the lemvig shawl story

This shawl kept popping up in my Instagram feed and every time I saw it, I was always really intrigued, especially about the lace section because at first glance, they look like windows and I absolutely love that. I also love that it is a perfect two skein shawl, you can go wild in your stash and come up with all sorts of colour options - personally I do think it looks rather lovely with one solid and one speckled yarn but that is just my humble opinion (other opinions are available).

The Lemvig Shawl is a pattern by Marianne Dekkers-Roos, otherwise known as @marretjeroos on instagram.

Marianne is one of the OG big crochet accounts on instagram and one of the first that I followed.

The Dutch were way ahead of everyone else with regards to crochet (they still are I think), they were the original clever colour hunters and I felt that they led the way for the rest of us, scrabbling around to catch up to all their amazing stitches, colour and photography.

I think Marianne has three, maybe four, versions of this shawl for sampling (see @marretjeroos for the different versions) and all of them look so different.

And that’s the beauty of this shawl, you can mix and match the sections to make it the perfect shawl for you. The pattern is written out in full, and I followed it almost perfectly (more on that later), but if you wanted to do more stripes, or more lace, then you totally could and it wouldn’t really change the structure or the overall look of the shawl, it would still look like a Lemvig. I know that Esther @essiebirdies has made one completely without the lace section and it looks amazing, go check it out.

details

I decided on a beige base colour for my Lemvig, I wanted something quite light and summery looking. I have an awful lot of Drops Nord in the Light Beige Mix colourway and in order to keep it light, but with a touch of something special, I used a skein of Hedgehog Fibres sock yarn in the colour Teacup which is a creamy white base with tiny speckles of brown and pink. I used two full 50g balls of the Drops Nord and ever so slightly started in on a third which may or may not be down to my tension, I’m pretty sure you could do it with 100g. I also used every single last scrap of the 100g skein and I used a 3.5mm hook.

I like my colour choice, it’s more neutral than I normally go but this is the year for trying out something new and so instead of my usual colour clash-fest, I sobered things up and went with classy contrast instead.

The pattern is easy to follow, a bit fiddly at first getting used to carrying your yarn with you, which you do for all sections except for the lace, but Marianne’s advice about keeping one yarn at the back and the other at the front saved me from much twisty hell and under the breath mutterings. The only thing that I just didn’t seem to be able to master was the block sections. I got them all wrong , all of them, except for the very last one.

I’m not sure how I could be so wrong, or not figure things out quite right but what I’ve noticed about the shawl is that it really doesn’t matter, in fact it looks quite nice having all the different block sections, although I will admit that the correct way to do it is the best looking.

The only part of the pattern that I didn’t do, and it is listed as optional, is the border. I just didn’t think that it needed a border because the edges are fairly, amazingly straight considering all the different sections. I blocked it and felt that it looked stunning as it was.

You can find out more about Marianne and her patterns on her blog which includes her pattern shop because she isn’t on Ravelry. Let me know if you are making or want to make a Lemvig Shawl, I would love to see the colours that you choose.