Lerwick

My last post was when I had finished the edging of the Lerwick shawl.

Since then I have worked the border (completed 4/16/09) and the center which I completed today; all that's left is to graft and block.

This was the most time consuming project I have done to date. It was tedious and awkward to me to work with such fine yarn (oh yeah right - that's why I ordered a cone of laceweight cashmere so I can torture myself some more) . I made more errors in this shawl than any other project I have made to date but there was no way I was going to frog since the rows contained approx. 1,000 stitches; I fixed any mistake as best I could and moved on.

Maybe fine weight lace knitting is just not my thing and I should add it to my list of knitting techniques that I don't enjoy working: felting, entrelac, intarsia for example.

Deborah (RogueKnit) finished her Lerwick - it's gorgeous.

Next post: Lerwick blocked.

Progress

After at least six weeks, I have finally finished the edging on the Lerwick shawl. Feels good to have made some progress.

The yarn is 2/20 or 2/30 (can't read the label) which means extremely fine and the stitch pattern is worked on both sides - those two factors really slowed me down, plus there were 128 repeats of the 16 row pattern (36,864 stitches) - no wonder it took so long.

The last step was to graft the two ends together. I wanted to graft it in pattern and knew that would be really confusing even though it was only 15 stitches. I decided to make a swatch in a heavier yarn with the row that was to be grafted knit with a contrasting color that I could follow when I did the actual graft:

After my sweet husband set up some lighting so that I could see what I was doing, I was ready to begin the operation (he said it looked like I was performing surgery):

I removed the provisional cast on and put those stitches on a second dpn, checked five times to make sure that I didn't have the length of edging twisted and was correctly matching up the ends, hitched up my glasses for optimal magnification and began..........

TADA!

The next process is to pick up stitches (1,200+) along the straight edge (only took three tries to get it right) and knit the mitred border which is about 100 rows long - this could take a while - so far the four rows that I have knit took about 2 hours per row.

On Sunday I went to a spin-in at Barb's (I don't spin but the nice fiber ladies let me bring my knitting). A couple hours of knitting, eating, chatting - before I knew it I was ready to knit the toe on the second sock of a pair I've been working on since the start of the year. Always glad to finish the second sock! The pattern is a 7-stitch twisted rib cable. The yarn is by Neighborhood Fiber Company (purchased at The Loopy Ewe):

I had a lot of fun designing and knitting this colorful modular scarf in Crystal Palace Mini-Mochi purchased at The Kirkwood Knittery. The pattern is being test knit and then it will be available on Ravelry and on my blog through Ravelry (you don't need to be a member of Ravelry to purchase a pattern). The scarf is knit in garter stitch trapezoids, there are no seams. One length is knit with the first skein and the second length is attached as it is knit with the second skein:

This yarn is a very loosely spun fingering weight wool. It's very soft and has a pretty halo (makes it hard to rip out) with long repeats of various colors.

Almeara

In the latest Vogue Knitting (Winter 2008/2009) there is a pattern for a gorgeous pair of gloves, "Almeara", by Jared Flood (Brooklyn Tweed) and an accompanying article about Jared, "All you need is glove".

Here are my Almeara's knit in Elsebeth Lavold Angora which has been languishing in my stash for quite a while.  They were a lot of fun to knit and went very quickly, taking a little more than 4 evenings and less than three skeins to complete.

This yarn is heavier than the recommended yarn (Rowan Scottish Tweed DK), so my gloves are a little bit large and bulky but they are warm and fit over my rings - I love them!

The gloves start with an i-cord cast-on. That is a new cast-on for me and it is very cool.

I am glad to have it in my repertoire and can't wait to use it on future projects/designs.

Before blocking the fingers curl toward the palm since the palm side is done in garter stitch - that makes them look good without even having any fingers inside!

There are a number of errors in this pattern. Also there are a couple decrease rows that I thought could be worked better than the instructions given, although these may not have been errors. Here are my notes, bold/red are the changes I noted to the pattern. I think that most of these were quite obvious and many knitters would be able to make these corrections on their own without too much confusion.

Left Middle Finger

Round 4: k9, p1, k4, p1, k1

Left Thumb - Round 4 was omitted.

Round 4: p3, k8, p8

Right Pinkie

I thought the cables should be reversed:

Row 1: 4 st LC, k2, p1, k8

Row 3: k2, 4 st RC, p1, k8

Right Ring Finger

I thought the decreases should be worked:

[K2tog] 2x, [ssk] 2x, [p2tog] 3x, p1

Right Middle Finger

First sentence... 'work 5 palm sts',

would be clearer if it read: purl 5 palm sts'.

Round 4: k1, p1, k4, p1, k9

Decrease round ends with 8 sts.

Right Index Finger

I thought the Decrease Round should read:

ssk, [k2tog] 3x, [p2tog] 4x, p1

Right Thumb:

Decrease Round should read:

[k2tog] 4x, p1, [p2tog] 5x -- 10 sts.

Maybe in my next career I'll be tech editor.

Looking for my knittting mojo....

Haven't posted for a while feeling that I had nothing to say or show.

A couple weeks ago I was feeling uninspired and couldn't get interested in any of my works in progress or any new projects.

I had decided that the next day I would go to Kirkwood Knittery for some inspiration.

That evening I received an invitation from RogueKnits - she and Brooke had decided to knit the Lerwick Shawl by Sharon Miller and Deborah invited me to play too.

Isn't it funny how things like that work out? I was feeling so down on the knitting and at a loss of what to do next and the next thing you know Deborah comes along presenting me with a project challenging enough to help get my mojo back. (Plus the $1 skein bin at Kirkwood Knittery is always helpful too!)

Sharon Miller (Heirloom Knitting - click the link for some gorgeous shawl eye candy) wrote this pattern to copy an antique shawl, the finished shawl measures approximately 65" square and takes 2000-2500 yards of 2-ply.

Deborah anticipates that it will take her three weeks to complete this shawl - knowing how fast Deborah knits all those awesome lace objects, I believe that she will do just that.

I am just getting started on this project having the book and yarn in my possession for only a few days.

I have never knit with yarn this fine, I have never knit a lace stitch pattern that is patterned on both sides with a garter background - this will definitely be a challenge for moi.

The instructions give options for knitting the shawl from edging to border to center - or vice versa.

Starting with the sideways edging appeals to me as that is my least favorite part of a shawl to knit  [I dislike having to flip the whole piece over every other row to attach it at the end of every second row to the shawl.   I could knit every other row backwards if it was a plain row, but this edging is patterned on both sides and would take me forever (I tried it)].  In fact several times I have knit an edging separately and attached it by hooking the live stitches of the shawl to the chain selvage of the edging as per Joan Schrouder's instructions in Best of Knitter's Shawls and Scarves - the procedure is a bit scary but works fine.

I'll be using a 2-ply from Colourmart, color is Stone, a blend of 50% merino/50% silk. The pattern calls for a size 3 US needle but as an extremely loose knitter I knit this swatch with Size 1 US dpn's (now I need a find a source for a Size 1 US circ):

Naturally I have already decided to re-swatch and slightly change the edging. Why? Because the insertion is a four row repeat and the edging is given as a 14 row repeat, plus it's bugging me that the two little triangular sections between the edging and the insertion don't match.

Bring on the mojo.....

A few finished objects....

Here are a few finished object's since my last post...

A pair of socks in J. Knits yarn, stitch pattern from Treasury #3:

                

One entrelac sock in two colors of Shibui, some day I'll knit the second sock:

A vest that began as a circular shrug that didn't work out: the gray yarn is Needful Yarns Disco; the Multi-color sparkly yarn is by Artyarns (this yarn used to be a tam that didn't work out due to the weight of the beads), still need to get a closure:

I also knit this beret by the Rainey Sisters for my sister, Beth and forget to take a photograph.

Lastly I've started another pair of socks in a multicolor pink yarn, not liking the yarn but loving the color[s] and I'm working on a Shetland Tea Shawl (Gathering of Lace) in Alpaca With A Twist Fino:

No Knitting Content Today...

Being the proud Mom, I just have to share some photos of this milestone..........

  

Sorry for the lack of a post the last few weeks, and further for no knitting content this date.  This week's excuse is that a) I had a cold and didn't do much knitting and b) I've been pre-occupied with DD's college graduation and the holidays.

Happy Holidays!

Fair Isle Mitts

It's can be hard to find just the right shade of pink yarn. Recently I bought the perfect fuschia color of Cascade Heritage at The Loopy Ewe and was looking forward to making some socks for myself.  I was having a fun time deciding if I wanted to design a pattern or use one of the other patterns I'd been admiring, like Clessidra or Bayerische, maybe even Baudelaire.


My daughter was to home to visit and I said isn't this the nicest shade of fushcia?   She said, 'oh that would be perfect for those gloves you promised to make me'.....so much for my fuschia socks.


This pattern: Classic Elite Nederland Opera Mitts by Mary Jane Mucklestone


We decided I would use shades of gray for the fair isle patterning and conveniently I had just purchased cream, gray and dark gray sock yarn (Pace by Universal Yarns) at the Kirkwood Knittery.


The pattern is written for worsted weight yarn, so I adjusted the stitch counts for fingering weight. Instead of 48 stitches as given in the pattern, I used 72 sts.


She didn't want the gloves to go past her elbow as shown in the pattern, so I figured using the same number of rounds with fingering weight should end up just the right length. She is tiny and they are longer than I anticipated, but she seemed to be pleased.