Chrysopolis complete!

I've been away for Thanksgiving, but I'm back now and working on the stoles again. I didn't take them with me, so I'm playing catch up with Chrysopolis and Secret of the Stole. I love how this one turned out, but it's huge! It's final size is 32 inches wide and 98 inches long. It's so pretty, but I'm not sure how much I'll wear it because of it's size. The yarn is a tough yarn. I was hanging this shawl everywhere outside for pictures and only snagged it once. That was easily fixed with a little stretching on that spot.

Final details:
Yarn: Hengyuanxiang knitting wool (168 gms or 2.75 balls)
Needle: size 3 (3.25mm) Knitpicks Harmony
Blocked size: 32 inches wide by 98 inches long
Start: October 2, 2007
Finish: November 29, 2007

It was a challenge to get the whole stole into one picture. This is one of the better ones. I tried putting the white sheet underneath it, but the sheet was too short.

Up next, I hope to have the Secret of the Stole finished sometime next week. I have a few smaller projects that I want to work on too--vest for D, fingerless gloves for E, more socks for the kids, scarves for me, etc. The little projects are great for in between secret shawls. There are 4 (!!!!) starting early next year. I think that I'll sit tight for the first few clues to see if I like them. I doubt that I will want to knit all four.

I did finish the Montego Bay scarf and wore it on my trip. One skein of Sea Wool can go a long way. That scarf turned out to be very long, but I like it. I finished a pair of Knucks out of Knit Picks Swish for my sister. She likes them a lot and has already started using them. I started a pair of smaller Knucks for E, but the fingers are too snug. I need to rip those out and redo them.

I'll leave you with my artsy picture of Chrysoplis. :-D

Lace break

I'm busy. Things are just going to get even more busy as Thanksgiving, D's birthday, and Christmas come around. I'm going to take a break from lace and attention holding knits. I'll still be knitting, but I'm going to focus on mindless knitting for the next few weeks. I did finish clue #7 of the Secret of Chrysopolis. I even reverse engineered clue #8 for that stole and started it. Then I changed my mind and I plan on working on it after the official clue #8 comes out. I haven't touched clue #6 for the Secret of the Stole.

I've already kicked things off with starting a Montego Bay Scarf from the 2007 summer issue of Interweave Knits. I'm using the Fleece Artist sea wool that I won during the Summer of Socks. Well, I started it, frogged it, and started again. It was turning out too wide with the initial cast on of 43 stitches. I casted on 35 the second time around and I like this width a lot better. I don't think that I'll do the fringe.

I plan on making a Swiss Cheese scarf with some of my Wollmeise yarn. That yarn is just too pretty for socks and I've been looking around Ravelry for patterns to try. Speaking of Ravelry, can I just say again how cool that place is? There are a few different ways to look around the giant database of Ravelry. One way is to look up wollmeise yarn in the yarn section. Then I can look at the types of projects that were made with that yarn. Or if I can think of a pattern, like the swiss cheese scarf, I can look that up in the pattern section. Then I can skim the results to see if anyone made it out of fingering weight yarn. Several people did and I was able to read how the altered the pattern from lace weight to fingering weight.

Another quick project that I want to make are fingerless gloves for the kids. Last year, I made them quick little wrist warmer things, but I like the separate finger sections better. I was thinking of doing Knucks, but I might not after reading about it on Ravelry. There were several comments on how long it took to weave the ends in and close the holes in between the fingers. Then I remembered the Hooray for Me gloves. Those are knit in the other direction and the holes might not be a problem that way. That pattern has the added plus of already being in fingering weight yarn. I would have to alter Knucks for my yarn. I plan on using some kind of sock yarn for these fingerless gloves because anything bulkier would probably be uncomfortable for E and D's little hands.

Okay, I have a lot of sock yarn and a lot of socks. I've been trying to figure out different patterns to make that aren't socks. Jen just finished a My So-Called Scarf out of worsted weight wollmeise and it was sooo pretty. I wonder how long it would take to knit one out of fingering weight. It would probably be a thin scarf since I only have 100gms of any given color. Or I could use two skeins of yarn and alternate them to make a wider and longer scarf. Hmmmm, that's something to think about.

And speaking of using two different sock yarns for a scarf, I immediately thought of the Chevron scarf that just about everyone has tried. I don't have that book, but it's pretty easy to figure out from all of the pictures out there. I'm thinking of trying it in garter stitch because that would fit in better with the mindless knitting.

Giving cashmere a bath

I finished Henry! Yes, I did skip one of the repeats. The scarf was looking rather wide and I'm glad that I did skip it. Before starting this scarf, I did look into the finished ones and the in-progress ones on Ravelry. That website is so handy! I was mainly looking into the cast-on and seeing how everyone else did it. I've never done a tubular cast-on or cast-off. This scarf has both. I read that a few people used much smaller needles for the cast-on and set up rows as well as the cast off section.

Since I was planning on using a size 3 for the main section, I went all the way down to a size 1 (2.5mm) needle for the cast-on. A provisional cast-on is called for, but they pattern doesn't specify a certain kind. I used the provisional cast-on that I like and that's the one where you crochet stitches onto the knitting needle with waste yarn. Then you knit with your working yarn. I was rather eager to see if this would work, so I took out the waste yarn after one repeat of the scarf. It looked horrible! There were so many loops of yarn that didn't look right. Somehow, I figured out that if I pulled on the tail of yarn where I started knitting, everything fell into place and looked good. Yay!

This yarn is 2/16 Colourmart cashmere. The website says that it's a 4-ply fingering weight, but it certainly doesn't look like it. The yarn is oiled and requires a hot bubbly bath before it will have the cashmere feel and look. It requires swatching because of the drastic changes that it goes through. I did a plain stockinette swatch just to see what needle size I like. I didn't bother with trying to match gauge, since this is just a scarf. After knitting, I filled up my sink with the hottest water that would come out of the faucet and shampoo (dish soap works too). I threw the scarf in there and squished it into the water. The water gets a cloudy, milky look to it. I was rough with it and squished it thoroughly in the hot water. I rinsed it out a few times with just the hot water until the water ran clear. After that, I rolled it into a towel and stomped on it. I didn't bother pinning it down to dry. I just laid it out on a sheet on the floor and moved it around a bit until the edges looked straight.

It looked amazing when I picked it up this morning. It's so soft and fluffy. I love how it's thin and drapes so elegantly. This scarf is intended for Dwight. The scarf that he currently uses is a thin fleece-like scarf. I wanted him to have something a bit nicer than that. But now I want to keep it for myself.

With all of the great patterns out there, free or bought, I try not to knit a pattern twice if it's one that takes some time. But I'm very tempted to knit this one again---for me.

Details:
Pattern: Henry (from Fall 07 Knitty)
Yarn: 2/16 100% cashmere from Colourmart.com
Needles: cast-on, set-up, and cast off done on size 1 (2.5mm) needles -- main section done on size 3 (3.25mm) needles

Final measurements after washing: 8.25 x 63 inches

Start: October 31, 2007
Finish: November 8, 2007

I did finish the Unoriginal Hat too, but forgot to take pictures of it. I'll have to get E to stand still a bit to model that one and the leg warmers that were finished last week. Today is Friday!!! That means that this weekend will be spent knitting on the Secret of Chrysopolis and the Secret of the Stole.

How I drive myself nutty...

Knit Henry with fingering weight yarn on size 3 needles. This is a scarf with a 24 row repeat and each row has 452 stitches. If I'm on top of it, I can knit one repeat a day. A day! Yeah, things are going slowly. I've knit 5 repeats out of 7 so far. I'm thinking of stopping after 6 because the scarf is looking wide.

I decided to take a break from that and knit the "Unoriginal Hat" from the Yarn Harlot's blog. I'm using some super chunky alpaca yarn that Dwight brought back on his first business trip to China. He must like messing with me because this is another one that doesn't have the weight or yardage on it's label. Because of that, it's sat in my closet for a few years. I think this hat will look good, but it's torturing me to knit with yarn this thick.

I want to knit lace, but I have to wait. Is it Friday yet? That's when the new clues come out.

And then last weekend, we tried to get a good picture for our cards. What an insane day. Smile. Look at the camera. Stop making that face. That is not a natural smile. No, that one isn't either. Okay, just try to look happy. It didn't help that it was a windy and partly cloudy day. The wind blew the sun in and out of the clouds and that really messed with the coloring of the pictures. This is probably the best one of the bunch, but I'm not completely happy with it. The coloring is really off and it looks so pixellated sized down. I might blog some of the outtakes from that day. They're hilarious!


I did take the kids out the next day and got some really cute pictures of just them. I may just go with those for the main picture for the cards and include the family ones inside somewhere.

And this is what happens when you stay outside too long on a very windy day under a lot of oak trees.

Yes, an acorn hit him square on the head. :-( Ouch! After that, it was time to go inside again.

Brought to you by the letter S

Three S's if you want to count. Today, we have a stole, stole, and scarf.

This is my Secret of Chrysopolis after 6 clues. Only two clues left to go! Clue 6 was the reverse of clue 3. I'm tempted to try to reverse clues 2 and 1 to get clues 7 and 8, but I'll probably wait. It is around 60 inches long and getting to be a pain to turn at the end of rows, but it is so pretty. I've used almost all of the second ball of yarn. That puts me at having used 120 gms of yarn.

I have finished the Secret of the Stole up to clue 5, but I haven't taken a picture of it. It was just more of the circles, with the last few rows changing in the center. I had to pay close attention and not zoom past those changes. These stoles are getting huge and it's taking a long time to pin them out for pictures. I don't like posting pictures of lace blobs, so this one will just be picture-less for this week. This stole has used almost all of the 62.5 gm ball of yarn.

I have started another project. This is what I've been working on in between stole clues. This is Henry from the current issue of Knitty. I'm using Colourmart 2/16 cashmere in a dark olive-ish green color. This scarf is meant for Dwight, but I have several back ups if he doesn't like it. One being me! The more I knit on this scarf, the more I want to keep it.

The yarn is oiled and doesn't feel much like cashmere while I'm knitting it. If it weren't for the yummy swatch that I washed, I wouldn't be that motivated to work on this. This yarn blooms and gets so soft after washing. I washed the swatch with dish soap and very hot water. I soaked it, scrubbed it, and swished it around. That's not something I would do with any cashmere yarn, but it's necessary with this yarn.

The pattern is not really the mindless knitting that I thought it would be. The rows are 452 stitches long. Tinking is a pita. You probably don't want to know how I know that. :-/ I've started to check (almost obsessively) if the little dashes (slipped stitches) are lining up several times on each row. This picture was taken after 2.5 repeats of the 24 row stitch pattern. The pattern calls for 7 repeats, but right now that seems like it would be too wide. Maybe it just looks wide because it's squished onto a 36 inch circular.

I've already taken out the provisional cast-on. I didn't want to wait until the end to find out that it doesn't look good or doesn't work. I took it out after one repeat and it looked awfully loopy. That was fixed by yanking on the loose end and now everything looks neat. Phew!