Catching Up

I've actually been working on so many projects lately that I don't even know where to begin.

I finished my third Camp Loopy project on time, last month - this one was a lovely garter stitch wrap called Edge (Ravelry), which uses short rows to make little wedges of colour.  I used the Loopy Ewe's solid series yarn, incorporating a couple of neutral browns with a lovely clear blue for the accent colour.

It took a fair bit of yarn and a good chunk of my August knitting time, but since it's garter stitch, it went pretty fast.  The colour changes and short rows helped to keep it interesting enough, too, that it seemed to go fairly quickly, even if it took a few weeks.

The pattern specified a particular type of bind-off, to allow lots of stretch for blocking, but I found that the bind-off was a bit too stretchy, since when I blocked it (and I stretched it out beyond the recommended dimensions) the edges still ended up a bit ruffly.  Next time, I'd use a regular bind-off, probably.  Yes, there will probably be a next time, since this one is intended to be a gift, and I would really love to make myself one in a different colour scheme.  Lord knows I have plenty of sock yarn to make up something pretty for myself.

Overall, I really like the wrap - it's nice and big, and the garter stitch is so squishy and comfy.  I think it will be really perfect for cozying up in for a night of reading in the dark of winter.

HBC Shawl

Of course, the thing that prompted me to finally write a post about the June shawl yesterday was because I have another shawl to write about today!

Since I was a kid, I've always loved the iconic look of the Hudson's Bay Company point blankets: a simple off-white blanket with the four wide stripes of colour.  It's an instantly recognizable symbol of Canada (though admittedly not always a good one.)  As they cost hundreds of dollars, I've always relegated it to the "someday" pile.

Much to my happiness, the second project for Camp Loopy was to knit something up (using at least 600 yards of yarn) that is somehow reminiscent of a favourite place.  I instantly thought of the shawl Point, based on the concept of the classic HBC blanket.

The Loopy Ewe carries about a million colours of solid fingering weight yarn, in 200 yard skeins, which make it easy to stock up for striped projects.  I got one little skein each of the colours (and have just tons left over) and then three skeins of the Ivory.  The pattern only calls for two, but since that would give me essentially a one-skein sized shawl (like the one I posted yesterday) I elected to upsize it a bit.

The main body of the shawl is a little knit-purl pattern that adds just enough texture, particularly in a simple ivory colour, and then mindless garter stitch to make the stripes.  Because I'd upsized the shawl, I also decided to make each stripe three ridges of garter stitch instead of two (i.e. six rows of knitting instead of four.)  I really like it, since the stripes in the blankets are so fat and I didn't want these ones to be too thin.

Much to my dismay, the red yarn bled a bit into the ivory as it was washed.  I tried a second soak to minimize it, and while that did work to some extent, you can still see the little bit of red there, if you are looking for it.  I suppose I'd better wash the rest of the red before I make anything else with it, and keep that in mind in future.

Having pulled it up from drying on my bedroom floor, I couldn't wait even a moment to try it on for a selfie, without any makeup or even a sensible look on my face.

Perfect.

By Any Other Name

While I might be quite tardy in blogging about Camp Loopy this summer, I've been pretty timely about getting my projects done.

The first project (the June project, that is) called for something smallish, only 400 yards, that reminds you of a favourite book/movie/tv series.  I scrolled through my Ravelry favourites list for inspiration, and quickly came upon a little shawlette that I've been wanting to make for ages.  It's named Henslowe, after Philip Henslowe, a real theatrical contemporary of Shakespeare, who was portrayed by Geoffrey Rush in one of my all-time favourite films, Shakespeare in Love.

I chose madelinetosh for this project - their fingering weight wool single called Tosh Merino Light - in a colourway they call Cherry, but I see as many shades of fragrant roses.

I went down a needle size to get the specified gauge for the project, but having done so, it seems to have turned out a bit small for my tastes.  It will work well as a scarf but isn't really sufficient for a shawl.  It looks so lovely in this yarn, though (go ahead and click on that photo for a close up and try to deny it) that I am tempted to make another in a different colour, this time with two skeins, and make it both wider and taller in the garter stitch portion before doing the lace edging.  Then again, there are so many things to make, that who ever has time to revisit something a second time?

Rock Star

When I posted the lovely photos of my first Camp Loopy project, I mentioned that the second project would be a lace shawl in Madelinetosh.  I bet that even your wildest dreams didn't imagine something this beautiful!

The challenge for the second Camp Loopy project was to knit something with at least 500 yards of yarn, and it had to be a pattern that was so popular that at least 1000 people have posted it on Ravelry.  I went through some of my favourite designs and found a few contenders, but as always Jared Flood stole my heart with one of his designs.  This one is the Rock Island shawl, and ever since the first day I saw it, I knew I needed to make it.

I went through the laceweight yarns on the Loopy Ewe website, and decided that Madelinetosh Prairie would be perfect, in a nice deep grey, and after all, I don't have any grey lace, as of yet.  Then I scrolled down and saw this colour, called Nebula.  The photos of it broke my heart with the dazzling blend of light and dark teals, spun into a spectacular laceweight single.  I immediately changed my order and got the Nebula.  So I still don't have any grey lace.

The construction is unusual: you begin with the edging (71 repeats of it, which take ages) and then pick up the body of the shawl from there.  It's smooth sailing after that, with a simple lace design and then mindless garter stitch.  Once you're in the garter stitch, it's just a matter of watching the rows get shorter and shorter and faster and faster until you are at the finish line.  So satisfying.  A quick soak and then block the Dickens out of it and you're ready for the fanciest event.

You can tell my photographer is more used to people-shots than shawl-shots, but I think you can still appreciate how lovely the finished product is.

Horoscope Shawl

Way back in May, I showed you a progress photo of a wrap that I was weaving.  I finally got the finished project shots back from my photographer, so now I can give you the whole story.

When I was a beginning weaver, I did a lot of websurfing to look at weaving projects.  Somewhere along the way, I ran across Bonnie Tarses' website, and found inspiration in her work.  She was creating these pieces based on horoscopes - she would make a sort of map of the sky in the moment a person was born, and use colour and texture to indicate the position of the astrological houses and planets in that moment.  I was entranced by their beauty, and although I thought it was well beyond my skill level at that point, I ordered myself a kit to make one.

Having made a lot of other things in the meantime, the horoscope shawl was always in the back of my mind, and this year when my birthday rolled around, I thought it would be a perfect time to bring this project to the head of my weaving queue.

Winding the warp was the intimidating part - it involved 12 different colours of Bambu 7, being wound in a very specific order, often with two (or three or four) alternating.  It was a challenge to get it right, while keeping the cross intact and not ending up with a tangled mess of spools on the floor.

After the warp was wound, it was a relatively easy process to dress the loom (thanks to a couple of really helpful tips from Bonnie) and then the weaving itself was simple and meditative, being just a basic plain weave in one colour of Bambu 12.  Throughout the weaving process, I spent a lot of time just admiring the colours, stroking it and feeling the texture of the "planets" nestled in the smooth fabric.

The finished product is a soft and colourful wrap - bamboo yarn has a great hand and drapes like a dream.  As you can see, I added a band of blue to either side of the horoscope, to widen the wrap a bit, and make it a more appropriate size for me.  I think it ended up just about perfect, and look forward to using it to brighten up some outfits, on dressy occasions.

Cashmere Affection

Although I've mostly been showing off my quilt progress, lately, I have been steadily knitting on one project or another.  While I had Cashmere Affection on the needles, it was almost exclusively on that, since it is such a fun and easy and lovely project (and since the yarn I was using was so luxurious and breathtaking.)

It only took me about two and a half weeks to knit the whole thing up, and I really enjoyed it.  It was a bit fussy for a while, when I had three strands of yarn hanging off it, but even that wasn't enough to annoy me.  While I was knitting, I thought there was no way it was going to end up as huge as some of them I've seen on Ravelry, since it didn't seem that squished up on my needles.  Even when I bound it off and had it off the needles, it didn't seem so big.  Once I wet blocked it, however...  wow.  I tried to lay it on my bed to block, but had a foot or two of length hanging off both the head and foot end of my bed.  I had to lay it out on my living room floor, and even then it barely squeaked into the space I had.  This thing is huge!  I had expected it to have a bit more depth, but it's quite narrow.  I could have stretched out the garter stitch to give it more depth, but that takes away from the squishy-factor of the garter stitch, which I'd rather not do.  If I knit it again, I'll probably make some alterations to add some more depth to it, especially since there is lots of spare yarn to work with.

The colours I chose are pretty bold and perhaps even clashing - in some lights the Royal Flush looks more red than fuchsia, and the whole thing takes on a bit more of a Moulin Rouge feeling.  In other lights it's a bright wild pink and the shawl feels more like a wild bouquet.  In any case, it's super snuggly: garter stitch in the softest cashmere/wool blend is definitely a recipe for success.

One More Guest to the Party

In case any of you weren't already planning your own Color Affection, here's another beauty shot to inspire you.  I finally (finally?  It's only been a few days) added the third colour - Royal Flush, a bright fuchsia pink.

I wanted it to add some pop to the shawl, and it sure does.  The short rows in garter stitch are fun, easy, and look cool, and the upcoming wide band of Royal Flush at the bottom of the shawl should really anchor it.  Looking forward to further progression!

And Then There Were Two

When my sisters (bless them) gave me a gift certificate for Tanis Fiber Arts for my birthday, I hemmed and hawed a bit about what to use it for.  I initially planned to put it toward some aran-weight yarn for a Velvet Morning Cardigan, which I've been coveting for a while, but I already have one fair isle cardigan I haven't been working on, so why add another to the pile?  I also thought about getting one of her palettes, to play with some Granny Squares.  Eventually I realized that the best thing to do would be to buy some cashmere for a Color Affection, one of the latest viral knitting patterns (even more so, I'm sure, since the Yarn Harlot threw hers into the ring.)

So I hemmed and hawed a lot more about which three colourways to choose, and eventually just went with the first combo that had appealed to me (which is my usual M.O.)  When I told my sis that I was planning a Color Affection, she asked me if I was doing it for the TFA Colour Knit Along.  I was so absorbed in my planning that I'd completely forgotten that Tanis was doing one!  I checked the dates and decided there was lots of time to join the fun, so when the yarn arrived on Tuesday, I immediately wound up three pretty little yarn cakes and then cast on.

Today I finished the first phase of squishy soft garter stitch (in Lemongrass) and finally added the first pretty little stripe of Lilac.  It's actually taking a lot of self-control to make myself write this post, when I'd rather be working on adding more and more little springtimey stripes to the shawl.  In fact, to heck with this!  (I never had much self-control, anyway.)  I'll show you more when I get that third colour added!

Currently on the Loom

I decided which weaving project to start, next.

And it's a real stunner, I think you'll agree.

More details when it's finished.

A Bevy of Shawls: Cladonia

The final installment of This Year In Shawls Draped over My Sofa is a bright and colourful Cladonia.


Back in my self-striping sock yarn phase, I picked up a few balls of Knit Picks Chroma fingering weight. I knit one pair of socks with one ball, and had planned to do another variation of my Zauberball socks with the other two balls, alternating colours. When I was at this summer's Sock Summit, however, I attended a lecture by Clara Parkes on the properties of different types of yarns, wherein she mentioned how singularly unsuitable a single-ply yarn is for socks, as it won't tend to perform well under pressure and friction (i.e. exactly what a sock undergoes day after day.) So what to do with these two lovely balls of fingering weight single-ply yarn? Obviously a Cladonia shawl.


It knit up very quickly, partly because I was enjoying the colour changes so much. There are a few places where the changing colours clashed with each other, so by the end of the shawl, I was splicing sections out, to make some colours predominate while eliminating others.

I think it ended up pretty cute, though I have to admit that I haven't worn it a lot, yet. It takes a certain joie de vivre to pull this one off, n'est-ce pas?

A Bevy of Shawls: Not Your Granny's Shawl

Having completed the complicated Bridgewater shawl, last April, I was certainly ready for something quicker and easier. When I saw the release of the eBook What Would Madame Defarge Knit?, nothing would do but to make one of the Flatland crocheted triangle shawls. I thought it would be nicest if I used a self-striping yarn with long repeats, so I found some Wisdom Yarns Poems Sock on sale at Webs, and ordered two balls, with the intention of making a large dramatic shawl.


I decided that updating to a more contemporary colourway with the yarn, as well as using a glossier single ply yarn, would update the design and keep it from looking like a huge granny square shawl, like your own granny would have made.

Of course we all know how quick crochet is, so despite restarting a couple of times and completely changing the stitch employed in the pattern, I was still done the first ball of yarn by the fourth day, and ultimately decided not to use the second ball, as it seemed to be large enough for my plan, which was a cute little crocheted neck scarf.


In the end, it still sort of looks like a huge granny square, but I still like it. After a severe blocking, the fabric is quite crisp, and I've worn it a fair bit. I like how it looks, sort of retro, sort of not. And for only four days' work, who could complain?

A Bevy of Shawls: Bridgewater

This beauty is one that I worked on throughout last winter, and finished last April. I suppose I was waiting to blog it until I could get some photos of me wearing it, but seeing as that hasn't happened, the sofa will have to be my surrogate.

Turns out that the last time I showed this off, I hadn't even started knitting it, but was still experimenting with kool aid overdying. Once I finally cast on, there was a long and enjoyable period of garter stitch, to create the square center panel of the shawl, followed by a stint of lace in the round, a long hibernation, eventually coming back to it and finishing the lace, and finally a long and drawn out slog through the knitted-on edging. This type of edging takes forever, but it always worth it, in the end.


After all was said and done, I took a big plunge and dunked my finished masterpiece into a bowl of grape kool aid. The end result is a bit patchy and not quite as dark a colour as I'd intended (I used 5 packets of grape kool aid, but perhaps twice or even three times that many would have been closer to the result I was after.) I pinned it out and decided that the patchiness added some visual interest and depth to the shawl, and opted to leave it as is. Someday, when I need to wash and reblock it, I might grab some more grape kool aid and redo the dye job, but right now I love it.


The overall texture is super light and floaty (it's once again Jaggerspun Wool/Silk, in case you didn't remember) and I usually fold the square into a triangle and wear it that way, as a neck scarf or a shawl. Added bonus: a subtle fragrance of grape whenever I wear it.

A Bevy of Shawls: Holden

I decided to take some time today to photograph some old projects that I've never shown off. One of the ones I had on my list was this lovely Holden shawl. When I started uploading the photos onto Ravelry, I realized that I finished this over a year ago! I've worn it a fair bit during that time, because I love how it turned out - such a beautiful but simple neutral accessory.


Initially I bought this yarn (Viking of Norway Baby Ull, which is a fingering weight baby merino) to make a pair of socks. When that didn't exactly work out the way I hoped, it disappeared into the stash for a little while, before I pulled it out again to use it for this project. Holden is such a lovely pattern that I knew a simple yarn would work well and show off the lace. I love the feminine design in a basic elegant grey.


After blocking, the hand of this fabric is really great. The warm soft halo of this yarn makes the texture of the shawl just luxurious. It is quite warm and wraps around into a lovely scarf, too.

Milk Cake

I had a dream last night that I was eating a bowl full of pieces of stale cake soaked in milk to rehydrate it. Think about that for a second. I could have had a dream about flying with valkyries to a Nordic castle inhabited by Alexander Skarsgard, but I had a dream about stale cake and milk. Weird, to say the least. (It reminds me of another dream I had, once, where I was eating turkey leftovers (not even a fresh hot meal, but leftovers) and was worried that my HLM was going to steal them away. I mean, to be fair, even leftovers of turkey dinner are worth protecting, it's true.)


I decided not to overanalyze the dream, but to take it as a sign that it was time to make a Tres Leches cake. Ever since I saw this recipe on Pioneer Woman, I've been lusting after it. Thanks to the milk cake dream, today was the day. I bought the requisite three types of milks at the store after work and came home to put this baby together. For the record, it's just as lovely as it looks. Perhaps I went a bit heavy on the whipped cream layer, but I hated to waste any, especially since it has just a teensy bit of my tequila vanilla in there.

I also (finally) finished the knitted lace edging of the Bridgewater shawl, a few minutes ago. Having finished it, I am thinking about overdyeing it before I block it out. Maybe it seems crazy, but I've made enough projects with this ruby red that I'm ready to have a shawl of a different colour now. (Note to self (and also to you): buying lace yarn on cones gives you a lot of yarn.)


So I tried out a few colours of kool aid to see how they look. This is clearly the Before shot. I can't wait for them to dry out!

On the Needles

I noticed that I've been getting lazy about showing things that I'm working on. A few of them are big projects, and I always try to wait for them to be photogenic before I post something. Sometimes they aren't really photogenic until they are finished, though. Here are a few candid photos of what I have on the needles, right now.


The latest shawl in progress, the Bridgewater shawl by Jared Flood. It has a garter stitch square for a center (very meditative and enjoyable) that is knit diagonally from one corner to the opposite corner, with increases and decreases along the sides to shape the square. Then you pick up a border around the edges of the square, and knit a lace border. I'm at that part of the pattern, which is why it looks like an amoeba. I admit I haven't been working on it much, of late. There are a couple of other things that are taking up my attention.


One of those is a plain stockingette cardigan in black and boysenberry stripes. I had some black worsted wool in my stash, but only half what I needed to make myself a sweater. Of course I immediately thought of using it with another colour, doing a nice wide stripe on a basic cardigan, and got some yarn in this beautiful boysenberry colour to cast on. I'm using EZ's percentage system from Knitting Workshop, and making a steek up the front to cut apart into a cardigan after knitting the body. I am also going to use her formula for circular set-in sleeves to see how that works. And I'm "complicating matters" with a v-neck, as she puts it. "The techniques are simple, but would gum up directions for your first circular set-in sleeve to an intolerable degree." I do love complicating matters.


The other large project I'm working on is another cardigan, the Traveling Sweater that all the Blue Moonies are in love with. This one is a more interesting construction: short row wedges that form a circle of ribbing, with sleeves and upper-back knit separately and attached. I am just past one-fourth of the circular ribbing. It's simple enough, and the yarn is soft and lovely wool/bamboo. I'm still enjoying it, but I might be cursing 2x2 ribbing in another week or three.

Well, those are the big projects. I will show you the smaller ones, too, one day soon. Maybe even a finished one. Well, I can dream, anyway.

I Died For Beauty

I Died For Beauty
by Emily Dickinson

I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

The shawl turned out lovely, and was delightful right to the end. As the rows get shorter and shorter, it really builds up momentum, and before you know it, it's done. It didn't block out quite as big as the pattern says it should -- I think if I had blocking wires, I could have blocked it much more severely, and made it closer to those dimensions. I intended it to be a neck-scarf more than a shawl, though, so I don't mind if it's smallish. I'd rather keep it smaller and have the garter stitch stay squishy than block it bigger and have it flatter and more drapey.

Who knew that simply putting pink beads on would make it so girly? It is such an adorable bit of fluff, and reminds me of one of my favourite things in the world: red velvet cupcakes with their pink and white frosting (aka Scarlett O'Hara, from Fuss cupcakes -- feel free to pick one up for me, if you're ever in town.)

Now that I have this little alpaca obsession out of the way, I can get back to some of my other projects. I've made a bunch more little crocheted sock yarn hexagons recently, and good progress on the back of my red wooly cardi. I even did some *gasp* sewing!

Emily Dickinson is Holding Me Ransom

Of course I mean that I just can't put down my Emily Dickinson shawl, in the last few days -- I have gotten as far as the beaded portion, and the pink beads make a subtle but lovely sparkle through the lovely alpaca haze of garter stitch.

I have also realized how ingenious the design is, since the rows are going faster and faster as they are slowly decreasing down to nothing. With the bottom-up design, you get the slower and more fiddly rows for the edging done at the beginning, and then everything gets faster and easier as you carry on.

I can really forsee me making another one one of these, in the deep lovely red alpaca laceweight that I have leftover from my previous Ruffle shawl & Veyla gloves. All I have to do is decide what colour of beads to use...

Something New

Since my self-imposed restriction to only use up yarn from the stash this year, I have certainly felt some frustration at the limitations of it. There are many projects that I have seen and admired, many yarns and fabrics that I would love to stock up on, but alas. It certainly hasn't curbed my impulsive nature -- that part of me that makes me want to cast on new things constantly, that disregards my well-made plans to instead skip the queue with any little new project that comes along.

I haven't felt much like finishing things, lately. My suede tote bag is sitting here, probably an hour or two of fiddly hand-stitching away from being done, and while I do look guiltily at it every day, I haven't yet girded my loins and done it. My lovely twisted-stitch sock is also waiting patiently for me to finish the foot and toe.

Instead, like a raven, something sparkly and new has caught my eye.


When I saw the simple and beautiful Emily Dickinson shawl on Ravelry, I was enchanted. It just so happens that I have some laceweight Alpaca sitting around (yeah, I had planned to use it for something else, but sometimes you have to follow your heart) that would be just enough to make it. I went out and bought some lovely rose pink beads and cast on, the other day. It is an interesting shawl, in that the construction is reversed from the norm: for this one, you cast on at the bottom edge and decrease your way to the center top. A bit intimidating, I must admit, when the first line of the pattern is "cast on 545 stitches." Yikes. I am past the lacey points at the bottom, which has cut the stitches by half already, and into the lovely mindless garter stitch body. Have I mentioned how much I love garter stitch? So simple and beautiful and squishy. And this yarn is just completely the softest butteriest alpaca you can imagine. I am really looking forward to wearing this one, which must be why I have been working on it pretty exclusively since I cast it on.


On Tuesday night with the knitters, over a long in-depth analysis of The Wire Season Three, I managed to knit six inches of 2x2 rib for the back of my new wooly cardigan. I am really hoping that this one will turn out as good as it is in my head. The swatch for it looked really good, and the yarn is very soft and round merino, so as long as it doesn't pill horribly (cross your fingers) it should be a winner.

Maybe one of these days I'll have something finished, to show off.

Aeolian Shawl

As I mentioned in my last post, I finished this one a while back (just in time for it to be a birthday present to myself) and have finally managed to get my photographer to take a few photos.

It took me about a month and a half to knit it, all told (though I was never really faithful to it, and was working on various other projects at the same time.) It was precisely the kind of lace project that I had a hankering for -- large and complex and lovely.


I think I mentioned before that I used some JaggerSpun Zephyr laceweight that I had in my stash -- and I still have tons left, so expect to see more purple shawls in the future. I also had a bunch of beads for another project that I ended up using for this one. You can't really see them in these photos, but they give a bit of substance to the shawl. Zephyr is so light and airy that this shawl would be barely there without the beads -- I really like what they added to the fabric.

The pattern itself isn't hard, but between adding hundreds of beads and making all those nupps, it's pretty time-consuming. The blocking and pinning was a real chore, though. It took forever to pin out all those little points. That being said, I would totally do it again, maybe in something a bit fluffier. I mean, I would, if there weren't so many other shawls out there for me to knit.


I have worn it a lot -- wrapped around my neck like a scarf or worn like a shawl. I really love it. Another successful stash yarn project into the FO pile.

Beeeeeads

I am still in the honeymoon stage with the Aeolian shawl: where the rows are relatively short and you are clipping along through the charts at a good rate. Five more repeats of this pattern and then I get to the next part of the design. Of course, by then, things will probably have slowed down, considerably.

But really, who can resist working on such a spectacular shawl, especially when it gives you an excuse to use sparkly little beads. (Look closely -- they are in the center of the pairs of yarnovers.) These ones are way shinier than they look in the photo, more like a hematite.

Added bonus: it lets me use up some more of the JaggerSpun Zephyr laceweight I have. I have loads of this stuff (several shawls worth) in my stash, and two thirds of it is this shade of purple. I am seriously considering some overdying, once this is knitted. Tell me -- am I crazy?