make the pattern your own so you can go off-script with yarn choice, or maybe you want to make it wider, or maybe you want to make it more narrow. So, I include tips in the Whisper Lace Pattern to make it the length and width you want!
The original design using Emma Super Silky
The bonus pattern using Wooldreamers Cautiva
That happened to me when I got my hands on some Cautiva, a new Wool Dreamers yarn. I just had to work up Whisper Lace using it! Cautiva is a squishy wooly yarn rather than the more delicate look of Emma’s Super Silky Wool and Silk blend. As much as I love a drapy silk wool blend, I also love a cozy wooly yarn like Cautiva.
What’s the easiest way to do it? You can purchase the pattern here on my website or Ravelry here. It will include the directions for using Cautiva, a heavy fingering or sport weight yarn, and the directions for the fingering and lace weight!
You can also read along on how I adapted the pattern and how you can do that with the Whisper Lace and other designs. See how I started the process of adapting the pattern. I wanted to make a scarf about the same width as the original scarf, so I crocheted enough chains to match the width I wanted about 7 inches, then I added several more chains to make sure I had enough.
Chained enough to get 7-inch width.
I followed the pattern as written and stopped when I ran out of chains for a full pattern repeat.
You can see in the image on the right I have a few extra chains. These are easily picked out.
In the image on the left, I started pulling out the unworked chain. The image on the right shows all the extra chains picked out.
Because Cautiva is heavy fingering, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make this up using the same hook recommended in the pattern for fingering yarn. Since I got two balls of yarn, I used one ball of yarn to work up a swatch using the G/4.00mm hook the pattern recommends with one ball and another using 7/4.5mm hook with the other ball. I worked up both swatches and washed them with the yarn still attached! I washed and gently blocked both swatches because I wanted to feel the finished fabric before I decided which hook to use.
On the left, the sample using the G/4.00 mm hook has been washed and blocked, and the sample on the right with the 7/4.5 mm hook still needs to be washed and blocked.
I really liked the fabric I got using 7/4.5mm hook, the best for the Cautiva scarf. Based on that, I’d use an H/5.00 mm hook for a Dk-weight yarn and I/5.5mm hook for worsted weight.
Consider my little trick and do a swatch, then wash it to ensure you like the finished fabric and keep the yarn attached. If you don’t like it, you can frog it and start over!
I used almost 100g to make this scarf 7 inches wide and 68 inches long. I initially blocked this without using blocking wires. It didn’t block as I’d like. So, I blocked using blocking wires and pins as I did for the fingering and lace versions here. With this scarf, I steamed the scarf as it was blocking. I hope this makes the size a little more permanent. If you don’t want to agressively block the scarf I’d recommend adding a pattern repeat to the scarf.