Niebling Goldlack stole

In honor of Spring and the plum blossoms blooming (yes, this is a picture of my neighbor's tree, just highly manipulated)




I just finished this Herbert Niebling stole:

As you may or may not know, I've been trying to find a nice curtain pattern for my kitchen and really wanted to do one in linen. Well...

linen thread--check
needles--check
pattern--uhmm...still haven't found one


However, I did find this pretty Goldlack Niebling pattern. It's been done as a circular tablecloth and as curtains. Well, I'm not so sure I'd like these as curtains, but as a stole...yes!

So, I put on my advanced degree hat and did all the calculations...okay, 3 columns of flowers... After 30 rows of this monstrocity, ripped and restarted. Then I decided that I really would like a symmetrical stole, verses only having leaves on the one end. So, rip again, and this time, did a provisional cast-on so that I could just pick up the stitches and knit the other way.

As I'm knitting, I'm doubting my swatch and thinking it's going to be thin...then justifying to myself that I could use it as a lace scarf...then when I had it long enough, broke into the other ball and knit it going the other way (again using advanced math). I didn't want to cut the yarn on my one side because what if my calculations were off and this is too short?! And I didn't know if I liked the ending of it anyway (looked too much like curtains and since I only ended up doing 2 columns of flowers, I thought, that would look dumb...anyway, I knit and I knit, then I took a break and did the Niebling January KAL (in Feb) and then I knit and knit...

What is goldlack? I love the intarweb. 'Goldlack' translates to 'gold paint'. It is the wallflower.

The scientific name is Cheiranthus cheiri, in the family Brassicaeae (mustard plant), by the way. And did you know that Brassica plants have a natural ability to uptake heavy metals like Cadmium? One of the projects I worked on as a post-doc was to study the mechanism of metal uptake in plants and phytoremediation--with the thought that you can genetically engineer plants that you can sow at Superfund sites. Tend the garden and then just remove the heavy metals from the soil by harvesting the plant. Cool, or what!

Of course, whenever I eat some veggies, I do of course have that thought in my brain...because, folks, heavy metals accumulate.

Anyway, back to Goldlack.

Here's the specs:

pattern: Herbert Niebling Goldlack in ANNA April 1983

yarn: Yarn TreeHouse Sweet 94% merino 6% polyester in pink

amount used: less than 2 balls

start date: February 9, 2008

finish date: February 26, 2008

modifications: Many at the bottom. I decided not to do the frill, and repeated the mesh instead. Then I modified the leaves.

Cast-on 90 provisional stitches, included 4 on each side for edge. 9 flower pattern repeats. Then I picked up the provisional stitches and knitted another 9 flower patterns.

Here's some other pics: