In Love: Love Story Shawl

In an early planning session with Hélène Magnússon for MDK Field Guide No. 26, we made one special request.

Having immersed ourselves in the designer’s body of work, we had fallen hard for her way with lace. Maybe it’s not surprising in someone who spent 10 years in search of the perfect cobweb lambswool yarn, but Hélène has a wonderful touch with lace designs. Her floaty shawls and scarves have a delicious simplicity; they are light in weight and light in ornament. They capture the primal essence of lace knitting, and its practicality as a layer of weightless warmth. Please make us one of those, we said.

With the Love Story Shawl, we got everything we wished for—and yet somehow we were surprised. Surprised and delighted.

The Love Story Shawl is knit entirely in Love Story Einband, an ultra-thin strand of fine lambswool. Grown in Iceland, spun in Italy.

The lace stitch pattern is easy to knit, with rest rows on the WS where you purl (or knit) all the stitches from edge to edge. It’s easy to memorize, you get in the groove quickly.

The stroke of surprise: layered on top of this simple lace texture is a stripe pattern, in mossy and sometimes marled colors that highlight the extreme transparency of this exquisite piece.

Knit it as written, or use this pattern to play in the colors of Iceland as interpreted in the full palette of Love Story Einband. The Love Story Shawl would be beautiful in a single-color version, and we’ve seen at least one test-knit version that used two shades of Love Story Einband for a marvelous color block effect.

Stay tuned: we’ve put MDK’s finest color minds to work on alternative colorway ideas for the Love Story Shawl, and we’ll share those soon.

To knit the Love Story Shawl as shown, the Love Story Shawl Bundle gets you there with one “add to cart.” To explore the mossy fields (and volcanoes, geysers and glaciers) of Iceland, explore the full Love Story Einband palette here.