Look Up to the Stars

Look at me....I'm a star. Or rather, I'm wearing stars. The Celestarium shawl I started for the Ravellenic Games in February has been finished!

The basic structure follows the "pi shawl" formula popularized by Elizabeth Zimmermann. Simply put, every time the diameter of the shawl doubles, you double the number of stitches. Since knitting is stretchy and flexible, it works to make a circle.

That is why the shawl looks like it is made of concentric bands. Each time you double the stitches, they are close together and make a dark section. As you knit out to the end of that band, the stitches are more spread out and the shawl looks lighter.

When the knitting was done, I wasn't sure where I was going to have room to layout and block the shawl. I finally moved all the furniture in the living room to the edges and laid the mats in the middle.

Weaving some blocking wires through the eyelets at the edge made it easy to pin the shawl into shape.

I put the wires in and pinned it when it was dry and then drenched it with a spray bottle of water. Apparently you don't want to over-handle silk when it is wet because it is much weaker. But pinning when dry and then soaking it does the trick. The shawl took to the shape beautifully.

As I said previously, I went with a fancier border than the original pattern. Someone had published an alternative edge that they used on their shawl and I went ahead and used her pattern.

I noticed afterward that some people blocked peaks in the edging (giving the shawl a scalloped edge) but I think the round shape works fine. Maybe next time I'll try the scallop edge.

The shawl is knit from the center out, so the rows go around and around the shawl. When the center part is done, you cast on a few stitches for the edge and then work those rows perpendicular to the edge of the shawl. All the shawl stitches are still on the needle and every other row you knit one of those stitches with the last stitch of the edging row. In that way you incorporate all of the live stitches into the edging as you work around the whole edge of the shawl.

In addition to adding interest by changing the direction of the knitting, this also solves the problem of how to bind off the shawl stitches. Most conventional bind offs are not stretchy enough and prevent the shawl from flowing properly.

Here is the star chart from the pattern which marks all the stars included. I have not looked to see how it matches with the picture of  my shawl above so I very much doubt it is in the same orientation.

As you may recall, the shawl was knit in 100% silk. It is very drapey and heavy for how thin it is (compared to wool especially).

It's warm but doesn't have that "cozy" feeling that fuzzy wool gives.

How to wear this thing?

I could fold just a bit of the curve under and then wrap it around my shoulders, securing with a wood shawl pin.

I preferred it worn shifted to one side instead of perfectly centered.

From the back, you can see a good part of the star pattern.

I could also wear it gathered around my neck with the ends wrapped back to the front.

Or gathered around the neck, but with the ends pinned at the back of my neck because the ends are too wide and thick to be able to tie them.

This does run the risk of some discomfort if the pin moves wrong!

A couple places you are unlikely to find this shawl just hanging out:

Project Stats
Started: 10 Feb '18
Finished: 21 Apr '18
Pattern: Celestarium by Audry Nicklin and Stellar Wave Edging by Kimberlee Johnson.
Materials: Dk/worsted weight silk raveled from an Oscar de la Renta sweater, 300 grams. Many size 6 clear silver-lined crystal beads.

Turning Spare Parts into Mug Rugs

Before I put away the scraps from making all the blocks for the Farm Girl Vintage quilt, I used the many leftover little pieces to do some fun improv piecing.

I made some "slabs" or crazy log cabin blocks in single colors. I also pieced a bunch of the triangles that were cut off from making half square triangles into new half square triangles. And I pieced some improv flying geese blocks and used them as roofs (rooves?) on improv house blocks.

Then I put them in the bag with the scraps without doing anything with them. But I knew they were there, ready for when they were needed.

Well, last week I decided to try putting some of them together into mug rugs. (An object between a coaster and a placemat.) I pulled out some of the "house" blocks and found three I could use to make a minimal street scene.

I pieced blue scraps together to make enough sky above the houses so that the three pieces were all about the same height. I didn't want the middle house and the one on the right to be the same height, so I added a strip of pink to the bottom of the one. Maybe it's a stoop. Maybe it's a porch. Maybe the paint is just faded there. You can make up your own story. 😊

Final measurements: 6" x 8.5"

I didn't think the portions were quite right so I added a bit of green on the left side. we can pretend it's a tree or bush or whatever you want.

I quilted the sky in blue thread in gentle waves--the wind isn't blowing too hard. I quilted the houses in lines to echo the outside shape of the house, with lines in a perpendicular direction on the red door. I used a light colour with slight variegation. The "tree", I did with green thread.

I used a solid batik for the back:

I didn't want to bind them, so I finished the edge with a satin stitch. I actually went around the edge four times, if you can believe it. First I did a straight stitch to keep all the layers together and in place. Then I went around with a narrow zig zag (a width of 2, I think) and a length of about 3 so it wasn't really close yet. This stitch goes over the edge and starts to put things in place.

Then I went around with a satin stitch (shortest length--1) at a width of 3. This fills in the space and stitches over the previous stitching because it extends further to the left and right. Finally I do a final round of satin stitch at a width of 4. It's not thick enough to really cover the edge if you only go around once, but it lies better if you widen the stitch each time. At least that is my experience.

It's still not perfect, or even particularly satisfying, but it works.

For the second mug rug, I took four matching half square triangle pieces and made a pinwheel for the centre. I had larger half square triangles that I matched in pairs and sewed into flying geese units and added them to both sides.

But the pinwheel wasn't really big enough. Instead of cutting down the flying geese units, I added a strip to the pinwheel. Then to make the final proportions better, I added a strip of green to the entire length.

You can see I quilted it in all over waves. I added more movement (and avoided it looking too mechanical) by making the dips and peaks closer together and further apart in different areas.

While I was making it, I thought the green strip went on the top, but when Troy looked at it, he immediately set it with the green on the bottom.

Final measurement: 6.75" x 9.25"

Fortunately, there doesn't have to be one answer--it'll work just as well however you like it.

I backed this one with a piece of cheery cotton:

After it was quilted, I turned it over to see the back and got a surprise. Can you see the dark spot in the top right? Now that I've drawn your attention to it, you probably can. Apparently there was a scrap of fabric that stuck to the backing piece that I didn't notice. By the time I did, it was too far quilted in there to make it worth trying to get out!

This could open up a whole new way to add design layers to a piece when you're using lighter fabrics. (That's me making a mistake into a "feature".)

PS Did you recognized the thread I used for the satin stitch edging? Ya, it's from the cone I bought when I quilted my nine patch quilt. You will likely see it on a lot of projects!! 😉