Finnish Lace Scarf with Fishtail Braiding

A couple of days before the Salmon Arm Sheep to Shawl, I found out that I was going to be the weaver this year. I was excited and very, very nervous as I have never worked with wool before. In a happy coincidence I had an empty loom so Mum had the great idea to put on a wool warp using the same pattern so I could get in a little practice. This scarf is made with 2/10 Merino in a soft pink with muted orange strips in Finnish Lace. This isn’t the first time that I’ve done Finnish Lace; I did a table runner a while back. This is a very versatile pattern and very easy to weave, which is a great bonus, both as an introduction to wool and as a competition piece. I found wool a little tricky to use because it is so sprongy. My edges looked like a mouse has nibbled the sides but after it was washed a lot of the wonky edges smoothed out. To finish the scarf I did a somewhat different type of braid; it is one that I learned at forestry summer camp when I was small, called a fish tail. I don’t know if that is its real name or not. But it is really pretty, very soft and drapy and a perfect finish for this scarf.
The Sheep to Shawl was a little nerve racking as I found a sleying error after weaving about three inches, so I had to pull everything out and fix the mistake and re-hemstitch, this put our team about 40 minutes behind. Thankfully the team was really helpful and very understanding. I put my head down and my iPod onto some rock and just wove; amazingly we came in on time. I was able to weave with only a few joins as the spinners had lots of time to spin during my downtime so that I got nice fat full bobbins and that was the silver lining to the mistake! I had a great time and our team placed second! This is the competition shawl before it was washed. The warp is handspun coridale with baby camel stripes outlining the lace area.