Kaylee Frye: “The term is ‘companion.’”
Mal: “I always get those mixed up. How’s business?”
Inara: “None of yours.”
Mal: “She is pretty much our ambassador. There’s plenty of planets wouldn’t let ya dock without a decent companion on board.”

The Ambassador is the third design in my Firefly/Serenity series based on the character Inara Serra. It is a long beaded wrap with 4 distinct parts of the design: 1. Beaded and lightly cabled diamonds along the bottom, 2. Beaded lace curly-cues along the sides (simulating the veil she wears in the episode “Trash”), 3. A slipped stitch dense, lightly beaded middle section, and 4. A sideways knitted on lace top edge that corrects the differences in fabric density. Like Inara, the design is elegant, bold, and very sparkly.


The piece can be worn several ways; wrap, shawl, scarf, headscarf, or backless wrapped shirt. It is knit flat from the long bottom edge up, with the top edge knitted on sideways.

The pattern is available as both complete written (9 pages) or complete charted (6 pages) instructions and can be downloaded separately.

The project uses between 900-1100 of fingering weight yarn and 1,987 beads in 5 colors. I suggest using yarn in solid colors or lightly variegated/tonal. Because of the construction (sideways knitted top edge) highly variegated yarns may pool weird. Very bold colors are the most suited to Inara’s style, and the pattern provides bead suggestions to create a triadic color scheme for 7 yarn colors (red, blue, yellow, purple, green, orange, and black).

If nearly 2000 beads sounds intimidating, a few of my testers used only 1 or 2 colors of beads/did not do all the beading and it is still absolutely beautiful!

The other designs in the series are Leaf on the Wind based on Wash, Big Damn Heroes based on Zoe, and Wasn’t Born a Shepherd based on Book. Come join my Ravelry group for info/tests on upcoming designs!

This pattern is now available through the Knit Picks Independent Designer Partnership! The Ambassador can be purchased there along with the listed KP yarn with their super cool “Kit Builder!”

A very special thank you to my testers: RedTina, puffycats, milosiini, CraftyLzrd, luluminstrel, OmniaNatura, lyonesset, LuxNoctis, and txjewelrylady

ERRATA:
06/24/14: The set-up row is backwards - It should be: cast on 453 sts as follows: 16sts, PMC1, 8sts, PMC2, (14sts, PMC2)x29, 7sts, PMC1, 16sts (the pattern has the 8 sts and 7 sts reversed). This has been updated in the most current version of the pattern and is available as an update for those who purchased before 06/24/14.