Easy 1-2-3 Pattern Outline for Elegantly Simple Bookmark

Elegantly Simple Bookmark is a good example of how you can take a stitch pattern in one of your favorite patterns (such as the Elegantly Simple Baby Blanket) and adapt it easily for something else.

Or like this little project, to work a couple of stitch pattern repeats as a sample practice swatch and turn it into a useful article! In this case, the Elegantly Simple Bookmark also takes advantage of the naturally double-scalloped edge to make a decorative pleated end to which a beaded tassle is attached.

What you’ll need for this project

Elegantly Simple Bookmark

• download the Elegantly Simple Baby Blanket pattern for free at the HeartStringsFiberArts.com website; this pattern has the instructions and abbreviations you will need for knitting the pattern stitch
  (note: There is no obligation nor requirement to donate; you can just skip past that section and click the link for “Proceed Directly to Download”)
• size 10 crochet thread or fingering weight yarn; amount is not critical because we won’t be making this practice piece to an exact size: about 35 – 40 yards should do it
  (note: you could also use a heavier yarn which probably would produce a too-wide bookmark, but feel free to be creative and turn your “practice swatch” into something else <g>)
• knitting needles appropriate to the thread/yarn size. Tip to help you select needle size
• coordinating pony bead for head of tassel (i.e. a largish size bead with a large enough hole to pull several strands of your thread/yarn; don’t stress over getting a bead for this — there are other ways of making a tassel

Easy 1-2-3 Pattern Outline

1. Cast on 30 stitches.

This little bookmark is made in Shetland knitted lace from the feather and fan family of stitch patterns. This is the same stitch pattern as the Elegantly Simple Baby Blanket using just 2 multiples of the stitch pattern.

This feather and fan stitch variation has become one of my favorite pattern stitches, and I was interested to try it on a smaller scale. It just sort of flows and comes off so easily from the needles, looking more complicated than it really is. For the bookmark shown in the picture, my thread was hand-spun cotton.

2. Work pattern stitch instructions in Elegantly Simple Baby Blanket to length desired.

Instead of a bunch of stitches needed for making the baby blanket, you only have 30 stitches. So the instructions simply become:

3. Pleat and attach tassel.

After blocking and stiffening your bookmark if desired, “pleat” the cast on edge and whip the zig-zag points together with the ties of a hand-made tassel made in the same thread. I used a coordinating turquoise-lined large glass bead as the “head” of my tassel.