Knaughty and Twisted

Of diamonds and of lace

2010-01-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

Welcome New Year! Unlike some people, to me, the calendar rolling over makes me want to clean house - like a premature spring cleaning. It usually holds some mental spring cleaning too, reassessing ideas that have been floating around in the darker corners not ready to come forward and be seen. Those projects are for another post! (ha. sorry dear readers but there is a reason these ideas have been shy and retiring...)

Christmas was a knit-heavy affair though and overall, pleasingly so. One project got sidelined in favour of some slightly more urgent things but the recipient was content to wait for her surprise so all is well. Let's talk about that one first.

The Mansfield Park Shawl is a classic rectangular shawl reflecting all the beauties of the Mansfield Park Capelet but seemingly less daunting to a newer lace knitter.

Here it is at exactly the half-way point. The original called for it being a straight set of rows end to end but I've added an optional diamond inset that I really think is spectacular. At 33" right now before blocking, it should be a finished length of around 70" which was my goal. The lady for whom I am knitting this is rather tall so this should be long enough to cover her properly for those upcoming evening-dress occassions.

The nice thing about this shawl is the scale. If you had a vast amount of yarn that you loved, it would be fairly easy to scale it up (even the inset) to make it wider. This is already a satisfying 30" across but you never know when you might need more coverage.

The other nice thing about this shawl is that the Zephyr is such a joy to knit. Working on it has shown me that it could easily be scrunched up into a scarf on a cold day and you would be so incredibly, lusciously warm.

Speaking of scarves in Zephyr, that is my other project from Christmas. My mom has a lovely red wool coat that she needed something to go with. Holding the yarn double made this scarf a lovely, drapey fabric that still had some potent insulating power. Silk is so under-appreciated in the art of staying warm!

Here is a shot of the scarf while blocking. Totally failed to take measurements but I *do* know that the scarf was 60" long when blocked - it can circle your neck with ease.

My mom loved it. I love it so much I'm thinking of designing another similar scarf with a different lace design in some hot-pink for myself. What girl doesn't need some fuscia accessories??

Here is a little close up of the pattern repeat. Very easily memorized after the first set - which is good because I kept forgetting the chart at home when knitting out and about.

Teeny, Tiny, Tree Mittens

2009-12-21T21:09:00.001-08:00

Every year for years now, i've made ornaments for my kids. Years ago, i made cross stitch ornaments, from Thomas the Tank Engine for Stephen one year, to a cat with a red ribbon for Amanda another year.... onward to knitting. when i started knitting i had a harder and harder time making myself cross stitch ornaments... so last year i made tiny hats :-) and this year... i designed fun and fast tree mittens. they're teeny, tiny and oh so cute.

the kids picked colors... well sorta, i made stephen a green one, i knew what he'd want. Amanda said she wanted a "girly" one... so hers is the pinky purple one... the maroon and the light blue or sorta extra. my fave, by far is brenden's. this lovely little rainbow stripey one

so, posted the pattern on rav... make a whole bunch, they only take about 30 minutes!

my brain is divided

2009-12-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

i have the occassional feeling that my brain has been divided. i want to work on dozens of projects at once. right now i have a hat, about half done; Twist Baby Twist (fingerless gloves), half done; Dragon Tail Shawlette--half done; Cityscape Socks--1/3 done; Northshield socks--1/4 done; Scrolls Shawl--1/4 done; Gather Socks--1/5 done; and that's just the things i can think of off hand.

i do have a few pics...

here's Twist Baby Twist (the first)

and this is Cozy Owl. it's a free download on Ravelry.... go grab it!

Guinea Pigs, Llamas and Alpacas (Peru!)

2009-12-08T16:50:00.000-08:00

It's pretty chilly these days - reinforcing my adoration of the cuddly warmth of alpaca. Apparently Rita thinks this too because we're joining forces on a cowl project. The store's class theme for December is clearing house (making room for all that wonderful yarn that is currently wrapped up under the tree, anxiously awaiting your welcoming needles) and lovely things can be done with very little.

With this in mind, and ahead of the arrival of the super-sexy Baby Twist Alpaca (I think that's it!), I designed this cowl to use around 50 gr of sport -or in this test case DK - weight yarn. I suggest alpaca of course.

So...in March there is a birthday for a person who simply loves this yarn. I bought it after she left the store but hadn't figured out what to make for her. Here it is:
It's a mobius! Only, it's straight! This is the Bosphorus Straight Mobius Cowl. Pretty hunh? That mobius cast-on that is so nifty can be a bit daunting if you just want a simple knit. I fixed that by making it an after-thought mobius, all the better to practice your grafting skills.

Get on with it you say? Ok. With a provisional cast-on, you knit the cowl and when satisfied with your cowl-ness (or when you run out of yarn) you rejoin your work by grafting. Don't worry, it's all explained. The majority of this warm thing is fashioned in turkish stitch - those of you who have pieced together the name get a cookie!

Rita will be the facilitator for the premiere of this pattern (19 Dec 09 - sign up now!) in store and the pattern will go up some time after that.

Happy knitting one and all.

Rita adds that the pattern will be available on Ravelry momentarily! (right daria?)

Uhhh yeah! How about 13 Dec 09? Get it while it's hot!

When designing goes sideways...

2009-11-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

My latest project started off with a test-knit of a pair of fingerless gloves for a friend in Japan. She will surely need to feel her fingers this winter and this is a gift to help her on that mission. I thought 'what a great time to test knit!' meaning, I've written the pattern and done one glove and I need to double check the instructions on the other hand.

The Decaying Orbit wristies were a follow on from the socks of the same name. I ran out of yarn after the first one so I set it aside until last week. I got some lovely yarn from my first swap and, knowing there's enough for socks AND wristies, I cast on the wristies.

The pattern, as you can see, has a fun lacey increase for the thumb. When I'm just knitting it, it works out fine. When I follow instructions...not a pretty result. After the third re-knit of that first glove I realised the universe was telling me to design something new instead of testing this pattern. So I did.

I have no idea what to call them yet (hint, hint!) but here is #1, aka 'the left hand'.

The right hand is under way and the pattern is beta-testing nicely. Admittedly poor photography on my part doesn't show up the really pretty stitch pattern as well as natural light will but living at the latitude I do, that's a pretty narrow band of time these days.

The yarn is really lovely (Kraemer Silk and Silver) and I've been trying out some Kollage needles. My love of the uber-pointy makes me really critical of needles (other than Signatures of course!) but these are giving me plenty of happy knitty-feelings. Try them out and let me know your opinion.

So, this week's lesson is to obey when a design is eluding you. Just follow what your heart and fingers want and something lovely will occur.

hat

2009-11-02T08:36:00.000-08:00

I found a hat of which i particularly like the shape. problem was i didn't like the construction method they used, nor did i like the colorwork and the gauge was particularly funky. so really ALL i like was the shape. no problem for me really.

i took the shape, two squares of appropriate size, put together on two edges, and decided to redo everything else. i figured out how big it'd have to be to fit an adult and did a gauge swatch out of the yarn that i wanted to use. i designed some lovely, fun, happy colorwork with several flowers. (i like flowers on winter hats because it reminds of warm days coming). i picked two colors that i thought would bright and cheery, even in the darkest winter --red and purple--and went to work.

this morning i realized several things--while transferring my colorwork to a computer file, i made a mistake and inserted two extra rows. bad. Plus, i realized that my gauge was a bit tighter than originally intended, so i needed to switch needle size. AND i realized the colors were not nearly contrasty ENOUGH to show of hte colorwork. so.... i unraveled all of this. it was actually bigger before i unraveled the darned thing. i had fully 1/4 done :-( and am ready to revise and start over.

i'm still debating about colors... what do you think????

New Blog

2009-10-11T22:21:00.000-07:00

Daria and I are working on pattern for a book! we thought maybe we'd start a blog to post spoilers and pics and such!

I'm just finishing up a pattern for a baby sweater. it's pretty simple to construct and will hopefully be easy to knit up as well.

this comes swifty on the heels of getting the Fern Cowl and Fingerless Gloves all done!