The penguin with the pointy sticks

FO: On a walk in the park

I was so pleased with my leafy scarf design inspired by an interesting skein of Ripples Crafts yarn that I took the finished object for a walk in the park in this lovely sunny weather.

Inspirational colour

My 2012 yarn diet has reached March - although I think I may crack before too long. But it doesn't stop me recieving yarn gifts and recently the lovely Juliet Barnard of The Knitter gave me a stunning skein of sock yarn from Ripples Crafts.

The colour way is Assynt Ancient Tartan, a mix of deep brown, rich tan and a subtle leafy green. I fell in love with it right away and the skein has been resting on the end of the sofa from where I've picked it up dozens of times to contemplate. I was wondering what to use it for but in reality it was obvious. Every time I looked at it I thought of beech trees in autumn and the leaves we used to rake up in our garden when I was a child. 

So I started flicking through some lace source books and have started work on a long slim scarf that could be wtrapped into the neck of a coat or draped over a plain dress or sweater. I'm using the two leaf patterns below if it works to my satisfaction I'll reveal the full effect here soon.

 

 

 

 

Outside in or inside out - choices, triangles and shawls

All the triangular - and hexagonal - shawls I've made until now have been what I would describe as inside out. By that I mean they have started with few stitches that form the centre of the long edge and the pattern increases in two triangular panels either side of a central "spine" - as in the leaf pattern on this shawl.

But last week I made Blyth by Kitman Figueroa which works the other way. You start with the edging casting on, in this case, more than 300 stitches, and forming the shape by decreasing to create triangles on each side of the spine.

There are advantages and disadvantages of this method. Yes because each row is shorter, there is a feeling of the whole process speeding up. On the other hand with an inside out construction you set the initial lace pattern over a very few stitches and can then use preceding rows to help accurately place new pattern repeats. With the outside in approach you have to correctly place a lot of lace repeats over the 300+ stitches with nothing to refer to.

Each person will probably have their own view of which method they prefer but both produce lovely shawls so the choice may depend on what effect the designer wants from the edging.

Meanwhile my Blyth is looking great.

 

Win, win

Look at this lovely selection yarns which I was lucky enough to win in the p/hop Christmas competition.

They were donated by Loop and are Dye for Yarn tussah silk lace (blue), Heaven's Hand Silke (green) and Viola merino lace.

Even better on the day my prize reached me, I also heard that I'd won some stitch markers in the Subway Knits queue clearance KAL draw. This is an effort to actually knit pattern that have been languishing in our Ravelry queues. 

Now some plotting and planning is required.

 

11 shawls in 2011 - or 13 in 11 months

It is done - in January I took up the challenge of knitting 11 lace shawls and stoles during 2011. I followed the rules set by a group on Ravelry that:

"The minimum requirement of meterage is 250 meter (ca 273 yards) whereas 2 must use at least 500 meters (ca 546 yards) of yarn. There are no upper limits to meterage if you want to knit 10 big shawls :) Any shapes will do - but no sleeves and cowls.

The minimum width requirement on scarves, is 10 inches, or 25 centimeters."

In addition, I decided that all mine would feature lace - from complex to v simple - and would be knitted from yarn in my stash on 1 Jan 2011.

So how did I do?

I started on 22 January and finished on 2 December, so that's 11 in 11 months.

I used a range of yarns, mainly wool or wool blends but also silk, cashmere, bamboo and even possum. And a range of shapes rectangle, triangle, hexagon and semicircle.

The yarn weights were cobweb (only the once), laceweight and 2 in 4ply. And I definitely met the meterage requirements: the least yarn used was 360m in the final shawl pictured above and the greatest, just under a kilometer each for the red cobweb stole and the fuchsia pink large semicircle. Only three came in under 500m.

About half have already been given away as gifts so I can't photograph the collection as one but I can at least present a gallery. 

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But why 13? Well I also test knitted two shawls for designers this year.

Was it worth it? Yes, I've learnt a lot about lace, improved my skills and created some beautiful items.

And a new challenge? There are still shawls I want to knit, including a Victorian item that uses 2km+ of yarn. Plus I want to design my own. 

Watch this space.

 

Making life difficult for myself

I'm planning a mini knit-a-long with a friend to take on vintage style short-sleeved Fair Isle jumpers. But being a bit out of practice with colourwork I decided to take on a couple of smaller projects first. But I also decided to go for a spot of self-improvement by learning to hold one colour strand in each hand.

This takes some practice to ensure even tension and I find I have to swap the yarns between my hands a lot because I can only manage some tasks with my left. On reflection a practice swatch with something relatively simple like a traditional star was probably the best way forward - instead these reindeer have been unpicked a few dozen times but at least they don't look too mutant now. But more practice required.

Meanwhile, I console myself with some lace and wire making successes.

Find out about other people's Making Monday.

 

 

Making Monday: Magazines and Shetland Glory

Sometimes I feel like I don't have much to say for Making Monday but that's probably because I'm tired from the day job which on Mondays is very focused on making a magazine. Monday is the press day - the final day pages go to the printer - for the weekly magazine I edit, Community Care.

But even so, this evening I've been working on the final graft of my first foray into Shetland lace and indeed knitting with cobweb yarn (very very fine, for the uninitiated). This is number nine of my 11 shawls in 2011 project and being me I took on a challenge producing a stole measuring 210cm by 40cm knitted on 2.25mm needles (that's very very tiny, for the uninitiated). 

The pattern Crowning Glory by Lucinda Guy was interesting and challenging - making bobbles in this size of yarn and needle takes concentration and determination - and the end product is glorious even if I say so myself.

Meanwhile you can find out more about other people's making at the Yarn Yard blog.

 

Sweater from the inside out...

...well the centre to be acutrate.

I've been making Sarah Hatton's Framboise top published in The Knitter magazine.

It is basically made up from two lace squares knitted from the centre out - Such an interesting idea I cast it on almost immediately to see how it worked.

Having established I don't like magic looping with very few stitches . I cast on again on double pointed needles and then swapped to circulars as it grew.

Lace being lace the pieces were quite scunchy when they came off the needles so I decided to block them to size (for my own peace of mind) beforre joining and knitting the neck, arm and bottom welts. The pattern has blocking after the welts have been added.

A  this point I did wonder if Iwas making a giant granny square top...

...but a bit of seaming and rib welts and you have a pretty and shapely top.

Making Monday 2: In need of a finishing Friday

Right now I don't have any problem with the making but finishing anything seems quite far off right now which has lead to a bad case of startitis.

The problem is in part due to making two lace projects on very small needles which inevitably take ages. 

There's the cotton tunic...

...  and the cobweb weight Shetland Lace stole (beautiful but a couple of centimeters takes a long time).

Then there is the pink T-shirt, I cast on so had knitting to take to  Belfast to see Mum. Although knitting needles should be allowed through UK airports, I find it best to have my project on interchangeable circulars so I can separate the ends before going through security. Neither of the tiny projects qualified and so something else had to be cast on.

I did cast off on item recently - a summer cardigan. Unfortunately I then lost the buttons (now found) just as I was ready to sew them on. 

Then there's a skirt to sew up, and some fused glass to mount into jewellery.

Enough to keep me occupied you'd think. But I had an idea of how a lovely skein of Nimu lace would make the perfect but it had to beaded - and then I saw the perfect beads to replace nupps in an Estonian pattern and now I really want to experiment.

And then I have the perfect yarn to make the cover pattern from the latest edition of The Knitter - a real tempter because of it's unusual centre out construction.

I will be strong.

I will make this Friday a finishing day.

And right now I'll make myself some dinner.

Shawls tested and revealed

I recently blogged about some test knitting I'd been doing - now I can reveal what they were.

First is the Frosty Diamonds Shawl from Anniken Allis's easy lace collection. 

And the other is South Kensington from One Hand Knits aka Anna Richardson. Both required a single skein of sock yarn.