What's Hap?

As part of my longstanding appreciation for Shetland knitting, I have attempted to make a hap with DK weight yarn that I purchased from Bee Croft, the online shop of a crofter on Fair Isle. Having followed barkland_croft on Instagram for the last few years, and meeting the crofter, Rachel, at a knitting group in Lerwick in 2019,  I was delighted to learn that she is producing yarn from her Shetland sheep flock and did not hesitate to order a skein of each solid color (Barnacle, Butterscotch, and Busby) as soon as it was available.  After about a month of wool huffing, fretting about my inability to keep Old Shale on track (please don't look closely), and wondering if I would have enough yarn to finish the lace edging, a hap emerged. 

The challenge in designing the hap was to make sure I would be able to use as much of the yarn as possible on each layer.  I initially mapped the pattern out on graph paper and aimed to have equal amounts of area for each color, but lace has a mind of its own, and I had to use my best judgement as the hap grew. 

All that's left of my skeins of Busby, Butterscotch, and Barnacle.

It is only appropriate that this hap will get used regularly.  That's what I find so appealing about this Shetland lace tradition: it's EVERYDAY lace.