My Sister's Shawl - Clue 2

Sunday, the second clue for the mystery knit-along was released. I got out my shawl and realized right away something was wrong. My needles felt funny, the texture was wrong and they even felt too big.

What I decided was that they got wet when I spilled water upstairs that dripped down to the living room. I thought the shawl was spared (the balls of yarn that could have gotten wet were thankfully in ziplock bags) but I think the wooden needles got wet causing them to swell up and the grain to rise.

My favourite bamboo needles didn't feel as good, but I continued on. The first part was a diamond lace pattern. I made it through the first repeat and decided I didn't like one part of the lace pattern. I put it aside because I didn't want to decide whether to rip it out and figure out what to change or just follow the designer's directions.

The next day I got a notice that there was an omission in the pattern when it was released and Clue 2 should have started with two knitted rows before starting the lace. That made my decision easier...I ripped out all of Clue 2.

Regrettably, I didn't take a picture before I ripped it out so I can't show you what I changed, but here is the final lace:

Of course it will look better after blocking, but you should be able to see that the holes outline diamonds which are half stocking stitch (bottoms) and half reverse stocking stitch (tops). What I didn't like about the original is that the decreases made a knit border in the purl triangles. If you want purl texture against knit texture, then I felt the triangles should be solid knit or purl.

My solution was to change the decreases so they were done in purl instead of knit. (K2tog becomes ssp and ssk (skp in the pattern) becomes P2tog.) A different way you could get the same effect is to simply change the knits in the pattern to purls and the purls to knits, keeping in mind that this would change whether the knit halves were on the top or bottom of the diamonds.

Here is the back of the lace:

Doing the decreases in purls on the front moves the decrease lines to the back. You can now see them along the top edges of each knit triangle. Those are the lines I didn't want on my purl triangles on the front.

Once I got that figured out, I made it smoothly through the rest of the clue.

We've had our first shaping - you can see the width was decreased in the last couple inches on the right side. Who knows where this will lead!

Here is the entire shawl so far:

And I happened to be* in a yarn shop this week so I picked up some new needles in this size. Nice tinted ones from Knitter's Pride.

Only after I got home did I remember that I prefer the 14" length over 10" (the only option available which is probably why I didn't think of it in the store). I decided I could make do. I am enjoying their fresh new polished surface!

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* If by "happened to be" you understand that I left the house expressly to drive to the yarn store. But I went for something else and they just "happened to" carry bamboo needles.

First Item from my Handspun Yarn

I had spun 2 ounces of Blue Face Leicester, some of the fibre I got in a kit at Christmas. I showed it to you at this stage:

but it looks like I didn't get a picture of it after I wound it into a cake. Too bad because it was really cute and fuzzy. But maybe that's like a mother calling her baby cute. Of course she thinks so.

Anyway, I ended up with about 140 yards of yarn with a fairly even thickness. I was thinking it would make a nice swatch of a traditional lace. Maybe a miniature Shetland lace piece.

When I noticed the fair had a category (yes, one category) for something made from handspun, I became motivated to find any pattern that I liked that would work. I finally settled on a simple lace tam. (Etoile Hat by Linda Irving-Bell.)

I got a start on it before my road trip last week because I was counting on some knitting time in the car. (At first I wasn't going to bring it because we were going to be camping, but then I realized I could keep it in the car. Problem solved.)

I knit away happily on my tam in between naps. It wasn't until I finished the patterned part and started on the ribbed band that I noticed something was wrong:

Somehow, right from the start, I had done nine repeats instead of eight! (Yup, count the points; there are nine of them.) At first I thought maybe it would be ok because some people on Ravelry said the hat was too small and my yarn was a little thinner than the yarn called for and I was using a size smaller needle. I had a lot of good-sounding justifications going on in my head, but the hat was just way too big. There was one problem it did solve however--I was wondering if I would have enough yarn. Now I knew if I had enough for nine repeats around, I would have plenty for a hat with eight repeats!

I put it away at that point because I couldn't stomach the thought of pulling it out. I was also worried about the yarn. It was pretty fuzzy (which makes it stick to itself) and I had made it (therefore I was always suspicious of its durability).

A day or two later while sitting around the camp, I realized that it was "find out the truth" time and I had to try frogging it. I pulled gently and wound up the yarn, and it held up quite well. It pulled apart in two spots, but I decided those spots needed to be discovered or they might have come apart in the hat itself and caused a hole. So all was good.

The second time through I tried to fix a minor foible of the pattern chart and got myself confused.

I put away at that point and tackled it again in the car. I managed to figure out what was going on and then happily alternated knitting and napping all the way home.

When I got home, it was thiiis big:

Yup, almost ready for the ribbing. I worked on it over the next few days and then suddenly it was done! I blocked it over a small plate and got this:

 And the back side:

The ribbing was ok before blocking, but I'm afraid the blocking has completely stretched it out. It doesn't have a lot of bounce to it. Fortunately the hat is the right shape and the yarn is the right fuzziness that it sort of just sits on your head and stays there.

 I found it very comfortable, and I have to say, I love it! (I am smitten.)

 And in the less than 10 minutes I had it on, my head was very warm.

It will be fun to wear it when colder weather comes.

Prayer Shawl

Here's a project I haven't shown you at all yet.

There is a family who attended our church until recently that is helping their son through cancer treatment. Of course we all have been praying for them, but someone at church suggested (strongly) to me that I should knit a prayer shawl for them. Her logic was that although she would like to do so, she can't knit. So I should make it.

I guess I couldn't argue with that.

I knew some of my raveled cashmere would be ideal. I know it's hand-wash but other than that, it is light, warm and compact. I didn't want to knit a huge thing that would be hard to carry around or take with them as they travel to another town to go to the hospital.

With that in mind, I searched for a smallish shawl. I wanted something pretty (of course), pretty but not too fussy, and preferably a crescent or semi-circle shape just because I've been intrigued by that lately. I found an option I liked and I would have to use two strands of the cashmere to get the right thickness.

Since there was lace in the pattern, I decided that I would ply the two strands together. I've done some lace with two loose strands, and I don't like how it separates in the yarn overs. So I estimated how much I would need for the shawl and plied it on my drop spindle. I turns out I ran out with only about four rows to go, plus the I-cord bindoff. But I had plenty of the yarn, it just wasn't plied. Since there was no more lace, I finished the shawl with two strands that were not plied. I can't see a difference in the stocking stitch.

Part of why I liked the pattern was its interesting construction. You start by knitting the wide border that will end up along the bottom edge of the shawl:

But as you go, you increase one stitch at one edge, but leave a stitch on the needle that you don't knit. As you go along, this gives you a whole series of stitches on the one edge. Once the border is done, you have all those stitches ready for you--you don't have to go along and pick them all up. I thought it was brilliant.

The picture above shows the border just after I finished it, and you can see the stitches on the right side all ready to go, as soon as I bind off the stitches on the needle. (I was knitting it at a Coffee Break conference at that point. I was very happy to finish the border during a break so that I could move on to the stocking stitch section for the afternoon. No more looking at charts!)

(You can tell I knit the lace while I was at the conference, at meetings and at small group because there are two places where I lost my place in the chart. It's a 16 row repeat and I either skipped from row 8 back to row 1 or skipped from row 16 to 8. So I was still following the chart, but it doesn't flow quite like it should. I didn't notice until after I had the shawl blocked! But don't worry about looking for it, there's no prize if you find it. :)

Once the border is done, you knit across all the stitches and then start some short rows from the center.

 This makes a nice crescent shape:

 Well, if you block it right. A lot of the projects on Ravelry look rather triangular and I tried to avoid that.

The shawl is finished with an eyelet row and then an I-cord bind off, which you can see very well in the first picture above.

It was a lovely knit and of course handling cashmere is always a treat. The shawl would be easy to throw over your shoulders over a shirt or sweater for a little extra warmth. Or it could be worn around the neck, either tightly wrapped or in a longer, looser loop.

I hope it wears like a hug.

Project Stats
Started: 31 Mar '15
Finished: 13 Apr '15
Pattern: Regina Marie by Sara Burch
Materials: Raveled cashmere, 47 grams ($3)
Finished Size: 44" point to point / 14" top to bottom centre

Progress Report (Day 2)

After writing my last progress report, I worked on the bulky cable vest. I figured out the length issue and ended up taking out a few rows of the front, but not much. I joined the back and front at the shoulder seam with a three needle bind off.

Once they were joined, I continued knitting the two side cables, attaching them to the stitches I left live on the back neck edge. At the end of each row I knit or purled the last stitch together with the stitch from the back. It got pretty awkward at the center back, but still manageable.

Once all the stitches were picked up, I grafted the two ends of the cable trim together. It happened to fall on a cable row so I exchanged the position of the stitches on the needle and then grafted as normal.

It's too bad it looks a little clunky where the cable twist changes direction at the center back, but there's not much you can do about that if you want the twists to be a mirror image on the front.

Once that was done, I picked up stitches around the armhole, but didn't start to knit them.

I paused here because I want to try it on and see how it's going. And that also pretty much finished my night. Football was done and it was time for some sleep. (BTW, it looks like I will have plenty of yarn for this. You don't need to stay up at night worrying about it any longer. Not that I was...)

The next day in the car, I started with the lace coat. I started chart 2 and got the first repeat done (24 rows):

You can see the left side is "longer" than the right side.
It will form the ruffle at the hem.

Only nine more repeats to go!

Right now it's a lot of work because I am consulting the chart on almost every stitch. But after the first repeat of the chart, I'm starting to recognize some patterns. It's sort of like starting to write. At first someone tells you to make a line from top to bottom and then to draw a circle beside it but just touching the line. You follow the instructions piece by piece, and when you're done you look at what you made and recognize a "b." But with a little repetition, you start to recognize that the "b" falls into a whole family of letters with circles and lines, like "a," "d," "p," and even "g" if you just add a hook at the bottom. That's about where I am with this pattern, just recognizing the patterns between the different parts.

Once the pattern is learned, it's easier to knit without constantly looking at the chart. You can "read" your knitting and know what comes next. You can see that you're working on the leaf, and what part of it you're on. Do you need to make it bigger or smaller at that point?, etc.

I'm not sure I'll get to the point where I will be able to knit this lace pattern without the chart, but I can already tell that it's getting easier. For now, it will not be something to work on during football games, I can tell you that!

About the time I finished the chart, it was getting dark enough to make chart reading more difficult, so I pulled out the sock I had packed. In the hotel the night before, I had tried it on and decided it was long enough to start the cuff. I cut the black/white yarn, joined the red, and knit one row (so there wouldn't be any colour blips) to set it up for the next day.

In the car I started a 1x1 rib and got this much done before my hands were tired from the small needle work and it was getting dark enough to make it hard to see the stitches.

Do you think I made it long enough?? Ha ha. It really shortens a lot when I put it on because it has to stretch around my calves. I'll do a good 3" of cuff, I think, and they will be just right for knee socks. (That's 3" when I'm wearing them. That might be as much as 5" unstretched.)

Then I still did not stop knitting because I don't need to see much to work on the bias scarf, so I did a few sections of that. Then it was truly dark and my hands/body were tired enough to want to stop. Troy drove the whole way again, so I had plenty of time to knit, knit, knit!

Once home, unpacked, and settled in for some Downton Abbey, I picked up a new project. While in Guelph, we stopped at Len's Mill, a general merchandise store that carries tonnes of yarn and fabric. I walked through the aisles and couldn't believe the sheer quantity of yarn that they carried! A lot of it was acrylic so fortunately I could just skim those aisles.

I did pick up a couple balls of crochet cotton, and then I saw the Phentex. What a blast from the past. I've never seen it in the States, but it's a completely horrible fake yarn that feels a lot like plastic twine. But it is what we all used for slippers growing up. And many still do. Well, my own slippers have been taken down by the latest round of home improvement, so I picked up a couple of bright cheery colours and started on a replacement pair:

Squam Planning Begins

First big project of the new year? The lace coat from the Vogue Knitting Early Fall 2012 issue:

I've wanted to do it since the issue came out, but knew it had to wait until I was done the commissioned sweater. And then there's the busyness of Christmas, so I figured it would wait until the new year. But it's getting to be that time, and now I've decided this is going to be my big Squam project. Like when people knit their "Rhinebeck" sweater every year. (That would be a nice impressive bit of knitting to wear at the hugely popular Sheep and Wool Festival held in Rhinebeck, NY.) But I'm not going to Rhinebeck, I'm going to Sqaum.

First up was to chose the yarn. I wanted to stick with the alpaca/silk blend of the original yarn, but in what colour? The pink is nice, but not really what I wanted. The same brand (that's Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace) also came in a neutral beige/tan called Blithe that I considered:

I also looked at Knit Pick's Shimmer Lace in Buttercream:

It has a little more variation in the colour, but I thought it wouldn't clash too badly with the lace pattern. There are only two projects on Ravelry that use this colourway, but one of them was a large lace shawl that showed very well what it looked like knit up. (What did I do before Ravelry??)

I considered Malabrigo's Silkpaca in Sunset:

but decided it was a bit much. (I looked hard at Malabrigo because I know and like their yarns and can get it at my LYS, but their colours were all either too dark or too cool. All the beiges and light colours are very washed out. Not what I was going for.)

What I settled on was Drops' Lace in Light Camel:

I'm hoping it will be a warm neutral, not too dark but not so light as to disappear on my pale, pale skin. All the prices were pretty similar so that didn't influence the choice significantly, but this yarn also happened to be on sale, which is nice.

It's being shipped from California whenever the shop is next open and I will be waiting for it eagerly! I don't think I've ever spent so much time looking for yarn for a project. I think I tend to do projects based on what yarn and pattern come together serendipitously. I don't remember having to search so hard for the right yarn. Or maybe I usually settle for what's easily available.

I will also add that three skeins of the yarn probably would have been enough, but I bought four. (And they are huge, so that is going to be a lot of extra yarn.) But one thing there won't be with this project is Fear Of Running Out Of Yarn. Not going there with this one!

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Update: I got an email that they shipped it the same day. Apparently they weren't closed for Christmas yet. Woo hoo!

Another Little Something

Phew! I am cranking out the finished projects these days. I did have a lot on the go, so I guess eventually they all have to start getting finished.

These are some toe-up socks I did to try another heel style. It worked ok, but didn't bowl me over with wonderfulness either. Perhaps it was ending up with a sock 1.5 inches too long the first time.
The socks were gifted to my mother this past weekend. [Red Purl] Amy's mother chided me the other day for not making anything for my own dear mother. She was quite appalled when I couldn't think of anything I had made for her [lately]. My mother didn't seem to actually agree, but I thought "What the heck" and made her some socks.

Mom doesn't actually wear socks a lot in the summer, preferring bare feet. But she really liked the socks and thought they would be great for when she visits people, if nothing else. Apparently her hosts are always asking if she's sure she doesn't want any Project Stats
Started: 2 May 09
Finished: 21 May 09
Pattern: free tutorial
Materials: free, Estelle Young Touch Cotton DK, 2 balls
socks/slippers/shoes. I guess not everyone is as comfortable with bare feet as my family is.

The little lace panels I added to the pattern worked out really well. They're just a simple 4 st YO and decrease (K2tog on one side, ssk on the other so they are mirror images). If you get everything lined up, you get diagonal lines of alternating bars and holes. Presto majesto: simple lace.

I did a picot cast off. The cuff was 2x2 ribbing, and while casting off I [K1, K1bl, K1] all in the second knit stitch. (Where K1bl is K1 through the back loop.) Then I slid these three stitches back onto the left needle, where I knit the three stitches together and then cast off like normal. The cast off turned out to be a little tight and I think if I had knit the three stitches separately and cast them off one by one that may have loosened things up. (The instructions I was looking at were a little vague on which they actually intended.)

Live and learn.