Icelandic Shawl

Hyrna Herborg

Of all the gorgeous shawls in the Three-Cornered and Long Shawls pattern book by Sigrídur Halldórsdóttir, I kept returning to the one on page 73 titled Hyrna Herborg. This was in 1998 when the book had not yet been completely translated into English (note: as of 2005, the English translation and book are now available again from Schoolhouse Press.) It was a little scary to be faced with instructions in an unfamiliar language, but the partial translation that Louise Heite had made so far of the introductory chapter, together with the clear charts and photos of the shawl helped make the instructions understandable with a little effort and patience.

I enjoyed the process of making this shawl. It starts with 7 sts at the center back neckline, and increases at center back and front edges for the triangular shape. The shawl is relatively small — really more like a fancy shoulder wrap. Therefore, it knit up quickly, and only requires about 500 yards of yarn.

I used a cultivated spun silk yarn from my stash that called out to become this shawl. The pattern is written for Icelandic laceweight singles wool on size 3.5 mm needle; so I changed to a size smaller needle, a 3.0 mm, to accommodate the less elastic silk fiber. Although the silk is not traditional, I live in southern Louisiana and can wear this smooth silk more often year round in our high humidity conditions. Therefore my resulting shawl is a tad smaller than specified in the pattern. No matter to me — an advantage of shawls is some flexibility in the size, rather than requiring an exact fit to be useful and attractive.

These are my Icelandic Shawl Notes on the making of the Hyrna Herborgar shawl.