i.d.w.i.w

That's a phrase I hear from my sister a lot. She doesn't abbreviate that, but I didn't want to put the whole thing up there. It's "I do what I want." That's what I did with these shawls. The Loopy Ewe set up the challenge to knit a shawl using two colors. I've never knit a shawl in more than one color before last month. Now, I'm knitting them all the time. ;-)

These are tentatively called s.a.w. shawls. That stands for stripe at will. I had a basic idea for a triangular shawl, but I didn't want the stripes all over or in a regular pattern. This first shawl was knit with madelinetosh tosh sock in two colors from past Loopy Ewe sock clubs. They work well together, but the single green stripes got lost in the brown. This shawl had a mixture of single contrasting stripes and the larger blocks of contrasting color.

The next shawl, I wanted a lot more contrast. I used Wollmeise 100% in Himbeere and Blue Curacao. Since there is so much contrast, I decided to stick with the single contrasting stripes. I didn't want the shawl to read as only stripes, so I spaced out the stripes a lot more. This shawl turned out huge and I still had leftovers.

And because I worked on these while on a road trip and a camping trip, I had to take along more yarn "just in case." It turns out that I did have time to finish another shawl while on the trip.This shawl was knit with some interesting yarns. The orange is from Gaia's Colours and is 100% soy. I like the look of this yarn, but it does have an odd smell. The brownish yarn is also from Gaia's Colours and is a merino/bamboo sock blend. There was much less yardage in the orange yarn than any of the others. When it was getting close to running out, I worked the stripes across the whole bottom of the shawl and then finished it off with just the brown yarn.

I really like the shape of these shawls. I do plan on writing out the pattern to these. I think it might end more like a formula with instructions on how to do the different types of stripes and how to go about changing colors. These are fun and I wonder what they would look like if I added some lace into it? Hmmmm. I might have to start another one.

Busy bees

Spring is here. Our azaleas have bloomed and gone. Seeds have been planted in the garden. Carpenter bees are buzzing. We battle those every year trying to prevent them from drilling new holes into our house. I've been buzzing around knitting a lot of socks.

I've been in a lace sock mood. It started with the sock that I designed for The Loopy Ewe's April club. The yarn is madelinetosh's Tosh sock in Midnight Rendevous. It's a very dark purple--almost black, but not. I tried my usual cables or twisted stitches, but this yarn wanted to be lace. Plus it was an April pattern. Lace is more appropriate for this time of year. The center portion of my pattern, Rubus, reminds me of blackberries. I know it's not the season for them, but with spring comes thoughts of berry picking. The side/secondary part of this pattern reminds me of vines.

My other lace socks were done with a desire to have a few patterns with smaller charts. I was in the middle of designing other things that can't be shown and sample knitting. I needed sock patterns that I could work in between those. These are all easy to put down and figure out where you left them when you work on them again.

There was a knit-a-long in the String Theory group on ravelry. My goal was to knit all of last year's sock club colors and I squeaked in and finished. I also won some yummy smelling perfumes in a random drawing from the finishers list. That opened up a whole new world of shopping. ;-)

As of March 30, I have completed the 52 Pair Plunge IV. Yay!! That link goes to my project page that lists all of my completed socks between June 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011. I'll continue to list socks there until the deadline to see how many I do finish. And since I don't see my designing, sample knitting, or my kids feet will stop growing any time soon, I've signed up for the 52 Pair Plunge V for next year. The next challenge starts July 1.

Back on track...socks!

This dial-up connection is wearing me down. Increasingly, there is less and less that I can get to load in a reasonable time on the internet. And that is frustrating. I've started looking into a satellite connection or even something like Verizon's hotspot. Either one would work for our location, but the limits are really...limiting. CNN even had an article about 1/3 of the US not having broadband. The article even included a link to see if broadband was available in your area. Adding insult to injury, that website initially wouldn't load. :-( After trying it a few more times, I finally did get it to load just to find out that nothing is available here except for the two options that I mentioned above.

Ugh, enough of that ranting and onto knitting! The two socks above were finished a while ago, but we had some really dark cloudy days that made picture taking difficult. Those were taken indoors. I really like the lace on the blue socks. It's fun and the chart isn't too huge. The beige socks are Enchanted Knoll Farm in Gold Dust Woman. The blue socks are Dream in Color Everlasting Sock in Blue Fish(and it did turn my fingers blue).

I've been knitting more self striping yarns lately. I'm supposed to be writing patterns and need to focus one those. Plus, I want to use up some of my String Theory yarns from last year's club before this year's club starts up again. From top to bottom and left to right: Ultraviolet Catastrophe, Horsehead Nebula, Chrysocolla, and Neon. That last one was hard to photograph. The camera kept washing out those super bright colors.

I've woven a few more scarves. I've started using my cashmere and cashmere/silk blends to make really long scarves that you can double up around your neck. No pictures of those because I haven't washed all of them yet.

I'm on a lace sock kick right now. I just finish done a few days ago and I'm working on another one right now. Lace socks seem to knit up quickly. I'm up to 45 completed pairs of socks for this 52 Pair Plunge. Only 7 more to go before the end of May.

Crazy lace at 1am

I worked on this shawl like crazy late last night and early this morning just to finish it. Why? Because I wanted to take a picture of it in the snow. ;-) It's supposed to warm up sometime this week and I'm afraid all of the snow will melt. I don't think we'll have a white Christmas.

This shawl was my first designed by Birgit Freyer. I say first because I bought a set of her patterns and they're all so beautiful! I've had this website bookmarked for over a year, but was always hesitant to buy them. The patterns are a little more pricey than typical lace patterns, but I found this one worth it. The charts were clear and easy to read. As a bonus, this pattern was easy for me to alter. I cast-on fewer stitches for a slightly thinner shawl.

This shawl had a few unique stitches in it. Some stitches changed the stitch count on that row, but will be accounted for on the next right side row. This makes the top points of the little diamonds match the bottom points.

Details:
Pattern: Johanna by Birgit Freyer
Yarn: Wollmeise lace in Granatapfel (235gms)
Needle: size 3 Knit Picks Classic Circular
Mods: decreased cast-on for thinner stole
Blocked size: 20 inches wide by 98 inches(point to point) or 72 inches(straight part only)
Start: November 18, 2009
Finish: December 21, 2009

I'll leave with a picture of the snowman that my daughter made-- all by herself! --wearing the shawl. ;-)

Chaos

Not much chaos here. We're having a pretty low-key Christmas present-wise. My kids received a lot of gifts during our Thanksgiving trip. This shawl was started and finished during our trip. I'm not sure how I would look using a circular shawl ;-), so I'll probably use this as a lap blanket. The pattern was easy to follow and easy to knit. It was a great project to knit during a road trip.

Details:
Pattern: Order to Chaos by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in Black Parade (3.5 skeins)
Needle: size 5 Knit Picks Options
Start: November 17, 2009
Finish: November 28, 2009

Right now, I'm working on another shawl with my last skein of Wollmeise lace yarn. We didn't get the huge snow storm like east of here, but we have around 6 inches of snow. Pictures to come...

Left hanging...ouch

That's how I felt after finishing Diana Gabaldon's Echo in the Bone. It is around 800 pages long and so many things were still left unfinished. Her books are usually very long, but I read through them quickly. The story flies by and I just need to know what's going to happen to the characters. And now I'm left waiting for another 4 years. That's about how long it takes her to publish another one in this series. In the meantime, I've picked up King's Under the Dome. Yes, it's another huge book. I tend to gravitate towards books of this length.

There has been plenty of knitting too. I knit my daughter a few shawls. She's asked for a shawl a few times lately. I'm hesitant to give her anything in laceweight that will easily snag. She's still 8 and likely to use it to tie around herself, her dolls, to some railing, etc. I picked out a few pretty skeins of sock yarn and set out to find suitable patterns. What made this easy is that The Loopy Ewe's 4th quarter challenge is to knit a shawl. Many knitters have found patterns that will use only a skein of sock yarn. Perfect!

I started out with a free garter stitch based shawl pattern called Multnomah. I'm not a big fan of garter stitch, but this shawl is very soft and squishy. So far, my daughter loves it.




Pattern: Multnomah
Yarn: Perchance to Knit in Fleur
Needle: size 4
Blocked size: 56 inches across and 16 inches down the center back
Start: November 7, 2009
Finish: November 11, 2009

Next, I wanted something a bit more like the lace I knit for myself. For this yarn, I picked the Traveling Woman pattern. It starts with stockinette and ends with lace at the bottom edge. This pattern was very fast to knit. I think that I knit stockinette faster than I can knit garter stitch. I like the nicely rounded back to this one. I might make this one in a larger size for myself.


Pattern: Traveling Woman
Yarn: Hazel Knits in Sailor's Delight (90 gms used)
Needle: size 4
Blocked size: 58 inches across and 15 inches down the center back
Start: November 10, 2009
Finish: November 11, 2009

I'm still knitting socks. I started this one to go with the Solid Socks group color for November. It's brown this month and I've had this yarn in my stash for long enough. I used this cable stitch that reminds me of pretzels. yummy. This yarn is thicker than usual sock yarn, so this pattern went by quickly too. Right now, I'm using the leftovers from this skein to knit socks for my son in a basic knit/purl stitch pattern.


Pattern: by me
Yarn: Opal 6-ply solid (90gms used)
Needle: 2.5mm
Method: magic loop, 2 at once, Turkish cast-on, short row heel
Start: 11/4/09
Finish: 11/9/09

And I just finished this shawl yesterday! The sun was really harsh when I tried to take some photos, so I tried some indoor photography. Once again, Anne's pattern was flawless and easy to knit. I like how this is a knit until you run out of yarn type of pattern. I didn't knit that far, but it's good to keep in mind when I have a limited amount of yarn.

This was knit with one of the giant skeins of Nyoni that I bought last year. I had enough yarn to probably knit 2 more repeats, but I didn't need the shawl to be that big.

Pattern: Boxleaf Triangle by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Fleece Artist Nyoni in Moss (180 gms used)
Needle: size 5
Mods: Knit something between the medium and large size.
Blocked size: 74 inches across the top and 36 inches down the center back
Start: 11/12/09
Finish: 11/16/09

Up next, I have two more lace projects that I've just started today. The socks for my son that need to be finished. After that, I need to knit him a few more pairs of sport weight socks for this winter. He's grown out of most of his socks from last winter.

Focus

I'm lacking focus these days. I'm usually a one, maybe two project person. That's one easy one to carry around and one more complicated. Right now, I have 4 different socks on the needles sitting on my desk. One was a vacation knit that I'm not sure that I like. One is a test swatch for a pattern I'm trying to design. That was started and ripped multiple times on vacation. Two are colorwork patterns. I want to write the pattern while knitting the second sock of those pairs.

When I look at a new book, it's always the stranded patterns that stick with me. I rarely knit them because I have tension issues and have a hard time fitting the sock to my legs. But I'm determined to get it and that means practice.

Let me back up and talk about my finished projects from the past few weeks. Over on Sock Knitter's Anonymous (SKA), one of the challenges of September was to knit a Wendy Johnson pattern. I decided to challenge myself and knit knee highs. I've finally accomplished that. I wasn't happy with my yarn choice, but it was the only yarn that I had on hand with enough yardage for knee highs. Now I have ideas of designing my own knee highs.

Details:
Pattern: Catriona Knee Socks by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Knit Picks Essential/Stroll Tweed in Black (3)
Needle: size 0 (2mm) circular
Mods: increased a lot more than the pattern states to accommodate my calves
Start: September 19, 2009
Finish: September 28, 2009

When we go on vacation, I usually like to take a lace project with me. On this trip, I took some Wollmeise sock yarn and knit Trevi. Those two are a great combination. Trevi really stretches a single skein of sock yarn into a good sized shawl. I like lace patterns with strong geometric lines like this one.

Pattern: Trevi by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Wollmeise 100% sockenwolle in Merlot
Needle: size 4 (3.5mm) for the main part and size 3 (3.25mm) for the knit on edge
Notes: I knit 6 repeats of chart B and had 15 gms of yarn leftover
Start: October 4, 2009
Finish: October 10, 2009

And when I came back from vacation, I was fed up with the socks that I took with me. I was trying to design a sock pattern for self striping yarn. I had a few good ideas on paper that I took with me, but didn't like the way they looked on the actual sock. bleh. Those are still sitting on my desk and I started this pattern. I'm calling it my H.F.V.B. socks--that stands for: home from vacation blues. ;-)

Pattern: H.F.V.B by me
Yarn: Opal uni 4-ply solid
Needle: size 0 (2mm) for the foot and heel and size 1 (2.25mm) for the leg
Start: October 14, 2009
Finish: October 21, 2009

Even with all of these projects going, I'm itching to knit another shawl. It must be the cold weather. Well it's back to knitting, I'll leave you with these pictures from my part of the world...

Three new patterns!

I'm distracting myself since a package that I really want is going to be delayed until after the holiday weekend. What package am I waiting for? It's the Loopy Ewe September sock club package with my pattern in it!! A few people have gotten it already and have posted pictures, but I'll wait to post my pictures until later.

I've been busy writing patterns and put up three new patterns in my ravelry store.

This is Leaf Remains. The pattern is short and sweet with a small chart, so I'm offering it as a free. It's a toe-up sock pattern and is written for 5 different sizes ranging from 48 to 80 total stitches.

You can get it here --> download now

I've named this one Within X. It's a toe-up pattern and written for 3 different sizes. It has a nice combination of lace and twisted stitches to make a sock that's pretty, but will stay snug on your foot. It's available to --> buy now

This is Dash and Slash. It's a pattern appropriate for solid or variegated yarn. This yarn is Socks That Rock lightweight in Firebird. The pattern has knits, purls, and cables to break up the color. It's written as toe-up and for three different sizes. It's available to --> buy now

Sample, test, sample

I've been busy. The title says why and that's all I can say. I've been doing some of my own knitting too. Ever since knitting the sample for Bex, I knew that I wanted to knit a pair for me. The problem was that the size it was written for is slightly too small for me. That pattern really draws in and is quite fitted. I could get the sample that I knit on my foot, but it wasn't comfortable. To fix that, I added 4 stitches to the round. This isn't as simple as adding a stitch to the stitch pattern, since this pattern shifts over after finishing each repeat. I had to add in the stitches and also take them out to move them whenever the pattern moved too. It was fun to figure it out.

My sock is knit with Flydesigns Lacewing in Lavender. It's such a squishy, pretty yarn. The yarn is a semi-solid and works really well with this intricate pattern. This sock has been put on hold by the projects in the title.

I have finished a pair of socks. This was started last month for the March Sock Knitter's Anonymous challenge. I've wanted to use this stitch pattern on a sock ever since I saw it, but knew that it would be too large at the written stitch count. I went ahead and used it anyways thinking that I could find someone with larger feet than me (my sister).

I made each sock a mirror of each other. The stitch pattern was easy to convert. It's also easy to memorize. I didn't need the chart after the first repeat. I used two lines from the pattern and repeated those for the cuff. After finishing the socks, I tried them on and they fit. Weird. This stitch count usually only fits my foot if the sock is heavily cabled and has no lace on it. I guess those tiny cables do pull it in enough.

Details:
Pair #41 in the 52 Pair Plunge II
Pattern: Shifted 8 by me
Yarn: Regia Line Step-green
Needle: size 0 (2mm) Knit Picks Classic Circular
Method: magic loop, 2 at once, toe-up, Turkish cast-on, short row heel
Start: March 30, 2009
Finish: April 16, 2009

I'm still hacking away at the 52 Pair Plunge total. I'm up to pair number 46. I number the socks as I cast on and that's why they sometimes appear out of order. So far, all of the numbered socks have been finished, except Bex. Still 6 more to go. It's still a reachable goal....

Smiling ear to ear...

I have so many reasons to smile this week. First of all, Cookie A's book, Sock Innovation, is out! If you're a sock knitter and don't have it--go buy it! Not only are there some pretty cool patterns from Cookie A, she goes into a lot of detail on how to design your own. I knit the sample for Bex (ravelry link) that's in the book. Cookie wasn't kidding when she said that the socks would be closely inspected. There are close-up shots of Bex in the book of the stitch pattern and of the heel area. Bex was my first sample knit and it was weird sending it off in the mail after I finished knitting it. I just sent off another one today. You'll probably be seeing it sometime next year. ;-)

Other things to smile about? Being asked to design something (by someone I look up to) is very exciting! Details are still being discussed, but it looks good so far. Asking if I will wholesale my patterns? Also very exciting! Now I need to figure out the printing costs and details for that.

Besides the sample knitting that became a priority last week, I'm still knitting a few of my own designs. This one was finished right before the secret project and after going through a few name changes I'm calling it Bug Parade. I initially thought that the center motif looked like spiders, but they grew wings after blocking. ;-) The smaller stitches on the sides are the leftover cicada wings that can be found everywhere after they've invaded an area. The first year that we moved here was a cicada year. I remember waking up one morning and wondering what that really loud humming sound was. It was all of the bugs digging into the trees around our house. Ewww. They left so many wings and body parts behind. Ewww again. After living here for almost 10 years, we haven't had another cicada invasion like that. We were told that it happens about every 17 years. I have no idea who came up with that number, but we'll see.

I've been in a bug mood lately. All of the stitch patterns that I've seen or tried resemble some kind of bug to me. It must be a spring thing when all of the creepy crawlies come out when the weather gets warm.

Details:
Pair # 40 in the 52 Pair Plunge II.
Pattern: Bug Parade by me
Yarn: Enchanted Knoll Farm in Esmerelda
Needle: size 0 (2mm) Knit Picks Classic Circular
Method: magic loop, 2 at once, toe-up with Turkish cast-on, short row heel, 1x1 twisted rib
Start: March 26, 2009
Finish: March 29, 2009

This pattern will be written up...sometime. I still have 11 pairs to go in the 52 Pair Plunge. I do have 2 pairs of socks on the needles already. I started a pair called Shifted 8 and found them a little bit too big for me, but perfect for my sister. I've started another pair with an altered stitch pattern and am calling it Shifted 4. So far, I like this one and I've been working on it a lot more than the 8 variety. Pictures to come in a few days...

After a year...Snowflakes in Cedarwoods!

Blankets and I have a history...if things are going smoothly, I can finish them rather quickly. If something happens along the way, they get squished into a bag or box and hidden for a while. This is Snowflakes in Cedarwoods by Anne Hanson. I first saw this on Anne's blog while she was designing it and liked it immediately.

Let me back up and talk about the yarn...I had 5 cones of camel hair yarn from Colourmart that were waiting for the perfect project. I bought them (years ago) with the intent of knitting some kind of cabled cardigan for myself. After knitting one sweater, I realized that I'm not much of a sweater wearer and started looking for a new project for all of this really soft yarn. Along came the Snowflakes in Cedarwoods shawl. The pattern is written as a shawl, but I thought that I had enough yarn to knit it as a blanket. I used the camel yarn doubled and everything went really smoothly through the first few charts. Square shawls are started in the center, so the beginning really sucks you in since it goes so fast.

After reaching the halfway point in the blanket, I realized that I wouldn't have enough yarn. ACK! At that point, I looked around and couldn't find anymore of the camel yarn. Colourmart's stock varies with whatever is available to them. Sometimes things never come back. I even looked on ravelry to see if anyone had it for sale in their stash. No luck there. I gave in and ordered some cashmere in natural. Cashmere natural is a very different color than camel natural. I tried blending them together by holding one strand of each. Yuck. I tried tinking back, but that was taking a loooong time. At that point, I was frustrated with it and stuffed the whole thing in a bag and tried to forget about it for several moths.

And then I saw this beautiful blanket knit from another of Anne's patterns. It turned out beautiful and motivated me to let my sad blanket out of the bag. I knew what I had to do and pulled the needle completely out of the blanket. Thank goodness the yarn is a little sticky because of the oil. After painfully ripping out many rows, I decided to stop the blanket after Chart J. That would leave off the last chart and the border. Instead of those, I just knit 10 rows of seed stitch with the cashmere yarn and called it done. Surprisingly, it took only one night of ripping and recapturing the stitches and one more night of knitting the border. The blanket had to sit in a time out again after that. Why? Because Colourmart yarn comes oiled. To properly wash it, it needs to be done in a machine, with lots of soap, and with warm or hot water. Let me tell you, it takes a lot of guts to throw your hand knit item in the washer and dryer.

I do have a front loading washer and I sat there watching the blanket go round and round the whole time. Laugh all you want, but I wanted to be sure that it didn't shrivel up to a tiny thing while it was in there. I did put it in the dryer, but only for 10 minutes. After that, I laid it out on a bed and let the ceiling fan dry it. I didn't even have to pin it out. The border just needed a little stretching at the corners, but I pulled those out and it stayed.

I'm so happy with the way this blanket turned out! Dwight liked it too and asked if it would stay on the bed. Ummm, no. I want it to be where I'll see it a lot and that would be in the computer room where I knit, read on ravelry, and do lessons.

Final details and a few more pictures...
Pattern: Snowflakes in Cedarwoods by Anne Hanson (Knitspot)
Yarn: 4 ply camel from Colourmart (4.5 cones) and 4 ply natural cashmere (.5 cone)
Needle: size 4 Knit Picks Options
Notes: Ran out of camel yarn, so I stopped after Chart J, knit 10 rows of seed stitch with natural cashmere to add a border
Unblocked size: almost 6x6 foot square
Blocked size: 64 x 64 inches
Start: May 9, 2008
Finish: March 22, 2009