Knit or blog? Definitely knit

The trouble with having a job is that time away from work is limited.  With only a few hours in the evenings and at weekends I have to prioritise, and knitting comes first as one of life’s essentials.  After all, if I don’t knit I’ll do damage to someone or something.  It’s the only way to stay sane enough to turn up at work every day.

So this blog has suffered from lack of care since November, but here’s a little update on what I’ve been knitting.

I can’t say I enjoyed my lopapeysa, except perhaps the yoke.  I had to work a few shawls at the same time as a distraction, but I finally finished it a few weeks ago.  So here is Védís Jónsdóttir‘s Afmæli, my Once Upon a Lopi:

Inevitable, Evelyn A Clark’s Heartland Lace Shawl, turned out to be an absolute favourite and I wear it at least once a week.  I added some gold size 6 beads which look OK, but I reckon I’ll stick to silver-lined clear beads for the future.

However, I didn’t enjoy the early stages and was distracted into a KAL of The Birthday Shawl by the delightful Kate’s Twirl.  I used my (in)famous hand-dyed yarn which was featured in Knit Now, and it turned out rather nice.  So nice, in fact, that Kate voted it the best of the KAL and sent me a set of her beautiful stitch markers.  A lovely Christmas present!

And you can also go over to Ravelry to take a look at some in progress shots.

Then, as yet another distraction from my Lopi sweater, I used up some Airedale Aran in a winter-time version of Kate Gagnon Osborn‘s Springtime Bandit, Airedale Outlaw:

And to complete another year of feverishly knitting innumerable shawls, Boo Knits‘ Quite Continental:

I love the placement of the beads in Twinkle Twinkle, but not the shape nor the slipped stitch edge which I thought too inelastic.  I started the picot cast-off and didn’t like that either, so finished with the usual Russian.  Such a shame, because I was really looking forward to this one, but most likely the victim of shawl-knitting fatigue!

The Lopi sweater still wasn’t finished so next up was Froth, which was a bit of a marathon:

This is Jatta Saukko‘s Zetor which I’ve been meaning to do for a long time.  Knitted in DROPS Lace on one of my new ChiaoGoo circulars, it turned out beautifully soft and happily goes really well with a recent addition to my wardrobe.  Colour co-ordination is easy if you stick to your favourite colours!

I needed some further distraction before finishing this one, but I think that’s enough for today.  Time for some knitting ….

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!

 

 

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.

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.