I’m knitting this with the Starry Knits KAL.

4/1/14 Finished! I love this yarn. Soft but with enough body to give it a nice drape. My only disappointment is the gold beads I used to outline Leo aren’t contrast enough to see it’s different from the others. The edging is perfect, adding plenty of bling and a little weight to the edge.

3/28/14 For my edging I’m borrowing from knittingfiedn23’s Celestarium. It goes like this:

2 rounds even
round 1: k2tog,yo
round 2: knit, placing bead on every k2tog
round 3: rep round 1
round 4: rep round 2
round 5: rep round 1
round 6: knit
Bind off loosely

I really like the look of the open yo’s with the sparkly bead placement this edging gives. It’s suggestive of the sky and stars going on forever. It’s also kind of slow going when you have to place a bead every other stitch. Oh, and don’t forget to plan for the extra beads! You will need 864 beads to complete 3 rows of beading on this edging.

3/23/14 Finished with the F charts. The F’s are where this project can start getting tedious because one row is so long. I only had a 32” needle, so it’s very bunched up and a little difficult to move the stitches around. Right now it looks mostly like a giant Rastafarian hat.

3/13/14 Row 70 complete on the D charts. I tied off loops of scrap cotton yarn for markers. I use small charm markers for the four quarters, and the marker right before the quarter is a regular plastic marker in red. I like using the red markers to give me a heads up that I’m about to change a chart. Using the cotton markers makes it so much lighter, which makes the knitting go faster.

3/6/14 - After the frustrating cast on, this is moving along splendidly. Through charts A, B, C. Some people in the KAL are placing the beads on one stitch to the right, placing the bead on the YO so it floats in the space. I’ve decided to follow the pattern, because I like the effect of the lacy holes. Such a fun project!

3/1/14 - I’ve used the circular cast on before, but found it too frustrating with this weight yarn. In the end I did a long tail cast on and then joined in the round. I was able to get a fairly tight join, so I just took a little stitch with the tail yarn to close it up. Worked like a charm!

I love the glass beads lined with silver I chose, but finding beads online can be challenging as you’re never sure if they will look like the pictures. But I found these at Earthfaire, a site dedicated for knitters. They were reasonably priced and I got them through the mail in a couple of days. I bought gold lined beads to outline the constellation Leo, my zodiac sign. I used a larger bead that is fiery reddish gold for the Polaris in the center.