Can you have too many shawls?

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was not to knit more shawls. I love knitting lace. I love knitting shawls. I love wearing shawls. But how many does one person need? I have a whole shelf of them in one closet. The more delicate and complicated the lace, the more I love it and the less I wear it. Since I live in the northeast, where it is cold most of the year (even in summer, where there is a tendency to over-air-condition public places), I almost always have a shawl with me to throw over the other layers. But I rarely get "dressed up" and the lacier, dressier shawls seem to languish in the closet. But I can't resist the urge to knit more of them!

I also have a hard time resisting a puzzle. So when Kalinumba announced the Wings of Horus KAL, it seemed like a natural. There was even a cone of light blue Zephyr sitting calmly in the stash, perfect for this project. So I succumbed.

But then something terrible happened. Renee of Goddess Knits announced the Anniversary Mystery Shawl 09. Since my previous attempt at one of Renee's shawls ended in a trip to the Frog Pond, this was an opportunity to redeem myself. And... there happened to be some cream-colored Colourmart cashmere available in exactly the right weight. How could I NOT?

Both projects are proceeding nicely. There were some scary moments with Wings of Horus. In order to download each of the weekly clues, we had to solve a riddle involving ancient Egyptian mythology. I solved the first one quickly, but the subsequent riddles were more difficult. Thank goodness for the KAL group on Ravelry! Thanks to Google and some hints provided by more clever and knowledgeable group members, disaster was averted. In fact, there were a few awful hours when I thought that after knitting the first five clues, I wouldn't be able to get the final one! As much fun as it was, I may have to remember those feelings of dread the next time I consider doing something like that. There are just about 20 more rows to finish, but by now there are over 500 stitches in each row, so it may take a while.

And speaking of shawls, I never blogged about the large, lovely, soft alpaca Klabauter shawl from this past winter. That was another KAL by Monika Eckert. (I was seduced into making that one after my experience with Moni's Slow Bee Mystery Shawl, now available as the Icicle Lace Shawl.) It was a fast knit, done in Lavish Superfine Alpaca in a mint green. The yarn is a little heavier weight than most of my lace shawls, but Moni was very clever with the design – she offered edging options at several different points along the way, so there was a lot of flexibility in the size of the finished shawl. It is large enough to snuggle up into, and I expect it to become a staple of my wardrobe in the future.

Unfortunately, it has one problem. The alpaca sheds. I wore it out last night over a black knit top, and by the end of the evening not only did I have little wisps of greenish-white fluff all over my formerly black top, but even the sleeve of my husband's sport jacket was covered. (He had the misfortune of sitting next to me.) I am a little afraid to machine-wash the shawl, but hand-washing didn't remove the loose fibers when I originally blocked it, so I'm not sure where to go from here. Suggestions welcome!

It IS a jacket after all!

I had my doubts, many times in the course of this project, that this oddly shaped piece of knitting would ever metamorphose into a wearable garment. While I was always an A math student, plane geometry was a challenge, and involved brute memorization of formulas and proofs rather than any intuitive understanding. (Does anyone do proofs any more? My mathematician friends complain that even college math courses are light on proofs until the upper levels.) Visualization of three dimensional objects was totally beyond me, and even two dimensional objects could be problematic.

To backtrack a bit… In Italy in October 2007 I bought 12 skeins of Filatura di Crosa 127 Print. (Probably not enough, but all they had in the little shop in Tuscany where we stopped on our way back to Florence.) I searched for months for a pattern that would not result in horizontal stripes and eventually came across the Boku Mitered Jacket. After purchasing the pattern, I had my first doubts even before casting on. There was no schematic, and I wasn’t sure about whether I could fudge the size, length, or anything else to accommodate the amount of yarn I had. Eventually I ordered a few more balls of yarn from Webs, and while it wasn’t the same dye lot, it was close enough.

At various points I set it aside to work on other things, partly because I was so uncertain of where this was going. With most patterns, you start with the back, then the front(s), then the sleeves, and it is clear where you are at any time. This pattern, though, begins with the center back and works at an angle… okay while you are still on the back, but then it wanders over to the sides and the front, and you pick up stitches at various points along the way. (With any luck, you will pick up the CORRECT stitches, but it is hard to know for sure.)

Eventually it started coming into place, but I was almost ready to give up when nearing the end, since it didn’t seem to fit properly, but adding additional rows to the edging around the collar made a big difference. I had added some solid Elann Peruvian Highland Wool for the cuffs and the band around the bottom and collar, and I think that finished it off nicely. (In truth, I used the solid black because I was still afraid of running short of the 127 Print, but I might have done that anyway.) In the end I was happy, but it was probably the most stressful knit I have ever had… partly because I wasn’t sure all the effort was going to result an a wearable jacket, and partly because the yarn had such wonderful associations with the trip to Tuscany that I didn’t want it to go to waste.

Hats, Hats, Hats

Earlier this week I looked at my blog and discovered that I hadn't posted since the end of October. I guess it's time for a New Year's (slightly used New Year) resolution to blog more regularly.

It's all Ravelry's fault. In the past several months, the time I would have spent blogging seems to have been gobbled up by Ravelry. Between updating my own projects and looking at other people's projects, it has become a real time sink. But what an amazing one!

This has been a dreadful winter in the Northeast, and as a result I have been on a hat knitting kick. It started with the Meret beret, which was a free pattern offered by Wooly Wormhead as part of a Ravelry KAL. I had just finished it when I suddenly needed a birthday gift for my sister-in-law, so I decided to give it to her and make another one for myself. Only this one I decided to give to a friend as a Chanukah present.

Meret was a well written pattern, and I enjoyed it so much that I bought Wooly Wormhead's book (despite her unfortunate name) Going Straight, a collection of 24 designs using a sideways construction method. The biggest problem was deciding which hat to make first!

The winner was Guimauve, a slouchy beret with an unusual, slightly-pointy shape, though the point is much less pronounced when worn than it is just sitting for a photograph.

Like the other two hats, I made this one from stash yarn – in this case Park Avenue, a now discontinued alpaca-merino blend by Lily Chin. Because the yarn is a heavier gauge than the pattern calls for, I needed only 8 repeats instead of 10. The fit is perfect.I may try the same hat again some time with a variegated yarn as it is shown in WW's pattern photo.

Another ball of Park Avenue was leftover from a sweater and too pretty to abandon, with just enough for a not-too-big hat, so I next tried Trinity. It was a good travel project – extremely portable and not too difficult. It was a little too small – wearable, but too small to be pulled down over both ears. After deciding not to wear it day after day, I decided to extend it by picking up stitches along the bottom and adding a brim. There wasn't quite enough Park Avenue left, so I added some green KnitPicks Wool of the Andes, which blended in perfectly. It is now my favorite hat.

On really cold days, my favorite is Strudel, for which I used Lavish Superfine Alpaca that was leftover from a shawl (a subject for another post). It is another nice warm hat, that fits well and covers the ears. The horizontal cables give it an interesting look, and it stays put even on windy days.

There are still several hat patterns in the WW book that are on my To Do list. Maybe next winter. (If this one ever ends.)

Second Chances

This was a week for second chances – at least knitting-wise.

Last winter I made the wonderful Oblique sweater by Veronique Avery. It me took about 5 months to knit it, and in the end it was too big. When a member of one of the on-line knitting groups offered to buy it from me, I decided to sell it to her, and immediately bought yarn for another one. It was the same yarn – even the same color, though the dye lot for the second one was a little grayer. I was surprised at how much faster it was to knit the second time! The lace patterns were far less intimidating, and after the first few rows I barely had to look at the instructions for each section. Here is the finished product:
















Pattern: Oblique, by Véronik Avery, Knitty, Fall 2007
Yarn: Ella Rae Classic Wool, approx. 9 skeins (1900 yds)
Needles: KnitPicks Options US #8
Modifications: Omitted waist shaping; shortened cuffs

I have already worn it twice and expect it to be my standard grab-it-whenever-cold sweater for this winter.

My other Second Chance was the Alix Shawl. I had made one for my mother over a year ago, using some colorful sock yarn that seemed a little too colorful for socks. She seemed to like the shawl, but it mysteriously disappeared shortly after I gave it to her. I decided to make her another one, since she is always cold, even in Florida, and wanted to use either sock yarn or a washable wool, and found a nice superwash merino in variegated blues. It was good that it was a totally different colorway from the first shawl, since as I was about to finish it, the original one turned up in one of her dresser drawers!












Pattern: Alix's Prayer Shawl
Size: 64" x 30"
Yarn: Fibranatura Baby Merino (superwash), 4 skeins
Modifications: Crocheted bind-off

As with the Oblique sweater, the shawl was much easier the second time. The pattern for each row seemed very easy to memorize. I'm not sure whether it was easier because I had done the same pattern before, or because of all the more complicated lace knitting I have done in the interim. Either way, it certainly shows that experience pays off.

One more object (though this was not a re-do) finished recently is the Syncopation Mitered Bag:

Pattern: Syncopation Miterd Bag by Sheera Designs
Yarn: Cascade 220 (a little more than one skein) andMadil Yarns Rebus (1.5 skeins)
Needles: US #6
Modifications: None
New skill learned: I-cord

This pattern had the potential to be a nightmare, but it has such clear diagrams that even somebody "geometrically challenged" was able to do it. Once I started to pin labels on each completed section to identify the number of the section, it became much easier.

This pattern may have a Second Chance in its future.

I can't believe it's over

The end of summer always comes as a surprise and a disappointment. Since I love the two months of summer and hate the six months of winter so much, the end of August is always a depressing time. We still operate on an academic year calendar, and while the start of the new school term always brought with it the promise of a fresh start, for a retiree it just means the onset of cold, gray misery.

But enough whining (or whinging, as the Aussies would say).

August was wonderful. We had a delightful vacation cruising in the British Isles (where in fact it was cold, gray, and rainy everywhere we went). And I got an amazing number of UFO's finished.

My "cousin" Michael's wife had twin daughters in July. (The relationship is more complicated than that, but the details are irrelevant and boring.) My major objective for the cruise was to finish these for my visit shortly after our return:

The variegated yarn is Bella Colour, a cotton and acrylic blend from Plymouth Yarn. The pattern is the Toddler Jumper that I got from Discontinued Brand Name Yarn when I bought the yarn in the pink and gray the first time to make a dress for my granddaughter. I bought the blue for the second dress (before I knew the baby would be twins) and had almost enough of the pink left over for another one, but not quite. Fortunately I found the solid gray (Caron Country, a washable wool/acrylic blend) which coordinated color and texture-wise at the local A.C. Moore just before we left. They came out quite nice, don't you think? The babies' mother was delighted with them, which is always nice when you give a hand-knitted gift (and happens far too infrequently).

I couldn't go to visit without a gift for the twins' two-year-old brother, so the few days between our return home and the trip to Miami I went on a knitting blitz and finished the Childhood cardigan just in the nick of time. The yarn was Mission Falls 1824 cotton, which has a very nice feel to it and is supposedly washable (though I would always recommend handwashing for hand knits). The mom was equally delighted with this! One interesting thing about this pattern is that it calls for snaps instead of buttons (though it is shown with fake buttons sown on). I didn't have time to buy buttons, and my wonderful friend Clare had the perfect snaps. I think I like it just as much without buttons, unless you happened to have particularly interesting ones. And it was nice not having to bother with buttonholes.

My other major project for the trip was the Revontuli (Northern Lights) shawl. (Yes, I know the pattern is in Finnish, but the designer fortunately translated it into English.) My mother lives in Florida but is always cold, so I wanted to make her something both colorful and warm. When I saw this pattern on Ravelry I knew it would be perfect in Kauni wool yarn, which comes in a rainbow colorway with very long repeats. It was, unfortunately, less soft than I would have liked, but once knit and washed, it was acceptable. I wasn't sure if my mother would like the colors, but she seemed to be very happy with it. (And she doesn't fake happiness very well.) I had two skeins of yarn and still have about 1/3 of the total left. Until it got really big, it was a good travel project, because the pattern was very easy to keep in mind with only an occasional glimpse at the pattern at the beginning of each row.

I actually did some more knitting in August, but that's enough for one post. More coming... along with some photos from the trip.

Slow Bee finished on time (more or less)

I love this shawl!!! It is a beautiful design, large enough to wrap up in (even for zaftig person), in a wonderful color, shimmering with little silver beads.
Pattern: Slow-Bee Mystery Shawl by Monika Eckert
Yarn: JaggerSpun Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18, teal
Needles: KnitPicks Harmony #US3
Beads: Silver-lined crystal beads (8/0) - approx. 75 gm from Emelia Beadelia
Modifications: Used Version 2; omitted beads in last two rows before the end

The shawl was a delight to knit. I blew up the charts a bit to make them easier to see, but they were well done. I used an itty bitty crochet hook to add the beads, and it wasn't difficult but it really slowed things down on rows that had a lot of beads. By the end of the shawl, there were over 800 stitches per row, so even the simplest rows took a lot of time. No matter, though – it was fun watching the pattern evolve, and the icy-greenish-blue color along with the shimmery silver beads were perfect for summer knitting.

Mystery KAL organizers always emphasize that it isn't important to keep up with the schedule of clue releases, but it does impose a kind of internal deadline. There were a couple of weeks that I didn't quite make it for one reason or another, but did manage to catch up during the next week. I really wanted to finish it in time to take it on our summer vacation, and just managed to do it with a day or two to spare.

Blocking a shawl this large was something of a challenge. Thank goodness for interlocking foam pads! I didn't much like having to get down on my hands and knees to lay it out, and probably didn't do an optimum job as a result, but the shawl is lovely in spite of a mediocre blocking job. At one point I accidentally stepped on an edge of the shawl, complete with little glass beads... I won't be doing that again any time soon!

Welcome, Mother Earth

Today I am happy to introduce Mother Earth, a.k.a. Spring Shawl Surprise:
Pattern: Mother Earth by Lul (Lene Unmack Larson)
Yarn: ColourMart Cashmere 3/28NM Heavy Lace Weight, approx. 300 gm
Needles: KnitPicks Harmony US#5
Size: 24" x 96" blocked

The yarn is heavier than recommended, so I was concerned that it would be too large, but it is absolutely perfect. Like other Colourmart cashmere, it metamorphosed into something soft and warm and scrumptious after the Tough Love treatment (wash in very hot water with Dawn, subject to the dryer on low for about 15 minutes before blocking). One of the true pleasures of knitting lace is the very last step... seeing it change from an amorphous blob to a beautiful objet d'art. That effect is magnified when the yarn is Colourmart cashmere, which doesn't look or feel like anything special on the cone, but becomes transformed once the spinning oil is washed out and it is fluffed up in the dryer.

According to Lul, her main thought about the design was "to bring out circles and curves (which I pretty soon realized isn’t easy in lace knitting). Circles to represent how almost everything in life is repeating itself again and again, the changing of the seasons, being born –growing up-getting old-dying and a new human born again, sunrise-daytime-sun set and night. It all moves in circles and we are all just part of a bigger event 'Life' , let it be human or nature. Curves to represent the curves of a woman –the main image of the stole being a rather modernistic shape of a pregnant woman. She is standing on the bigger circle that represents the Earth, with the tree of life in the center to remind us that we are all part of the world and we all live important lifes. We may look differently, but we are all the same –man or woman."

Note on photo: Because of the length of the shawl, it was difficult to get a good photo of the whole thing. I finally took a series of shots and let Photoshop do its magic with photomerge. Despite the odd perspective and lighting effects, the shawl really is rectangular and a uniform color.