Careless Whisper

Sometimes you fall in love with a color, and then you have to find the project that will make it shine. That’s what happened to me when I saw the Tuareg colorway by Malabrigo. Many many many years ago I read a Young Adult series that took place among the Tuareg. I don’t remember much about the book, but I do remember how vividly the author described the Tuareg and their lives. She described their nomadic treks and their ceremonial drinking of green tea. She talked about their blue garments and their silver jewelry. So the color Tuareg really resonated with me.

Now, I had two skeins of Malabrigo lace in Tuareg. I love Malabrigo. The colors just shine. The only thing is, it tends to felt. I already had problems with felting – both on a cowl, one for my Mom, and one for my goddaughter. It just doesn’t seem that the yarn is resilient for heavy duty use. I’m tempted to us Malabrigo worsted for a sweater, but I’m scared of sweater fuzz and sweater felting. There are other yarn bases like Malabrigo Twist and Malabrigo Rasta that I haven’t yet knit with. And Malabrigo Rios is apparently machine washable! Whoa Nelly, t to try that out.

I had the Whisper cardigan pattern in my queue for a while – it looked like such a lovely and light little cardigan. Perfect for summer, over a dress or a top. The construction is interesting, too. You start at one sleeve, work across the back, and then finish up with sleeve two. You pick up stitches for the ribbing around the edge, and you continue knitting the bottom part until it’s long enough. Fun!

When I wound the yarn before casting on, I got the first hint that the yarn may easily felt. But I still persevered Now, the lace is pretty darn thin, so neither magic loop nor dpns worked for the first sleeve. I tried, but I got laddering, and that just really didn’t look in the lace. I ended up investing in a 12” Hiya Hiya needle, and that made the difference. The first part, sleeve to sleeve worked up pretty quickly. The ribbing took a little longer, but then, then came the back part. Oy. Endless, and I truly mean endless, endless, endless stockingette. Can I just tell you, if you’re knitting stockingette in lace weight, it really takes a long time?

But when it was done, it totally was worth it. The finished cardigan is light and whispery. And I used every little bit of yarn. That bind-off had me sweating – I was hoping I didn’t have to tink back. I literally had a few inches left. Phew.

Mom had fallen in love with the cardigan along the way, and since I still needed a birthday gift for her, the Whisper cardigan became hers. Ok, I finished it up way after her birthday, but she loves it all the same. And the color looks really good on her. The Tuareg blue was a really good choice. I’m pretty sure I’ll be knitting with that colorway again.

Starry

So. Lace. A lace shawl. If you’ve never knit one, it’s seriously intimidating. I looked at a chart and was confused, and a bit scared. I mean, how would that all make sense? How on earth were those instructions going to turn into something light and lacy?

I’d been knitting for, oh, nine months when I decided to challenge myself, and knit a lace shawl. I had already knit an Ysolda Teague pattern – an Urchin hat – and when she put up previews of her Whimsical Little Knits collection, I signed up. The booklet included a pattern for a lacy shawl, Ishbel. It consists of a stockingette section, followed by a lace edge. I figured I could tackle that – that would be easier than a completely lacy shawl.

Ishbel shawl knit in Dream in Color Starry, colorway In Vino Veritas

And, that’s when I discovered something that no one tells you beforehand: You’re going to purl a lot when knitting lace. For more ‘simple’ shawls you’ll purl the entire back of the lace, unless a pattern is charted on the backside, or unless it’s a garter stitch shawl. Sigh. Still, the result is gorgeous. Ultimately, lace is not as scary as you think. I’m fine with both written and charted directions, but I do highlight my rows. Lifelines really help – basically, you run a thread through a pattern row, or at the end of a section. That way, it’s easy to frog back if you’ve made errors, or dropped a stitch, without undoing the entire thing. I find it really really difficult to pick up dropped stitches in lace.

The yarn is Dream in Color Starry, which contains 2% silver fibers. That’s what gives the yarn that sparkly effect. It looks gorgeous in the finished object, and it dresses up the shawl. I think it’ll be great with more formal clothing, too. Love it! The colorway is In Vino Veritas, and I think the subtle colorshifts really look inspired by the colors of wine. It really is a great gift for my sister.

Silver sparkles, and gorgeous subtle color shifts

Cream of Eggplant

I bet you were expecting a post on food, right? Ha! Au contraire! Cream of Eggplant is what I named a project of mine. I’m sure there are great eggplant soup recipes out there, but this post is about a lovely purple scarf that really looks like the purple skin of an eggplant.

The yarn I used for the project was Classic Elite Miracle in the colorway Purple Palace. I forget why I originally bought the yarn for some kind of other project – I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. But I’d wound it at the yarn store, and so I wanted to use it up. I’d already knit a purple scarf and hat for my sister, but they were beginner projects. Well, not beginner projects, but I was brand new to knitting, and I figured I could do better.

The most frequently pattern knit with this yarn was the Cream of Spinach scarf – so now you know why I named my project Cream of Eggplant scarf. The yarn was somewhat fuzzy and splitty, but the pattern showed it up nicely. I’d say that I won’t use the yarn again, but the yarn has been discontinued anyway. The finished project is fine, but it’s not my favorite finished object. That just means I’ll have to knit another scarf for my sister. Yay!

Rumpelstiltskin

Heute back ich, morgen brau ich,
Übermorgen hol ich mir der Königin ihr Kind;
Ach, wie gut, dass niemand weiß,
dass ich Rumpelstilzchen heiß

Today I brew, tomorrow I bake;
And then the Prince child I will take;
For no one knows my little game
That Rumpelstiltskin is my name!
(English version)

Spinning straw into gold – now wouldn’t that be something? That’s like the philosopher’s stone where you turn lead into gold. But let’s take a closer look at the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale: Why did the girl – future queen – have to say that she could spin gold? She just got herself into trouble all on her own. And I never got why she’d only have to spin gold for three days. Why wouldn’t you have her spin gold every day? And why did the Rumpelstiltskin want the baby as payment – was he going to turn the baby into another imp?

Sometimes you come across a yarn that just fascinates you. I was looking at the shelves of a new-to-me yarn store when I came across this little pile of Handmaiden Seasilk. The yarn had a lovely sheen and was so soft. I was curious about the base, and was told that it was a combination of silk and seacell. The seacell is made from seaweed and is apparently also used to treat burn victims, and it’s good against skin problems like eczema. The skein I homed in on was in the colorway Straw and it looked just like gold. Spun gold. I’m sure Rumpelstiltskin would have approved.

I had already admired a project on Ravelry that used the same base in Amethyst that ended up in a gorgeous purple summer scarf. Since I really liked how that pattern showed off the yarn, I decided to make my own golden version. The pattern I used is the Montego Bay scarf pattern. It’s a lacy pattern, knit on a bias – an easy, knit-on-the-run pattern. I used metal needles, but I’d recommend wooden needles for this pattern since the yarn is quite slippery. Oh, and I’d also measure the amount of yarn you want to use for the fringe ahead of time, that way you can use up every last bit of yarn. And the best part is that you don’t have to weave in any of your yarn tails, since they’ll just be part of the fringe. The finished scarf feels great against your skin.

Doesn’t it look like spun gold?

Ghostly whisper

It’s time for another blast from the past. Ok, it’s not that old, but here’s a finished object from 2011. Meet my Ghostly Whisper. It’s a lovely cowl, knit in laceweight yarn. This was my first time knitting with Rowan Kidsilk Haze. I liked it, but boy, the finished cowl fuzzed all over my shirt. Is fuzzed an actual word? Anyway, I feel like you need to take a lint roller along if you wear this cowl. But the yarn is very soft, and very very light. It could just fly away in a light breeze. In fact, I tried to take some ‘floating’ pictures, with me throwing the cowl in the air, but the lighting wasn’t good enough, and as you can imagine, the mechanics were more than a bit challenging. It reminded me of my photography project where we had to ‘photograph’ movement.

I knit this pretty much as written in the pattern. The cowl ended up a bit longer than planned – it fit loosely over my shoulders and draped nicely. I would have liked for the cowl to be just a little bit shorter so it would be a bit more snug around the shoulders. I used the invisible cast on and cast on onto a spare Knitpicks needle. That way it was really easy to graft the ends together. You have to be really careful while grafting to avoid fabric puckering. The pattern suggests to pull the length of yarn through at the end, after the grafting. I don’t think that’s a good idea, given the nature of the Kidsilk Haze. Instead I pulled the yarn through along the way, making sure to keep enough tension, without puckering up the seam.

The cowl has since been rehomed and went to my friend Hanna as a birthday gift. Yay for handknit gifts!

Improving Your Skillset

Day 6: April 28, 2012. Improving Your Skillset
How far down the road to learning your craft do you believe yourself to be? Are you comfortable with what you know or are you always striving to learn new skills and add to your knowledge base? Take a look at a few knitting or crochet books and have a look at some of the skills mentioned in the patterns. Can you start your amigurumi pieces with a magic circle, have you ever tried double knitting, how’s your intarsia? If you are feeling brave, make a list of some of the skills which you have not yet tried but would like to have a go at, and perhaps even set yourself a deadline of when you’d like to have tried them by.

Phew! After the amount of work that was Day 5, Day 6 should be comparatively easy. I mean, I don’t have to hunch over my photo setup, making minute adjustments – I shot at least 1400 frames, plus a few still, plus all that time music editing – so I ‘just’ have to take a few pictures, and write. I first thought that blogging really takes a lot of time, particularly blogging about a specific topic. I tend to take a lot of time taking photographs and crafting my posts… but this, this has been the most challenging part of any blog post that I’ve put up since I’ve had this blog (granted, this blog is just over a year old, but still)…

So, today talks about skills. I kind of talked about skills I’d like to acquire in last year’s post, so lets review how my goals measure up to my actual achievements. Hmmmm…..

I definitely want to want to try my hand at colorwork (I’m thinking of Spillyjane’s Swedish socks here), improve my sweater fitting skills, try beaded lace knitting, and maybe even dare to tackle my first steek (yikes!).

Well, I have certainly knit  a whole bunch of projects since last year – 39 to be exact. That includes 11 hats, 8 shawls, 4 pairs of baby booties and 5 different children’s toys. There are three items of clothing in there:

• a cardigan for a little girl,
  
• a dress for another little girl,
  

  

• and a cardigan for a baby. 

  

Yup, all three items of clothing are for kids. Not a one for an adult. But apart from the cardigan for a girl, they were already in the planning last year – I had already ordered the buttons and showed them off in last year Knitting and Crochet Blog Week’s embellishment’s post. I did make a few modifications to the dress and the baby cardigan – you’ll find more information on those on the individual pattern pages.

See? I did do some shaping work! I’m planning to knit a cardigan for my Mom, and for my sister (both Connie Chang Chinchio patterns), so there are two opportunities for garment shaping right there (plus I can knit a matching baby Austin hoodie for my sister’s kiddo!).

As for colorwork – well, I still haven’t knit the Swedish Fish socks – yet. Maybe I’ll knit them during this summer’s Ravelympics. For all of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the 2012 Ravelympics games where people knit/crochet simultaneously along to the Olympics, competing in our own categories. Really, it’s lots of fun. Anyway, I’ve seen awesome versions of the Swedish Fish socks where the fish charts are used to make awesome versions as sweaters or vests, too. So that’s on my to do list, but I have made a pair of fingerless mitts that have been well received.

On to the next goal: Beaded lace knitting. Yeah, that hasn’t happened. It’s in the plans, but other wips have been intruding. You know, people having babies. People needing birthday gifts. People getting married. That kind of stuff that interfers with your wip list. Plus the occasional knitalong, and if there’s a pattern that catches your attention and you just HAVE to knit it right then and there yes, Color Affection, I’m looking at you!) I do have beads, and the matching yarn, plus the pattern – Haruni - or maybe Simurgh? – already planned out…

Steeking. Eeek!!!! Yeah, I haven’t yet done that yet. I mean, who would feel good about cutting their knitting? But it’s such a great skill – makes it way easier to knit cardigans, or you can steek armholes and so on and on. It’s a skill I definitely want to acquire, and I think I have a good idea how to acquire it. I came across this awesome Missoni inspired chevron blanket pattern. Well, I’d originally bought Wollmeise Lace in a few different shades of red to create an ombre effect blanket, but now I’m thinking I’ll make the blanket with those different shades of red, plus black and white and grey thrown in too. And to make my life easier, I think I’ll knit the blanket in the round, and then just steek it in the end. That way I’ll hopefully be finished this decade. Now I just have to decide whether to hold the lace single or double….

Given that I have enough on my plate – my queue is 43 pages long – I really don’t need to add other goals. Sooner or later I’ll come across a pattern or design that requires a new skill or a new technique, and I guess I’ll have to decide whether to sink or swim.

So that’s it for today. It’s almost tomorrow, and then I’ll have a post on my crafting balance. And then this year’s Knitting and Crochet Blog Week will be over. Wow, this week has flown by!

a brave heart

Hello, hello!

I hope you haven’t abandoned me yet. I know that I said I’d blog more frequently, and I will, really, I will – especially with the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week around the corner. There should be a yarn along post tomorrow. But for today, I thought I’d share a few pictures of that mystery KAL that I’ve shown you a few glimpses of in past posts. The pattern is now up – it’s called Impavido, hence my project name cuore impavido which translates to Braveheart. I’ve finally finished up my project pattern page, with all its notes. I added extra pattern repeats, so there are quite a few modifications in later parts of the project.

I really really love this finished object. It’s so pretty, with its geometric elements, and I’m really glad I chose the green contrast instead of the light blue that I’d originally planned to use. And I used up a 1770 yard skein of lace, plus about 300 yards of fingering weight yarn. If you’re looking for a different pattern instead of the lace shawls, then this should be perfect. I love it.

It’s Wednesday

so that means it’s time for another Yarn Along post! I’m once again participating in this week’s Yarn Along – there are links to other great Yarn Along posts there, with information on how to participate yourself. You can also find a link to this post through Tami’s Amis, and through Ambassador Crochet’s Wip Wednesday. Oh, and then there’s Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) series too.

This week I’m working on my new WIPs, since some of my old WIPs are knit up. Yeah! The two wips that I have going are the same as last week: my Melody shawl wip, and my orange Fernfrost scarf. Both are really making progress. The Melody shawl travels in my bag whenever I’m out and about and likely to have  something around 10 quiet minutes where I can knit – at the doctor’s office, on the tram, on the Metro, in the car… I didn’t think I’d see this much progress by now. I thought that this would turn into one of these endless projects that linger for months, and only rarely makes progress. But I think this one will be finished up this month. Which is pretty good for me, given that I have a bunch of other things going on right now. Sorry, not the best picture – the lovely purple looks rather muddied.

I do have new pictures of the orange scarf. I was steam blocking my mystery KAL shawl (Yes, it’s finished!) and I decided to steam block part of the scarf to see how the lace pattern will look in the end, and I’m really happy with the project so far. The lace opens beautifully, and I can see that this will be a lovely long scarf. Personally, I like broader shawlish scarfs and I worked hard to convince my Mom otherwise, but Mom wanted the skinny one, like her Haruha scarf. Sigh.

Oh, and as to the reading material – it never hurts to take another look at all the camera functions. As you can see, my SLR is a Canon EOS 20D. Not the newest camera out there, but I’m pretty happy with it. The one major thing that I don’t like is that it requires CompactFlash cards. Grrr. I can’t just pop mine in the card reading slit in my camera. I usually end up taking a bunch of pictures and then I hook up an external card reader to upload the pictures. Which means that I’m usually behind with posting pictures. I then have to get my act together and organize my pictures after the fact – and that’s why there haven’t been any food pictures lately, even though I’ve been cooking quite a bit.

Btw, as to the mystery KAL – it’s finished! It didn’t have any lace components, so it was super easy to steam block it – no pinning and so on. Just easy peasy steam blocking. I only had to make sure that I didn’t stretch the edges too much and avoid uneven length/width sides. Tuesday’s post shows a bit of the finished object. Once I’ve figured out how the buttons work – i.e. what the different wear options are – I’ll do a mini photo shoot and will put up better pictures. Until then, here’s another picture of the finished project (too much sunshine, so the colors don’t look as saturated as they are):

  

What to do with…?

I’ve been part of the 10 shawls in 2010 group for a while – so long that the group moved to 11 shawls in 2011 and now 12 shawls in 2012. I haven’t managed to reach the group goal in any of the past years, although I’ve given it a good try. It’s just that there are so many other things to knit up, plus requests, gifts, and so on.

So I’m trying to figure out my which projects I absolutely want to knit this year, especially since I’m participating in the 12 Wollmeise in 12 month KAL. I figure this is the perfect opportunity to match some of the yarn and yarn colors I love with patterns that have been lingering in my queue.

The problem is, what would I do with all those shawls? I’ve already distributed some of the FOs among friends and family, and there are some people that I’ll be knitting for. And I do want to gift shawls to people where I feel they’ll really appreciate them. But beyond that, really, how many shawls can I wear? I’m the kind of person to stick with one accessory for a long time. I have a favorite cowl – hello, American Apparel – that isn’t even handknit, and a favorite handbag that I use all the time. I have a few finished shawls that are lingering in their accessory box. And I’d hate for shawls to sit in a pile, unappreciated.

What do you do with all those shawls that you knit?

A cool drink

Haruha scarf

My first Sundara project. What a wonderful yarn – and the color is beautiful! The pattern isn’t difficult at all – it’s just that I work on multiple projects at the same time, so it lagged a bit in between. My Mom loved it and immediately laid claim to it.

colorway is Aqua over Limeade - hence the project name