Hooked on Beading

So I’m going through the “where can I add beads to this?” phase.

Here’s a shawl which called for beads and nupps, but I used beads throughout because I’m not overly fond of nupps.

The design is Karen Strauss’ Bella Botanica Shawl.  Of course you can’t see the beads in the photo – never mind.

I love the edging:

This is the third shawl from the two 100g skeins of hand-dyed laceweight which came out in a colour I adore.  And I’m going to make a fourth!

I’ve been having a good clear out of my libraries: chucking out old magazines and books for recycling and deleting stuff from Ravelry.  In the process I thought it would be a good time to knock off a few classics and get them out of my system.  Finally getting around to the Prairie Rose Lace Shawl probably triggered things.

I have a couple of skeins of Zitron Filigran which I bought when I first got the lace knitting bug and they’d slipped to the back of my yarn queue.  Well, what a lovely surprise!  The yarn is high quality one-ply merino and knits beautifully.  I started with a limited edition multi-shade in purple/violet and finally got round to Emily Ross’ Haruni.

I’m not too sure about the colour-banding, but it’ll do.

I probably wouldn’t have used the yarn for this design if I’d been more alert when I wound it into a ball.  I did it in a hurry because I was a bit incensed over some black alpaca/silk/cashmere laceweight which I’d bought for Jane Sowerby’s Myrtle Leaf Shawl.  It’s by one of our leading indie hand-dyers and I’d been looking forward to using it.  Having got through the first pattern repeat I looked at my hands.  You guessed it – dye transfer.  As an amateur hand-dyer I was appalled.  I won’t sell anything which I think won’t be colour-fast so why should anyone else?  Needless to say it’s all on the compost heap.  I can take dye leakage during washing but not in the knitting.

And my next classic?  Evelyn A Clark’s Swallowtail Shawl.

“What about those nupps?” you may ask.

Indeed.

Pear Drop, Roses and Tea

Or, in other words, three shawls.

Here’s Droplet, which is Ysolda’s Pear Drop in my ever so lightly hand-dyed BFL laceweight.

It took about a third of the skein so I had plenty left over for more lace knitting.  The wonderful KiwiPurler blogged about her current lace knitting project and, of course, I had to give Evelyn A Clark’s Prairie Rose Lace shawl a go.  It’s a lovely little shawlette and I wore it nearly every day last week.

I bought 40g of silver-lined glass beads from Craft Basics in York and added three per point:

There’s another 100g skein and a bit left of this yarn and I’m planning something with lots of beads – this was a little practice.

And then another semi-circular shawl, this time from Knitty.  I used a skein of Araucania Ranco which wasn’t quite enough for the full design but it’ll do.

This is a nice and easy design that’s quick to knit.  I’m not too keen on lattices made from (k2tog, yo) but this works well with the wide lace border.  Neither am I a fan of picot cast off, but I always like the result.

So, like the weather, there were plenty of shawls in April.

Turned out nice

It’s always nice when something turns out better than expected. My monster isn’t, it’s actually quite endearing.

You’ll notice the assymetric sleeve stripes. That’s because I miscalculated the stripe pattern for the yarn I had, or vice versa. Just makes it a bit special, no?

This is all that was left of the Bilberry shade:

I had a good 75g of the Fuchsia which wasn’t really the point of the exercise, but never mind. I’m wearing the sweater right now, and I think it’s going to be a favourite.

I’m working on a my second Hedera sock at the moment, which is my only WIP. I’m in one of those phases when I can’t make up my mind what to do next. I’ve some rather nice BFL laceweight so I expect another two shawls will eventually materialise. I swatched a little of Plume as part of my annual crochet project, but put it aside. Then I started Ysolda’s Pear Drop and was going great guns until I noticed a dropped stitch. Feeling totally ashamed I ripped back to the miscreant, and then kept on going. Perhaps I’ll have another go.

I’m definitely in the mood for a half-circle shawl, I’m just not sure which one. Perhaps I’ll make something up along the lines of EZ’s famous Pi shawl, like so many others have done. Perhaps not. Any suggestions?

Two shawls and Frankenstein

It’s the first day of spring, according to Google, so here’s my finished Spring in Old York:

It’s gorgeous Noro Silk Garden Sock and was very easy to knit. Thank you Andrea! The design is very angular and geometric and works really well with this yarn.

As a complete contrast I finished my Vlad:

I’m not so keen on it: perhaps it was the the twice-baked overdyed yarn! Still, the colour is good and it’s a useful accessory.

And staying on the darker side (not just colours), I’ve been knitting a sweater using two shades of the same yarn. I had about 200g of Fuchsia left over from last year’s Corinne and I bought 300g more in Bilberry. The plan was to make a thrifty striped sweater. The Fuchsia is rather bright, as you can see:

But I miscalculated quantities too, as a result of making the pink stripes narrow, so the second sleeve is a bit different from the first (pictures at a later date … maybe).

I was flicking through Julie Turjoman’s Brave New Knits and had to smile:

Frankenstein – verb: to knit a project from an assortment of orphan skeins or remnants of yarn, rather than from yarn purchased specifically for that design.

Because it’s not a sweater, it’s a monster.

Carried Away Casting On

I love casting on. I get an amazing feeling of satisfaction from a nice tubular 2×2 rib edge:

Anything else, like a cable or long tail, is just a necessary chore. I even use tubular cast on for socks, like my second of 2012 which is the delightfully simple Monkey by Cookie A.

I was talking about sock construction to a knitty friend and mentioned that I hadn’t yet knitted any from the toe up. Which of course meant my third of the year had to use the technique. I picked Cat Bordhi’s Darjeeling from Clara Parkes’ book and went over to YouTube to watch Cat’s tutorial on Judy Becker’s Magic Cast-On. It looked nice and easy in chunky yarn on large needles, but was a bit fiddly on 2.25mm with 4-ply. I gave up my first attempt in frustration but went back to it later with more patience. And so more socks:

At this rate it’ll be 12 pink socks in 2012.

For provisional cast on I tend to start with a crochet chain of spare yarn. So when I read a good blog post on a variation of Turkish cast on for shawl tabs I just had to try it. And try it again.

I suffered a little “startitis” and I have two shawls on the needles. The first, which was the original culprit, is Autumn in New York. Only it’s Spring in Old York:

I had 200g of Noro Silk Garden Sock in my stash, bought for a gift which I made in some hand-dyed instead. I had been looking for something which would show off the best of this wonderful yarn. I came across Andrea Jurgrau’s design on Ravelry and went over to her blog to read all about it.

I’d forgotten how nice it is to knit with SGS. It just slips through my fingers and says “Knit me! Knit me more!”. I couldn’t put it down. But it’s a large shawl and may take a while to finish.

Thinking about the cast on technique, I had the urge to practice it again. I’m trying to use up my early hand-dyed yarns, hence I started Vlad:

I’ve called the project Edward. There’s more silk in this yarn and it’s knitting up a treat too. This one is a reasonably sized shawlette, so it’ll be finished soon I expect.

It’s certainly a mild spring here in York. If you needed a good reason to visit either now or at Easter there’s the award-winning Ramshambles in, of course, the Shambles …..

….. with my hand-dyed laceweight in the window and an excellent selection of yarns inside. The shop is open every day of the week. As if you needed an excuse!

First shawl of 2012

Having decided that 12 socks and 12 shawls were a bit too much for 2012 I got a move on with my first shawl last weekend. I’m not too strong on common sense this month, that’s for sure.

It’s in Perplex, my hand-dyed 4-ply baby alpaca. I’m a bit strange about this yarn: it’s so gorgeous I can’t part with it. I’ve just dyed another 400g, and I really should put them up for sale, but I don’t think I can.

Here’s my shawl:

It’s Alice by Marie-Adeline Boyer and it has a sister, Cassandra. I have a skein of Perplex in lilac which will won’t get sold and will get knitted up fairly soon, I think.

As for socks, I chose Cookie A’s Monkey for my second of 2012. I can understand why there are over 15,000 Monkey projects on Ravelry – it’s a nice easy design. The first sock is finished:

and I’m turning the heel of the second.

One bright note in the last two dreadful weeks is that my yarns may appear for sale in another shop (the one in the street that’s been voted the best in England).

First socks of 2012

Well, I finally finished my first socks of 2012, and just within month one. The design is Hummingbird by Sandi Rosner in Clara Parkes’ The Knitter’s Book of Socks.

Bright Flight

I had quite a bit of trouble concentrating on the design because I was watching some interesting television. So there was a lot to tinking. In fact one night I think I got a net total of one round completed after going back about five. Still, they look good and show off my hand-dyed yarn nicely. I’m very pleased with them.

But I’ve got to get going on the second of my 12 socks in 2012 and it’s definitely going to be from Knit.Sock.Love. Maybe Hedera or perhaps I should do Monkey since it’s so popular.

And I’d just like to say a big thank you to all the bloggers I follow, and all the knitty bloggers I sample from WordPress. You’ve made the last three weeks much better than they might have been with your lively and stimulating posts. And a huge thank you to Fiona Hirst of Grace and Jacob in Barleycorn Yard, York: she may have convinced me to try spinning again!

2011 – A year of knitting feverishly

I reckon I’ve knitted more this last year than ever before, and I’ve learned a lot too. According to my Ravelry projects page for 2011, I’ve completed 51 projects. I haven’t been idle then.

I joined the 11 Shawls in 2011 group on Ravelry and completed the requisite number by mid-July. But I just kept on going. I’d made 19 shawls by early December and so, in knitty logic, I had to knit another to reach 20 in 2011. Here it is:

It’s Birgit Freyer’s Lazy Katy – a nice, quick and easy knit. It seems the 11 shawls group has morphed into 12 Shawls in 2012. I’m not sure I have the motivation this year but maybe I’ll concentrate on laceweight.

One of my Christmas presents was Clara Parkes’ The Knitter’s Book of Socks. There’s not much on sock construction, but quite a bit on sock yarn. And the designs are rather nice: I’m planning to start with Hummingbird using the same yarn as my Lazy Katy. It’s my own hand-dyed which I kept back for myself since I wasn’t too sure about its colourfastness. I shouldn’t have worried since the shawl washed fine before blocking. But matching shawl and socks. Cool? I’m not sure.

I got some sock blockers too, and here they are with my last project of 2011:

The design is Jocelyn Sertich’s Dragonfly Socks with a minor change to the cuff. Another nice and easy design – do I try anything else these days? I’ve joined 12 socks in 2012 on Ravelry – I need to use up all my hand-dyed yarn!

So what was my favourite project of year? There are three contenders:

• a sweater in red baby alpaca, 
• Pimpelliese in hand-dyed burgundy BFL, 
• and Anniken Allis’ mystery shawl KAL (which became Cornish Rhapsody) in hand-dyed grey BFL. 

Surprisingly, since I hated the third clue, it’s got to be the shawl. I just love wearing it!

And finally, I think 2012 will be a year of socks and lace.

In praise of Bluefaced Leicester yarn

It may be from the strangest looking of sheep, with its Roman nose, but I can’t praise this wonderful yarn too highly.

As part of my austerity stash-busting exercise I’ve just finished a sweater in Airedale Aran which I bought from Texere Yarns some time ago.  Since the yarn is charcoal in colour it shows up the lustre of the yarn beautifully.  And it’s so soft.  The sweater may look like something suitable for school but it’s absolutely gorgeous to wear.

I used Ann Budd’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns.  Since I’m obsessed with tubular cast on and cast off at the moment I knitted each piece separately to the armholes and then joined all four together on a circular.  Why?  Because the recommended approach of  joining in the round after a straight row where the stitches are swapped into 2×2 rib leaves too bigger a gap for my liking.  I don’t mind straight seams, I just hate sewing in sleeves.

And the good news is that I still have another 700g of Airedale Aran, this time in indigo.  A round-neck sweater on the same principles, I think.  I’m even tempted to put in a bit of “Sarah Lund” motif, but maybe not.  She wore about four different sweaters in the last two episodes so the red one isn’t so iconic.

I can’t stop wearing the shawlette I knitted as part of Anniken Allis’ recent Mystery KAL.  It’s my own hand-dyed bluefaced leicester laceweight, and I must confess I prefer this yarn to the wonderful Fyberspates Scrumptious, even though that has so much silk content.  Perhaps it just suits the time of year better.

I dyed some more of this wonderful yarn (I call it Bemuse) for my Etsy shop, but had to keep some back since I couldn’t bear to part with it!

If I’m mad enough to consider a dozen shawls in 20dozen I’m sure this will get used early next year.

Knitting with Beads

Sometimes I really disappoint myself. I spent two hours – only TWO – standing with a collecting tin at York station yesterday. I felt pretty chilled at the end of my stint and walked home at a brisk pace to warm up. I had some soup for lunch. Yet I’ve come down with a cold like a character in an Austen/Bronte novel. Honestly!

I was collecting for the York Blind and Partially Sighted Society and really heartened by the generosity of the passersby. There was one wonderful lady who donated a nice crisp fiver. Thank you so much!

Since I felt a bit poorly in the afternoon I did some work on my Mystery Shawl KAL. There’s an option to add beads to the border and, since I’m not that keen on the thing so far, I thought I’d use it as my first beaded project. I’d popped into Craft Basics on Tuesday and bought some nice shiny black size 8′s so I was all set. Well, I’m (crochet) hooked! What a satisfying experience!

Of course I’m thinking about what I could do next and I have a suspicion it’s going to be pink with beads.

I’m collecting for the YBPSS again next Thursday in the city centre, but I’ll dress warmer. Now where’s my Urchin?