This beaded lace shawl recalls warm summer nights in Scotland’s Western Isles. The sky never darkens completely midsummer, still it is filled with sparkling stars. The Northern Lights roll across the sky like ancient Celtic warriors riding home from battle, the moonlight reflecting off their shields. The only sound--the waves lapping on a nearby beach.

The finished, blocked size of the shawl is approximately 68” wide x 42” long. It is knit from the top down and consists of two triangles separated by a center back 9-stitch cable-like eyelet design. The shawl’s lace patterns are knit on a stockinette stitch back ground; all even rows are purled and there is a garter stitch selvage along the top side of the shawl. There a couple of small portions done in reverse stockinette stitch.

The top portion of the shawl is an overall Starlight pattern (adapted from a Barbara Walker pattern) with beads followed by a Northern Lights border pattern of interlocking beaded zig-zags (adapted from a Christine Duchrow pattern) with additional beaded stars. Once the body of the shawl is complete, mirror-image Ocean Wave edgings are knitted on to live stitches along each of the long sides of the shawl body.

There are no beads in the edging and it joins and tapers at the triangle point, so experience with a knitted-on edging, while helpful, is not necessary as this edging covers no corners and does not require grafting. This shawl could be done by any intermediate knitters and uses yarnovers, K2Tog, SSK, Double Decreases, SK2P, and the crochet hook method of bead placement. All techniques are explained in the pattern.