I still aten’t dead November 4, 2015

Long time no see!  I haven’t been doing much knitting at all these past few months except for a spurt here or there.  A few weeks ago I picked up my Grass and Bubblegum shawl (Color Affection) and my Follow Your Arrow 2 shawl.

Follow Your Arrow 2, almost done

Well I’m two and a half rows from binding off Follow Your Arrow and if you check out my Facebook page you can see my progress on the Grass and Bubblegum shawl I posted a few weeks ago.  Don’t have much time for a long catch-up chat right now, but I’ll be back soon and will be posting Work In Progress Wednesday pics on the Facebook page and more regular posts here.  Alas (or not so alas), there is to be no Christmas knitting this year as I’ve gone back to school and I don’t have the time to do it this year. TTFN!

Action Shot and Flirting January 12, 2015

Color Affection in action.

Way back last Christmas, my husband got me a skein of Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in Coquette (he was supposed to get sock yarn but the clerk told him sock yarn wasn’t for socks and steered him to the TML, definitely someone who shouldn’t be working in a yarn store, he goes to the other LYS in town now).  A day or two after Christmas I had an idea of recreating a shawlette that I had knit ages ago and of course wrote down no notes on how I made it.  I knew I used US size 8 (5.0mm) on the original and Noro Silk Garden Sock, but I chose to cast on with US size 6 (4.0mm) instead because I wanted to see how it worked out.  It’s a simple garter stitch triangle shawl with an eyelet row spaced every so often, then I added in short rows to make the wings longer without adding to the depth, and after a couple of days of crunching numbers and frogging back a time or two I added a ruffled edge and Flirty was born.  Illness and other stuff happened so I never got a chance to write up the pattern properly and publish it.  I just now got around to blocking it.

I should have used my wires, but I will when I do the next one.  Firstly, I want to do a garter tab rather then casting on seven stitches because it looks neater that way.  Secondly, I’m on the fence about going up a needle size to get more width out of it — I’m going to have to wait and see how this one drapes before deciding if I’m going to try it on US size 7 (4.5mm) needles.  I had about 100 yards of yarn left from knitting this and I think going up to an eight will eat up too much of that but I may be able to squeak by with a seven.  You can wear Flirty like a kerchief with the point in front and the ends wrapped around your neck, you can knot it loosely in the front to give your neck a little bit of warmth, or you can pin it on your shoulder with a shawl pin.  The ruffled edge turns it from a staid triangle shawl to something much more feminine.  Look for the pattern some time in February.

Alas poor Saroyan, I knew thee well April 9, 2013

I was almost done, in the home stretch of the decrease section when I realized that I wasn’t going to have enough yarn to finish it.  I had placed a lifeline after the 9th repeat in the straight section (I had tried going to 10 repeats), so I frogged back to there and tried it again.  No go.  Very carefully I picked up the stitches after the 8th repeat in the increase section.  The good news is that at least now I have the damned chart memorized so I don’t need the instructions to knit it and it’s become a bit more portable.  The bad news is that I frogged 16 repeats.  I weighed the yarn and thought I had enough, but I never weighed the skein in the first place so it must have been more than 100g.  I’m going to go with 8 repeats in the straight section and 8 repeats in the decrease section.  If I have to frog again I might just cry.

Severely diminished Saryoan

In other news, it looks like the ship has sailed for my green sweater.  It was in the upper 70’s today and it’s supposed to get up to 85 tomorrow.  It will be a more seasonable 60 over the weekend but there’s no way I’ll be finished it by then.  I will however be working on the sleeve on Thursday because I have too many WIP’s right now and I need to get it done because it’ll count for a hell of a lot in a yarn marathon I’m participating in (it’s fingering weight held double).  I also just started the heel flap on my Black Magic Socks so something is going right.

Second Sock Syndrome and a WIP March 27, 2013

 

This is the first Great Adirondack Yarn Co Caribou sock.  It’s just a simple stockinette sock with a heel flap.  I finished it last week but couldn’t muster the energy to cast on for its mate.  I decided to succumb to SSS (second sock syndrome) and do something else until I cast on for the second one.  After surfing through Ravelry for an hour last Friday night, I settled on Saroyan with the Madelinetosh Pashmina that I bought at Knitty City.

 

The pattern is written for worsted weight yarn and the Pashmina is sport weight.  I’m still using the US Size 8 (5.0mm) needles that the pattern calls for but I did 10 increase repeats to the 6 as written and will probably end up with about 14 repeats in the straight section.  I could have done a few more increase repeats, but I’d like to have a little bit of yarn left over for another project that is in the works.  I’m having the worst time memorizing the chart for the leaf pattern on the one side so it’s not mindless knitting since I have to pay attention to where I am in the chart.  I’ll probably cast on for the second Black Magic sock tonight so I can have something that I can just whip out and work on when I have a spare moment as opposed to having dedicated time to work on Saroyan.

In other WIP news, my green sweater has stalled.  I was all gung-ho about trying to get it finished in enough time to wear on my New York trip but when I realized that just wasn’t going to happen, I lost all my steam to finish it.  I’m planning on making some time this coming week to get the sleeves done so I can finish the body of the sweater.  The weather will be changing soon and I’d like to have it done to wear this spring while it’s still too cold to wear just a tee shirt but not cold enough for my coat.

Lace is in the air May 23, 2010

After all the work I poured into making the Aeolian Shawl, I did not learn my lesson and have decided that making 7 stitch nupps is THE BEST THING EVAR.  So I decided that I would use Estonian lace patterns in Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Pi Shawl because my regular knitting and two small children just isn’t enough.

This is the swatch I made using some Arauncania Ranco on size 6 (4.0mm) needles.  It looks very pretty and gave me a good idea on how the patterns worked with the pi increases, but I needed a larger needle for the nupps to stand out.

I had 3 skeins of Knit Picks Gloss Lace set aside for the project and I dyed them up on Thursday.  I need to make new dye stock solutions because there has definitely been some fading and it took two goes to get the color that I really wanted.

I used my crock pot and Jacquard dyes and couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome even if I did have to mess about with the colors more than I usually would.  So I finished charting the lace on Friday night and cast-on.  I’ve just started the 24 round section.

In other knitting news, I made a lot of progress on my Giselle sweater.  I’ve made a big dent in the lower portion of the sweater and since I’ve hit the point of decreasing every other row, it’ll go even faster.

This is what is left of my 2lb cone of Provence Lace Merino from School Products.  It may not look all that small, but the diameter of the cone is at least half of what it was.  I figure that by the time I’m done Giselle, I should have about 800yds left which should be just enough to make a pair of stockings.  If you have the chance to go there, I highly recommend it – I paid just over $50 for this cone and I’m getting a large lace shawl, a size 3x sweater (with yarn doubled) and (hopefully) a pair of lace stockings or at least lace knee highs.

I don’t have it with me, but a dear friend treated me to some sock yarn this weekend in a lovely brown/gray colorway and for the life of me I can’t remember just what it’s called so that will have to wait for the next post.

TTFN and I promise that I’ll get the camera dug out so I can get proper pictures of things up.

1126 yards later May 10, 2010

Which equates to .64 miles of yarn.

The knitting on the shawl of DOOM is finished.  As I am battling a nasty head cold, bad webcam pics and a worse cell phone shot will have to suffice for now.

It is gigantic!  Unblocked, the top is at least 60″.  It’s long enough that I can wrap it around me comfortably.  Next step is trying to find a place big enough to block it and one where it can rest undisturbed until it’s dry.

Shaking off the cobwebs May 3, 2010

Welcome to the new Knitty Keen blog – long time no see!

It’s a rainy, yucky day today.  One of those days where playing with wool is the last thing you really want to do, but seeing as I’m in the middle of row 39 of the final chart for the Aeolian Shawl, I’m willing to take one for the team just so I can get the damned thing finished.  I’ve taken to calling it the shawl of DOOM everywhere and while it is beautiful, oh so beautiful, I’m at the stage where one row takes close to 30 minutes to complete.

Here’s hoping I can get it off the needles by weeks end.