More Arithmetic

So the Augustine Shawlette turned out to be a scarf. Lovely and soft, but a scarf nonetheless. So subtract one from 20.

Instead, I found a use for my Lang Yarns Jawoll Magic and knitted up Childry by Elly Doyle. I wasn’t too keen on the yarn while knitting, but once blocked it’s been a nice kerchief. But not a shawl!

Since it’s very similar to my version of the Old Man of Storr Shawlette, I called it Presque Vu Déjà, because it’s easy to be stupid when you have no immediate audience.

I’ve enrolled in Miriam Felton’s wonderful Lace Shawl Design on Craftsy, and I’m thoroughly enjoying each lesson. I love to watch her demonstrating a point with a beautifully knitted (and blocked) shawl from her design collection. And so I knitted Adamas in some hand-dyed BFL laceweight,

and added some beads to the edging – hence Bejewelled.

So add one again to make 20.

In the mean time I’ve succumbed to the Icelandic bug and I bought some Lett-Lopi from Carreg Yarns (whose service is incredibly good). I’m making Védís Jónsdóttir’s Afmæli - just don’t ask me to pronounce any of this. It’s hard work on my hands but the yarn knits up soft and fuzzy:

 

And on the topic of northern/ethnic, look at what Sirdar came up with! Their own version of the iconic Sarah Lund sweater. Oh dear, I may succumb, on the rather feeble excuse that I’m supporting a Yorkshire spinner.

But plain knitting in the round can get a bit boring. I really am totally addicted to lace knitting – it’s quite sad – and I can’t not have a project on the needles. Hence, Inevitable, Evelyn A Clark’s Heartland Lace Shawl, in recently dyed BFL 4-ply. It’s on 4mm needles and knitting up quite springy: some aggressive blocking may be required to show up the stitch pattern.

To make things add up, Last Chance Old Boy (my Old Man of Storr Shawlette) drops out of my 20 shawls and is relegated to a kerchief.

And that should be it.

But remember this skein of yarn? Well, it would awfully nice with lots of silver-lined beads. I’m finding Boo Knits’ Quite Continental quite irrestible!

 

 

And 5 makes 20

It’s been a while since my last post and a lot of things have happened.  The main trauma was my mother falling and breaking her hip.  She spent two and a half weeks in hospital where she was looked after by some amazing people.  She’s been back home for a while now and is slowly gaining strength and mobility:  she’s pretty resilient for her age.

So it’s true knitting keeps you sane.  Although I’ve cut right down on projects (times are hard) and have only one on the go at a time, I’ve still managed to churn out another four more shawlettes.  I’m afraid my Amelia in pink cotton just didn’t work in the circumstances and is now a hibernating frog.

Third time lucky with my hand-painted BFL laceweight produced a black and fuchsia Old Man of Storr Shawlette, my Last Chance Old Boy:

I can’t say I’m hugely fond of it but I guess it might come in useful.  The colours are stunning, though.

Then some more hand-painted BFL, this time in 4-ply.  A very easy Undine on 4.5mm needles:

This is Liquid Lunch, and I’ve already worn it a few times on the cooler days we’ve had just recently.

And then, a version of Anniken Allis’ Winding Path in two skeins of my hand-dyed baby alpaca 4-ply.  I absolutely love this shawl! It was so nice to knit (even though it’s green) and it’s a real knitted hug to wrap around myself when I feel the need.

My nineteenth shawl of 2012 is Evelyn A Clark’s Shetland Triangle Lace Shawl in more hand-painted BFL laceweight which I blogged about last year.  I still love the colours of the yarn and I’m quite happy with the knitted result:

There’s a lovely dusky rose shade produced by a mixture of pink and chestnut, and I’ve reproduced it in a skein of kettle-dyed 4-ply BFL.

 

I dyed up the last of my yarn stock this week and put away my crockpot and steamer.  There’ll be no more dyeing for a while, I’m afraid.  But you can expect to see some of the yarns knitted up in the coming months on this blog, no doubt.

I’m using my last skein of baby alpaca for an Augustine Shawlette by Valdis Vrang.  I’ve just reached the half-way point so let the unravelling begin! This will make my 20 for the year, so perhaps it’s time I started on some socks.

Mind you, after putting together this blog today I feel pretty unravelled myself.  Hopefully I’ll post again before the end of the month.

Enjoy your knitting!

 

2 FO, 1 WIP and 3rd Time Lucky?

Since it’s FOFriday, here’s Bricked Up (my version of Brick by Brick from Michaela Moores) in a lovely burnt orange BFL:

I wore them the other day since it’s still cold here (although things may warm up soon, they say).  The combination of knit and purl, and the lustre of the BFL, brings out the colour very nicely – I’m quite fond of them, which is a surprise.

Now, as promised/threatened, here’s a project in bright hand-dyed sock yarn.  It’s Unleaving from the latest Knitty:

It’s not that bad, but I think it’s destined as a charity donation because I’m not hugely keen on long scarves at the moment.

As for the WIP, I’m knitting Amelia by Julia Frank from Rowan 51, which is a risky thing to do at the best of times.  I’m using Patons Cotton DK, which is highly mercerised, so the project is very probably doomed.

A while back I made the mistake of hand-painting some BFL laceweight.

I love the colours, but what to do with it has become a problem.  I started Semi-Precious from a previous Knitty, but the lace pattern was too obscure.  So I tried Demiluna and that didn’t look right either.  The yarn was just about to be binned when I came across Carie Harling’s Old Man of Storr Shawlette.  Will this be third time lucky?  Ironically, I named the colourway Smart Step.  I hope the eponymous racehorse does better.

And a small confession.  On things Rowan, I was passing an LYS in York and fancied a squeeze of Fine Lace.  It’s lovely stuff, but the colours are a little on the drab side for me.  The staff were very nice and friendly, but I didn’t buy any Rowan (although I wouldn’t rule that out for the future).  I bought some Lang Jawoll Magic sock yarn.  Why?  Because I’ve never bought Lang before.  Of course.

Five? Yes. Five

So here’s my finished Enzian and I like it so much it’s stayed out on display. It gets moved when I finish another shawl since I’m a real amateur and I’m photographing each one in the same way.

Here’s a bit of detail:

I love the yarn, the design, the beads … and the finished article!

To complete my 12 shawls in 2012, this is a Cassandra by Marie-Adeline Boyer (congratulations to her!). It’s knitted in Baby Alpaca, with a few beads in the points (of course).

It’s a lovely shoulder shawl for cool evenings, and there are many of those this summer.

So, I knitted 20 shawls in 2011 and I’m going to do the same in 2012. Probably more, since no one wants to buy my hand-dyed yarn. Here’s Dazmin, in my deep red kid mohair/silk mix:

The design is Yasmin, by Angelique den Brok. It’s knitted on 3.5mm needles, which I thought would be a bit small. The finished object is fine but I think I prefer this type of yarn on 4.5 or 5mm.

I guess I should knit something more complicated but simplicity of design is very attractive. Next up is my take on Dee O’Keefe’s Ashton Shawlette in a burnt orange/green handpainted 4-ply BFL:

I just like the rosebud pattern.

And finally, there’s Joyce Yu’s Budding Shawlette in (very) bright green. It’s knitted on 4.5mm needles, which I’d usually say were on the large side for 4-ply but with aggressive blocking the “bud” design really stands out.

Are you ready for this?

OK then – here’s My Name is Bud:

Now why wouldn’t anyone want to buy this lovely yarn?

So five more to go (at least) and I’ve got plenty of bright yarn to use. You have been warned.

And the Bead goes on ….

I managed to squeeze another two shawls out of my 200g of hand-dyed BFL laceweight. So that’s five from 1600m – so thrifty!

Here’s my Beaded Swallowtail:

Needless to say, I used beads instead of nupps and added three per scallop to make sure the swallowtails stay nice and pointy.

As a small diversion from Evelyn A Clark’s designs and light blue laceweight, I turned out The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief in baby alpaca:

It was so cold the other week my hands were hurting from arthritis and I thought some new mitts would help. I had enough baby alpaca left and got started on Jennifer Hagan’s Princess Mitts …

… and of course the sun came out! I think it may be a while before the second mitt is done.

Back to the blue laceweight now, I’m afraid. I have this thing about lace leaves at the moment and I’ve wanted to do Evelyn’s Leaf Shawl for quite some time. I thought I’d make the leaves a little smaller (8 stitches instead of 10):

Where to put the beads? Oh yes, the border! I added one to the knit stitch between the yarn overs and then three per point.

The finished object:

So that’s the end of it!

And for the last item in my stash (some fuchsia Filigran) I chose Sue Berg’s Enzian and I’m adding beads to every flower:

It’s taking quite a few so just as well I replenished my stock at Craft Basics last week with 50g of size 8 and 50g of size 6.

And that means, no doubt, that there’ll be more beaded knitting in the future, and it may be 4-ply ….

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.

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.

Round and round up

Since the weather has turned rather chilly, like many other people, my knitty thoughts turn to warm sweaters and generally transforming my stash into useful clothing.

I’ve finished my Pimpelliese, which is beautifully soft and cosy. Bluefaced Leicester is wonderful wool!

I mentioned Anniken Allis’ Mystery Shawl KAL in my last post.  The swatching instructions arrived on the same day and I quickly polished off a little bit of lace knitting:

Then the first clue arrived Saturday lunchtime and when X-Factor started so did the knitting in earnest.  It didn’t take long to finish, although there’s not much to see in this rather poor image (I’m still working on those improvements):

I’m using Addi lace circulars which are wonderful, although I appreciate they’re not the latest and greatest ChiaoGoo’s (maybe for Christmas?).

And talking of circulars, on the warm sweater theme, I’ve started my first garment in Cascade 220, knitted in the round.  It’s Jess’ Birthday Sweater by Emily Wright.

That’s the start of 4 inches of 2×2 rib and rather boring I thought at first. I was wondering why the yarn is the most popular on Ravelry and then I noticed the stitch definition.  Question answered.

So my weekend knitting will be a competition between the shawl KAL and the sweater.  I can’t wait for the next clue to arrive:  I have no patience! Unfortunately, I should also take advantage of the good daylight to finish making up my Tanzanite sweater. I’ll just have to remind myself that once it’s finished it will keep me warm and it’s another BFL masterpiece.

Knitted out?

This is chocolate week, everywhere, and curry week in the UK. How wonderful. And on a Wednesday, apparently, tomorrow is Friday, not Thursday.

Consequently I’ve supported chocolate week more than I probably should. On Wednesday I made an appointment by phone. “Tomorrow at 12.45” was offered and I took it, assuming some cancellation. Turning up yesterday at 12.40 I was treated, politely of course, like an idiot, and told that the appointment was actually tomorrow – Friday. So, on the way home, I bought a VERY large bar of chocolate and ate a substantial chunk with a nice cup of Earl Grey.

As for curry, well that’s for Friday, which is today, I think.

Still, I took my newly finished cowl for an outing.

I’m not too keen on Feather and Fan – I think it’s the sequence of yarn over’s that annoy me – but a strange thing happened while I was knitting. It seemed such a silly thing to make, especially with the picot cast off at both ends.

Have I lost my mind? I vandalised my WIPs. I frogged my socks and my Clapotis. There’s only so much K3, K1tbl, K1, K1tbl, K3, and so on, that a sane person can do. I worked on my Pimpelliese. But I was worried: am I knitted out?

To treat myself I’ve signed up for Anniken Allis’ mystery shawl KAL and I’ll use my grey BFL laceweight for this instead. I might even add some beads. And of course, there’s chocolate and curry. But will I get my knitting mojo back?

As for yarn dyeing, I started on some gorgeous baby alpaca 4-ply. In pink, of course.

I absolutely adore this yarn. It’s incredibly soft, the colour is wonderful and (this is weird, I know) I love the smell. I had planned a range for my Etsy shop, although I’m not sure I could part with this gorgeousness.  But I’m not impatient to be knitting with it. Should I be worried?