Seattle Extras

So, my last post had nothing crafty in it, and I did want to share a few things.

Here I am, working on a test knit shawl for Michelle (of PDX Knitterati). I found a few moments on our trail hike to sit and enjoy the nice weather and the negative ions from the water. I'm wearing my Travelling Woman shawl (in case you were wondering)


Something I've been making for people lately - Crochet Bracelets. I made them for bday presents and for a spinning swap that I recently participated in. They are really simple to make - I used 26 gauge colored wire, beads, a size J metal crochet hook and a magnetic clasp. You can check out in Debbie Stoller's "The Happy Hooker" for the pattern I used :) I am sorry to say that I have not been photographing them, because I make them and the next day give them away, and then say, "DARN! I should have taken a picture!" So, here you go, I took one with my cell phone just to say I have a picture of one! This one may end up being gifted as well, because I think I may be allergic to the metal. I was wearing it for a little while and my arm started to itch where the bracelet was. Grr :(



Bead purchases from Shipwreck! I bought the 6/0 beads for the above mentioned shawl, some swarovski crystals, blue-green stars, two boxes of mixed beads in turquoise and purple, a few turtle charms and some Bails (for a project coming soon! well for Christmas, so probably wont post about that for a long time yet).  You can click on the picture to see the beads in better detail.

Recent FOs

I recently finished a couple of shawls that I wanted to share with you! Neither of the pictures do the shawls justice, because they are made with Glam sock.  That yarn has silver fiber in it, so in the sun they sparkle like you wouldn't believe! Totally gorgeous, totally me!!

Ishbel by Ysolda Teague
StitchJones Glam Sock "After Midnight"
A nice simple pattern - took me 10 days to knit :) I made this as a shop sample for Sharon of StitchJones and it was really really really hard to let it go!



Echo Flowers Shawl by Jenny Johnson Johnen
StitchJones Glam Sock "Simply Irrisistable"
23 days to finish. I did not have enough yarn for the edge chart, so I just continued with the border chart until the "nupps" came to a point. Instead of making nupps I used beads for extra sparkles.

Ravelymics 2010

I didn't have time to blog the last 3 weeks because I was busily knitting on my Ravelymics projects!

I *finally* finished my monster "WIP Dancing" project - the 4 Season's Throw by Judith Shangold.

You guys, I started this in June 2008. Being the project oriented person that I am, it was like a monkey (or rather a gorilla) on my back sitting in my ravelry project page at 65% for months. I had no interest in working on the strips because the block patterns were boring, and lace is much more interesting. As a prize at the end, I allowed myself to stray from the pattern for the last block and I used Barbara Walker's Embossed Turtle pattern for the green square. Although I despised this blanket as I was working on it, I love it now. It is really warm and cozy to have on the couch. It also ended up bigger than I thought it would, each block is about 14.5" x 14.5" after it was blocked.



For "Short Track Shawls" I used - 198yds of Heaven by Christy Verity
The yarn is Madiline Tosh DK in Fjord, a bday present from my friend Patrice. This was the perfect project for the yarn, since it only needed on skein of yarn! I finished this in only 10 days. It would have been done faster if I had not had the blanket to work on. It's a great mini shawl and totally my colors! I'm keeping this one for me! I modified the border of the pattern, because I didn't like that the yo's did not line up with the body of the pattern.



I did watch a lot of the Olympics while working on these projects, but for the last week I was just getting bored by the NBC coverage. They were very biased to the American athletes and did not show scores during the ice skating if it wasn't an American (for the most part). They were jumping all around between 4 different events each evening and I felt like I had ADD watching :( Only towards the end did I find out Curling was on USA network. GAH! I've never watched it before and thought I would try to, oh well.

Pavo Real Shawl

Forgot to blog about this shawl!

I was surprised that it only took me one week to knit! It's blue, it's sparkly and it's totally me :) I love this shawl!!

This shawl is worked from the point upwards and the chart is a little difficult to read because there are 3 separate charts, it only took me 2 false starts before I was off and running.

Pattern - Pavo Real Shawl
Yarn - Kitchen Sink Dyeworks Silver Spoon

Shawl FOs

Well, I thought the new year was going along beautifully, until I got sick again. I went from having a sinus infection that went away and came back again to getting the stomach flu. The flu was awful! And to make it even worse than that, Owen got sick at the same time. Imagine having us both sick and then taking care of Hazel. It's been a few days since the "attack" and I'm still recovering. This really hit us hard! Owen thought it was "romantic" because now we can share our stories of being sick and have someone else understand how gross it all was. Can I get better now? kthxbai!

So, I did manage to get a couple of shawls finished.

I have not decided if I want to keep this for myself yet. I love it, and I love the pattern (even if it was St st and only had 3 rows where action happened) because I could just knit and purl and not have to really pay attention to what I was doing. I guess I'm just not sure about the color on me. I don't have a lot of things that match it.

This was my first attempt at dyeing yarn. I used Wilton's icing dyes and followed these instructions. I started out using the no-taste red and instead of a crimson, it turned a strange pink. So, I added some burgundy and that made it better. I would post pictures of the dyepot, but it looks like I'm cooking intestines, I kid you not! Long story short, I didn't put enough vinegar in the pot and when I rinsed it my hands turned pink, so I cooked the yarn again and it felted a little bit. In hind sight I probably shouldn't have used Malabrigo lace as my first yarn to dye, but oh well, it gave the yarn a fuzzy halo that I kind of like.

Pattern - Citron
Yarn - Malabrigo laceweight



And what would a blog post be without a picture of Hazel???

I never inteded to knit her a shawl when she was this young, but OMG I'm so happy that I did because she looks so cute in it! I used the yarn from a Hazel Knits baby sock kit that I purchased wayyyyy back at Sock Summit. I took the sock with me on TWO vacations and only got to the heel flap of the first sock. Yeah, it took me 5 months and guess what? Hazel grew up too fast and I knew that if I ever finished the socks they would not fit over her toes. After a poll on my facebook I ended up frogging the sock and Tami suggested a few patterns I could use the yarn for. She found a cute bear shawl (rav link) and I would have done that, but the price was 6.00 for a basic mini shawl pattern!!!!!!! So did a search on Ravelry and found this adorable hearts shawl pattern for an American Girl doll. Hazel will soon outgrow this shawl and I"m not even sure if I could keep it on her for very long if I did put it on her, so it will be for her bear.

Pattern - Loving Hearts Shawl
yarn - Hazel Knits sock yarn in Tulip

Swallowtail

Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark
Yarn: Knitpicks Shadow in Snorkel
The only change to the pattern was to use beads instead of making nupps.

Yay, it's done! It took me less than 1 month to finish it and I thought it would take me 2. I really enjoyed working on this, the patterns were simple and did not bore me! Unfortunately, I won't be sporting this, because it's for my mom! I hope that she will be surprised to get a shawl for Christmas for the 2nd year in a row!! I hope she likes it. I think if I make one for myself, I would do the modifier to make it larger by adding more repeats. I found a thread on the swallowtail kal ravelry group that explains how many more repeats to do, and I think it is 19 of the first pattern.  This shawl did not take a full skein of yarn, in fact I had a quarter of  it left over.  I have 2 more skeins of this yarn to make another shawl, maybe I'll do an Aeolian from knitty.

Pearl's Shawl

This is the project I've been working on the last month. It is the Leaf and Nupp shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia. It is made with fiber from my rabbit Pearl who passed in July. It is my tribute to her, and I think I did pretty darn well if I may say so! I only had 14 yards left after I cast off, that was cutting it really close at the end, so I skipped a purl round on the edge and I only used one strand instead of two for the bind off. It has a gorgeous halo, it is so light, but it is very warm :)

State Fair

My Rona Lace Shawl won second place at state fair!

Finished Shawl

This is the first project that I've made using my own handspun yarn!!

400 yds of Abstract Fiber Alpaca/Merino/Silk in Blue Rainbow plied with a white A/M/S and a spool of silver glitter thread.

Rainbow Shawl

This is the first project that I am knitting using my handspun yarn!! Very cool huh? I think so! I got Ernie to model it, he probably thought it was a nice warm blanket made just for him. The pattern is the Simple Yet Effective Shawl, it can be found on ravelry.

PS, I'm testing out the blogging feature on Picassa!

Surprise

Making something that sounded like a good idea at the time, now that I'm working on it, I am realizing that it's going to take a lot longer than I thought it would. While it's not a complicated pattern it's just time consuming! It takes forever to get one round done!!