First Holy Communion Veil

Inspired by the wedding veil in Tessa Lorant's "Knitted Shawls and Wraps"

Lizzie Ogden's veil

Rachel and Kirsty Miles's veil

Needle size: 3 1/4 mm, US size 3. Lizzie's yarn was Grignasco "Regina" from the  Patternworks catalogue. The Miles one is Heirloom Knitting's Merino Lace -- highly recommended. Jamieson & Smith cobweb, Margaret Stove's Artisan lace yarn, and doubtless many others, would all do as well.

The veil is knit from the top down, beginning with a headpiece and then increasing on either side to the full desired width. For the headpiece, TL uses a pattern which she calls "wave pattern". I used that, casting on enough stitches for seven repeats. But her book is not at all
easy to come by. If I had used the very similar traditional Horseshoe Pattern, page 209 of Barbara Walker's First Treasury, I would have cast on 85 stitches by any provisional method. The horseshoe pattern is worked over ten stitches plus one. Eight repeats, therefore, require
81 stitches. The other four stitches are for the edging I used throughout: every row begins with yo, k2 tog and ends with k2. That provides a neat picot edge to which a lace border will eventually be attached.

Repeat the hoirseshoe pattern with its picot edging four times in all, 32 rows. Then work two rows of plain stockinette stitch.

There follows the altar frontal from Marianne Kinzel's Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting, page 31 ff. It requires 47 stitches for each double side panel, and 65 stitches for the central panel. (If you were really going to knit an altar frontal, you would add more side panels.) The total number of stitches needed therefore is 2+47+65+47+2, or 163. MK adds four stitches at either side for a selvedge. I stuck with the 2-stitch picot edge already mentioned, which is why I have two additional stitches at either side, instead of her four.

You already have 85 stitches. You therefore need 78 more, to get up to 163. Knit two more rows of plain stockinette, casting on 39 stitches at the beginning of each one. Use a larger needle for the cast on (and, indeed, a provisional cast-on if possible: these stitches will have to be picked up later for the edging).

Knit the altar frontal exactly as given, except for the edge, until you get to the point where MK brings each pattern to a point at the bottom. I wanted the bottom of the veil to be more or less straight, not scalloped. I knit MK's decreases as given, but compensated for them with
corresponding increases at the edge of each pattern. The side panels finished  six rows before the central pattern. I left the side panel stitches on some waste yarn at that point, and continued on the central panel stitches only. The result was a pleasantly undulating bottom edge, rather than the straight, stepped one that I had envisaged.

On the second attempt, I got a straight bottom edge, as you see from the photograph above. I haven't kept notes as to how this was achieved, but I suspect it was a matter of putting the increases next to the decreases, instead of separating them.

I then left the central panel stitches on more waste yarn, and went back to the top to attach the edging. I started in the middle of the top (where defects would be hidden in wearing) and used another provisional cast-on. I used edging 2, page 29, from Hazel Carter's book
"Shetland Lace Knitting from Charts". It worked very well, over 12 to 17 stitches. The world is full of lace edgings. Anything of about that width will do.

I worked the edging without fussing about mitreing the corners or anything. I just went around, relying on EZ's dictum that knitting is forgiving stuff. This worked well enough where the edging made a right turn, but it got a bit bunched up where it turned left. (You'll see what
I mean if you try it -- if you go around attaching your edging in the other direction, "left" and "right" will be reversed.) It might be better on those inside corners to leave some of the stitches on the body of the veil unattached. I can't remember whether I took my own advice at this point when I was knitting the Miles shawl.

When I got back to the top again, I counted stitches and fudged a bit to make the pattern come out even for eventual grafting to the beginning of the border.

Lizzie on her First Holy Communion day (I made the dress, for her mother, many years before.)

Rachel on her First Holy Coimmunion day (Rachel designed her own dress.)