Second Sock Sorted

So, it only took two years to knit these socks, not because they're too tricky, but because I dawdled and procrastinated (knit one sock in short order a year ago, waited nearly a year to start the second) .

But, they're done!

Presenting 

Tabi Socks by Veronik Avery, knit in Knit Picks Stroll (Bare).

 

I wanted something to wear with my sandals indoors, as the sandals help with my problem arches, but my feet are generally too cold to go without socks. The tabi socks work great for this!

At this rate in production, I won't have tabi socks for every day of the week even if I make them plain, but, anyway, these are lovely (I dearly love Veronik Avery's patterns).

Very pleased! It is unbelievably pleasing to have finished something, as that doesn't seem to be happening with much of anything of late!

Presenting the Starlet Stole

I'm pleased to say that Knit Picks has just added the Starlet Stole that I designed to their Independent Designers Program!

It has been a lot of work getting this one ready, but it has been well worth it, and the pattern can be purchased for $2.99 USD here at Knit Picks.


This knitted stole features both cables and lace, with lace eyelets forming both the borders between cable panels and the background behind the main cable panel. The interplay between dense cables and airy eyelets is highlighted by the lovely drape and shine of the yarn.

Knit in Knit Picks Galileo, which is a bamboo/merino blend, it feels great both to knit with and to wear.

I used up every bit of the six balls of yarn. The Galileo responds well to blocking. In all seriousness, I had "Whip it Good" stuck in my head as I stretched and pinned this one out to full size!

I had been interested in exploring what would happen if I used eyelets not just between cable patterns, but also instead of purl stitches in the background of a trellised cable pattern, which is something I haven't seen done very often. The Starlet Stole is the result, and I am well-pleased.

Getting used to moving the eyelets around while simultaneously moving the cables across them was a bit tricky for the first repeat. However, it did become an established skill as I worked on the sample, becoming easier to keep track of the pattern as I gradually memorized it. I say this to point out that it's a wee bit tricky to get this one started, but to reassure you that it does get easier once you've gotten into it.

I would like to thank Stacey at Knit Picks for her work with the IDP program. I am very thankful to all the ladies who took the time to give me feedback, cast on the stole, or look over the pattern for me: Steph, Rachel, Kahlie, Shannon, Cailín, and especially Sigrun.

Thank-you also to my family for their patience with me while I worked obsessively on the sample, and to my youngest for her umm, "assistance" during the photo shoot (but especially her patience in waiting for her turn to be in the photos). I must say, she is a darling!

In Which I Run Out of Yarn and Adjust Accordingly

Introducing my rendition of the Dahlia Cardigan by Heather Zoppetti.
 

I almost had enough yarn to finish this cardigan. I couldn't get more, but I finished it anyway.

I had accidentally made one of the front parts too short, but was waiting until I finished the sleeves to fix it. I was sure I had enough yarn. Very sure. Very wrong, as it turned out.

Not only did I not have enough to fix the front (good job it looks fine anyhow), but I didn't have enough for the second sleeve either.

I wish I had taken a picture of one sleeve being knit out of the yarn from the other sleeve once I'd spliced the yarn together so that one came right from the other, but you'll just have to picture it yourself. It would have been rather funny (robbing one sleeve to knit the other) if I hadn't been right in the middle of it.

I ended up with enough to finish both cuff lace-details, but not enough to knit the seed stitch cuffs, so I ended up knitting a few rounds of plain stockinette, then binding off in reverse stockinette.

Despite all that, I'm rather pleased with my new sweater, and, as it's an alpaca/wool blend, it's soft, cozy, and warm as well as stylish.

I'm sure I'll find an excuse soon to wear it more or less everywhere.

Snow, Easter Eggs, and Dahlias

It's not unusual here to have snow for Easter. However, as the ground was bare yesterday (and well into the middle of the night), I'm rather taken aback by just how much of it is arriving so quickly! These photos are from about an hour ago, and it's still coming down just as furiously.

It's supposed to end in the afternoon, and I do hope so! I also hope it won't delay field openings in May, because I really want to get out there and play Gaelic football soon!

In crafty news, for the first time in quite awhile, I've made a Ukrainian Easter egg. I found the candle-snuffer that has been missing for six years, so it has probably been that long. A good friend had a Psanky party at her house, and we had a great time. Here's what I made:

I also wanted to share photos of my completed Dahlia cardigan, along with a longish story about running out of yarn, but as I am way behind on a lot of tidying and organizing today (and apparently, snow-shovelling), I'll keep this brief, and show you a photo of the cardigan blocking.

The story and better photos will wait for next time.

Happy Easter!

Lacy Sparkly Manta Ray

Looking, as much as anything, like a lacy, sparkly manta ray, is the finished shawl. I think it's quite lovely, and I hope it manages to raise a good price for the charity auction for the Wellspring centre in Calgary.

Just to recap, I knit the Percy Shawl, by Sanne Kalkman, with Fantastic Knitting Zephyr Laceweight,in lilac. I used two different types of glass beads, one of which was to replace the nupps. I wasn't sure I had quite enough yarn to do the nupps anyhow, and I had seen a few versions of this shawl on Ravelry that had been done with beads instead. The only other change was to repeat Chart A one extra time.

It's a very busy day heading into a very busy weekend, but I wanted to be sure to share the shawl photos beforehand, so here are a few!

A few works-in-progress

I've realized recently that I had fallen into the habit of only posting projects when they are finished instead of sharing a bit of the process like I used to do. So, I am posting a few works-in-progress to get back into a better habit. After all, when I read everyone else's blogs, I really enjoy watching a project develop!

I've mentioned a shawl a few times, but I don't think I have ever posted any photos or other information, so, rather than continuing to be cryptic, here it is so far:

 

This is the Percy Shawl by Sanne Kalkman, and it is being knit in Zephyr Laceweight for the Bearspaw Ladies Legacy Charity Dinner & Silent Auction benefiting the Wellspring centre in Calgary. I'm adding some beads for a bit of twinkle, and am looking forward to seeing it blocked. In the meantime, however, Chart B is a little tricky. It's going well enough now, (11 rows to go!), but as it is charted in both directions, and it is not as simple to memorize or indeed feel confident as to my place in the pattern without doing lots of counting and re-counting, it is taking some time, and even more time when I have a few mistakes to fix. I'm really looking forward to starting Chart C, which is charted on one side only, and it is very clear what it should look like, and so it will be easier to keep track of where I am at any given moment.

Back to the mittens that I had been fulling last week:

These are done save for the embroidery. My daughter told me not to bother with the embroidery though, so maybe they are finished. It's hard to say. This rather surprises me, as she was excited about the embroidery before, though it is possible that having finished mittens is all the more exciting. They're meant to be the Rosesaum Mittens by Nancy Bush and Jane Fournier though, only they can't be Rosesaum without roses, really, so I do hope to work the embroidery on these some day after all. They're staying in the Works-in-Progress category in my mind.


I made the size as written, omitting the ribbed cuffs, and instead using blanket stitch to create loops to pick up and knit into ribbed cuffs with some acrylic that my daughter favours against the sensitive skin at her wrists.

Two wash cycles brought them down to the right size for my five-year-old. These really are the same size; it’s just a camera angle thing that is making the one on the left look smaller in the photo.

And, as we can't have new mittens without a new hat, I'm learning the double-knitting technique to make a reversible hat. I do hope it works out, as it's rather a pain-in-the-neck (though I expect, like most things, it will get easier with practice). Here's one of the earflaps, with a photo for each side:

Just in case anyone thought I had forgotten to work on my husband's cardigan:

 

It may not look like much progress compared to my May WIPs post, but really, it has come along a bit. The last photo was the first sleeve (now finished), and this is the second sleeve (nearly finished). This is the sweater that I worked out that pocket swatch for, and as soon as I finish up that Percy shawl, I can retrieve the needles needed for the sweater ribbing.

I think my husband will be perfectly happy to have me spend the afternoon shawl-knitting if it will get him his sweater sooner!

Vacation Knitting

I was having a hard time deciding which project to bring with me on vacation last week, but then I decided I'd much rather start a new project. So, I purchased a copy of Eagles Rest by Stephanie Rodger, had my husband add the pdf to his e-reader, wound the yarn, found the needles, and grabbed my ongoing sock project (in case I needed a backup project, as you never know what could go wrong). The sock sat around being ignored as I enjoyed Eagles Rest.

I had been looking for a pattern to use the Malabrigo lace that I had picked up last year in Vancouver. When I bought it, I had been thinking that the two skeins would be just right to knit up another Whisper Cardigan, but I hadn't realized that I had picked up two different dye-lots. They were definitely a bit too different from each other for my original plan. The yarn sat there waiting, and every so often I would look for other patterns that might suit.

Now I quite liked the look of Stephanie's Eagles Rest, and since I'd recently tried out shawl knitting (and decided I quite liked it), it had made it into my queue. Of course, it wants sock yarn (not that you couldn't knit it with lace-weight if you wanted to), but when it occurred to me that I could hold two strands of the lace-weight together, I realized that that would solve the problem entirely: I would be able to use up both skeins (without ending up with two olive-green shawls) while knitting a shawl that I quite liked, and I felt that it would be an excellent pairing of yarn and pattern as well.

It was definitely an excellent pairing; I could tell once I'd knit a few rows that it would be even better than I had thought. Since the pattern has a mesh lace rather than a figured lace pattern, the slight fuzzyness of the incredibly soft yarn would not be a drawback so much as it would add to the cozyness of the shawl. While on vacation, I made many people pet the shawl-in-progress to feel just how soft this wool is. I think I may just have to buy a new strappy-sort of dress to coordinate with the shawl just so I can enjoy wearing it on bare shoulders. I'm very pleased, and found it an enjoyable and straight-forward sort of knit that was just right for vacation knitting (I could read a propped-open book at the same time for most stretches), and enjoy knitting it while visiting and while riding in the car. Also, I think it's just plain lovely.

In Which a Shawl is Finished on Time and Photographed Outdoors

I finished my shawl (Haruni by Emily Ross) and blocked it on Friday evening, so it was ready to wear on Saturday to the mystery date my husband had set up for us.  He took us out to the Sweethearts Stroll at the Muttart Conservatory, which was absolutely lovely and included an excellent little jazz trio to top things off.  I was glad to have a shawl, as the showrooms were mostly chilly (except the tropical one) for the sake of giving the plants a reasonably appropriate winter night-time climate.

I didn't get a chance to get proper photos yesterday (too busy until there wasn't enough light anymore), so I dressed back up again today and had a quick photo shoot in the backyard.  We had to keep it quick as, even though it's a lovely day, it's still a bit chilly if you're not bundled up with a scarf, toque, mittens, and of course, jacket.

I used one additional repeat in appropriate section of chart A, to make up for the tighter gauge I was working with the lace yarn.  I added beads along the spine of the leaves, and decided in the end not to use beads on the edging.  I used the crochet cast-off with a 2mm hook, continuing to use only a single strand of the yarn.  To block, I soaked the shawl in water with baby shampoo, rinsed once in water with a splash of vinegar, and once with just water, then (after pressing out water), pinned out the loops.  The yarn is Dandelion Knits Handpainted Silk Lace in 'Prairie Sky', which you can buy here: dandelionknits.  The yarn is lovely, shiny, has a subtle shimmer of colour from a pale blue to a more turquoisey blue, and feels great.

This is my first knit lace shawl, and I think it turned out rather well.

In Which We Knit With Beads, and Race Towards a Deadline

Hi, I'm Jessie from Tweedlebug's Garden.  You may remember me from such roles as "Non-Speaking Extra Wearing a Blue Dress" in the episode "Once and Future King" of the TV show Mentors, and "Student Orientation Leader" in a brief news item talking about my summer vacation.  Here I am, appearing in my first-ever internet video, "Drop-Free Method for Adding Beads to Knitting."  As I note in the video, it's not very different, and so, nothing terribly revolutionary, but since it's slightly different, and since it works so well for me, I thought I'd share.



Anyhow, I'm knitting away at my shawl (Haruni) right now, and am attempting to finish it time to wear on Saturday.  I'm not quite halfway through the second chart, but I'm optimistic that I might be nearer to most of the way through the chart by sometime tomorrow.  If I can finish it by Friday night, I can block it then, and wear it Saturday night.  Wish me luck!