Parade of Finished Objects

Looks like I've got some catching up to do since I'm a Blogger Slack-off.

Haruni Shawl

I've been forever trying to decide what to do with two skeins of Malabrigo variegated laceweight, when I saw this pattern (Haruni by Emily Ross) go up on Ravelry it was destined to become a Haruni. Maybe not the best choice for showing off the pattern stitches but it turned out okay (remind me not buy this type of variegated color, not really my style, always looks better in the unwound skein than it does knitted up). The revised version of this pattern is easy to follow and fun to do, didn't take too long either.

Bayerische Socks
This pattern is by Eunny Jang, currently the editor of Interweave; the pattern is here.


I think this sock pattern is gorgeous and tried several times to begin these socks. The problem was that there are four charts and it was tedious and confusing to work from one chart to the next without losing your mind. Finally I took the time to chart it myself in excel and once I printed it out it was smooth sailing........one sock done and one to go. The yarn is Cascade Heritage which I really like for this type of pattern as it shows the stitches nicely.

Starry Night Baby Blanket

Two neighbors' daughters are having babies soon, this will go to one of them for a shower gift. It is really cute but a bit puckery, not sure how great it will look if it just gets tossed into the dryer, I'll put a note with it that it should be dried flat for best results. It was fun crochet project, took a little longer than I thought it would and got a little tedious/boring once I got past the cloud section but I'm happy with the way it turned out. Pattern here.

Carol's Clever Little Shawl

I thought this was a nice idea but it's written for worsted or DK weight and I wanted to use Dream In Color Baby that I recently purchased. I only had one skein and wasn't sure there would be enough yarn (I worry about that for every project!) but there was actually plenty. Had to make some adjustments to the pattern to accomodate the lighter weight yarn and also to mirror the edging in a left and right direction, notes on my Ravelry project page. The flower is from my Flower Scarf pattern and it still needs to be steamed.

Shetland Shawl Redux

I love my fingering weight brown Shetland Shawl but as I wrote in a previous post it was not large enough, I want to be able to wrap/snuggle into it. So I'm glad that I took the time to add some length to the edging, it's much better now. I'm working a better version of this pattern as I'm still trying to work out a nicer transition of the interlocking diamonds around the corners.

Finished Shetland Shawl, etc.

The Flower Scarf pattern has been downloaded over 1,000 times and there are 51 Flower Scarf projects on Ravelry -- that is amazing to me.

Joann made a second Woven Diamonds Faroese:

The shetland style shawl is finished. Why did I call it 'shetland style'?  I began with a cast of one stitch for the center section, increased one stitch every row until the center square reached it's full diagonal width, decreased one stitch every row until 1 stitch remained; picked up stitches all around the square placing markers at each corner and knit the first border, the second border and finally the edging increasing at each side of the four corner stitches every other row.

As I wrote in an earlier post I couldn't decide on an edging for this shawl.  Most of the other shawls I have made have a sideways edging (this type of edging is knit perpendicular to the body of the shawl and attached to the live shawl stitches once for every two edging rows).  A sideways edging is very stretchy since there is no bind off; ideal for a shawl. However, it takes a very long time to work even if it's fairly narrow.  I was getting tired of working on this shawl and decided that in this case it would be nice to work an edging that could be bound off.

Also, since the center and first border stitch patterns are very angular, I felt that the rest of the stitch patterns needed to be more rounded/softer so I settled on four repeats of Horseshoe lace from First Treasury of Knitting Patterns as a second border.   Then I chose a simple edging from Knitted Lace of Estonia that I worked for eight rows before binding off.

I've been forever looking for a good looking loose bind off option.

I've read in several places on the internet that the following is a stretchy bind off:

'*knit two together through the back loop, place resulting stitch on left hand needle, repeat from *'

But I don't find that to be stretchy at all; every two stitches are being reduced to one stitch making it even less stretchy than a regular (knit two, pass the first stitch over, knit the next stitch, repeat) bind off.

I was excited to find the solution in Knitted Lace of Estonia, the bind off above needs one step added in order to be stretchy....like this:

knit 1, place stitch back on left hand needle, knit two together through the back loop,

*knit the next stitch, knit this stitch and the previous stitch together through the back loop; 

repeat from *.

Also I modified it a little by substituting 'knit 1 through the back loop' rather than 'knit 1' which seemed to lay a little flatter.

It took nearly two hours to bind off approximately 600 stitches but even so the whole procedure took less time than a sideways border.

Deborah (Rogue Knit on Ravelry) is an awesome lace knitter and her knitting is gorgeous.  She thinks the key is in the blocking (she is an excellent knitter to begin with but careful blocking does make a huge difference in the look of the finished lace).  Deborah wrote a most informative post on her blog about her method of blocking and since I was just about out of Eucalan, I took a short drive to the nearest Walgreens (what is it with Walgreens anyway - there are six of them in the City of O'Fallon which has a population of 76,000) and bought the Pantene (even had a dollar off coupon).  It certainly smelled better than woolwash.

The shawl measures about 50" square and could have been a bit larger, but it's close enough. I'm pleased with how it turned out although I'm not in love with it yet - it takes a while until I love my finished objects - I know that I am my own worst critic, but I think that after spending so much time on a project I'm tired of it and need some distance before I can go back with a less critical eye and think 'that's really nice - did I 

actually do that?'

Ravelry Love...

Ravelry is fun, fun, fun - the more time I spend there the more I like it.  It's a knitting party 24/7.  

I love seeing everyone's finished objects. My favorite part of the Greater St. Louis Knitter's Guild meetings has always been the portion at the end called 'Show and Share', one aspect that I love about Ravelry is that it is like a giant Show and Share! It's very inspiring to see what people are working on.

It's really been inspiring to post the Flower Scarf free pattern (download it here or here) - I am fascinated that it has been downloaded 373 times and favorited 243 times to date and there are 17 posted Flower Scarf projects listed - very cool.  Susan (I'm Knitting As Fast as I Can) is knitting a Flower Scarf and at the same time working on continental style knitting - I have visited her blog before and admired her patterns - so it's fun that someone I 'know' (is there term for that?) is knitting my pattern.

The Woven Diamonds Faroese has been favorited 67 times and several copies of the pattern have sold in my Ravelry shop (MakeOne's Ravelry Pattern Store).   Regina (Rubicon) is working on the Woven Diamonds Faroese - she chose the prettiest color yarn - can't wait to see how it turns out.

Ariel Socks have been favorited 41 times.  Nancy (Knitarooooo) is making Ariel Socks and posted a nice comment about the pattern on her Ravelry project page.

It's fun too to review my friends 'activity' page.

Plus there is an amazing amount of information in the forums.

And with over 7,800 groups there is a group for just about anything one could think of.

Gotta go back to Ravelry now and get my fix....

Updates

Woven Diamonds Faroese Shawl Classes.........
The class at Kirkwood Knittery was a lot of fun and I learned a bit about teaching.  It was rewarding to see several of my 'students' complete their shawl...here's a photo of JoAnn's shawl before blocking:

Barb's been working on her shawl but her grandson put a crimp in her progress.....you might say that this shawl is so much fun even babies eat it up!

I'll be teaching this class again, this time at Knit 'n Caboodle starting in September.  Contact Knit and Caboodle in St. Charles, MO or watch for information in their newsletter if you're interested in taking this class.

Patterns now also available at Loopy Ewe............
the patterns for Woven Diamonds Faroese, Ariel Socks and Man's First Socks are now available at Loopy Ewe.

UPDATE 09/24/2008 - Woven Diamonds Faroese pattern is also available through my Ravelry Pattern Store or by clicking the link at the right hand side of this page in my 'profile' section.

The three patterns are also available at Kirkwood Knittery and Knit and Caboodle.

Also be sure to check out the Flower Scarf - it is a quick project that uses approximately 150 yards of laceweight yarn. I knit this one with cashmere/silk from Hand Maiden.

It's a FREE PATTERN!

Guild Workshops.....

Last weekend the Greater St. Louis Knitter's Guild hosted workshops by Lily Chin for Guild Members.

Friday evening she spoke about What to Look For in Yarn and gave some tips to help evaluate various yarns and how they behave.  She talked about her stash (so large it has it's own storage space lease), gave some great and amusing ideas for places to store your stash, and advice about why one should not feel guilty for having a stash.

Saturday morning I attended her workshop on Pinstripe Knitting and came away with a lot of ideas for using that technique.

Saturday afternoon the subjects were Design Inspiration and Interpreting Fashion Trends.

Lily brought along a lot of her original garments - very cool to see and touch actual garments that have appeared in magazines and books.  I got to be one of the models which was a lot of fun.

I very much enjoyed meeting and chatting with Lily.  It was really a great event.