Cap Shawl Finished

One week later, and one massive frogging later than planned, I am finally finished with the Cap Shawl. Yarn: Misti Alpaca Lace

Needles: Susan Bates DPN size 4 and KP Options size 4 with various length cables.

Time: Just a little over 7 weeks, due to a mistake in the edging and having to frog 1/3 of the way back around.

More photos and stats are available on my blog.

Cynder

A new start

I've been wanting to knit another shawl. Shawl knitting must be at least as addictive as sock knitting. Once you finish one, well, you're sunk. They're so wonderfully satisfying to make! I have this green mystery yarn...


I've had it for years. Found it recently when I was digging through my stash. I think it's a wool blend, but don't even know that much for sure. It's certainly soft, and it has a nice sheen to it. It's a braid or chain or something, not a twist, so has an interesting texture, too. Plus, on top of all that, it's slippery as all get out. I've already dropped a stitch, and had to back up a bit to recover it properly. I'll definitely be operating with lifelines for this one. I'm only up to row 27 of the handsome triangle on page 32, but wanted to show you. Totally jazzed. New shawl project on the needles. I'm a happy camper.


Laura

spider's-web shawl

Pattern: Spider’s-web shawl
Size: Half hexagon
Finished Measurements: approx. 75” across top, 24” from middle center down to bottom of shawl
Yarn: silk merino hand painted lace from Yarn Ahoy etsy store in color chocolate cinnamon, 1 skein
Needles: 4.5 mm, 5mm and 5.5 mm circular addi turbo needles
Modifications: ended shawl after working Chart C once using 5.5 mm needles (the pattern calls for this chart to be worked 4 more times in 6 mm needles, resulting in a completed half hexagon 84” x 36”), single crochet bind off

I’m not sure what drives me to knit lace. A burst of passion for the delicate yarn and interesting stitches carries me through the bulk of a lace project. What is it that calls you to gather lace weight yarn and needles and find a seat next to good light? In this case I was drawn to the shawl featured on page 42 of VLT – the idea of strolling in a lush garden draped in hand knitted lace, the simple Barège pattern highlighted by the surrounding greenery. It speaks of leisure and elegance, a feeling that I wanted to try to recreate with my needles. This is the first time I used variegated lace weight yarn and I think it worked well in this pattern, but in general it’s a risky endeavor, no? The blocking process didn’t go as smoothly as usual: the yarn bled a lot in the sink, I really could have used blocking wires to get the hexagon shape perfect. I didn’t knit the last four repeats of Chart C – I had my fill of the Barège pattern and realized that the finished size (84”) would mean coming up with a creative blocking surface plan.



Layers of lace & tissue, ready to be mailed to its recipient.

Cross posted at The Daily Purl.

Blocking Lace

I got my new KnitPicks catalog today and there was an interesting article in it about blocking lace. A more detailed article can be found in pdf format on their website, along with a pdf intruction sheet on building a blocking frame. I'm not affiliated with KnitPicks -- I just thought this was good info and worth a look.

Double the pleasure.......

Double Border Scarf (pg 104)

Yarn: Rowan's Kidsilk Haze

Colorway: Candy Girl

Needle Size: 6

Blocked size: 19x57

Here she is, the second of my Double Border Scarves. After having done a previous one, this one seemed to move right along. It took a little over a week to do, most of the progress came on the weekends. I finished this one up Saturday afternoon and she went immediately to blocking. As usual, I failed to capture the true color of this yarn....it's fuchsia, quite lovely. I only had two skeins of the Kidsilk so I went down a size in the needle and had enough to do 19 repeats of the pattern instead of the 20 called for. It's about 10 inches shorter than my first version (see here to compare) but I think it's still a nice size scarf. It goes into the Christmas cache for now, I think the recipent will be thrill when she gets it.

Melon is Blocked

I used JaegerSpun Zephyr Wool-Silk lace weight in violet on size 7 needles.

From Cherry Leaf to Handsome Triangle

My first attempt at knitting a shawl from this book has been abandoned. This is the Shoulder Shawl in the Cherry Leaf Pattern from page 134, but after noticing the "stripe" going through it, I tossed it into a bag and put it in a "time out".

The yarn is variegated Graceful laceweight yarn I purchased at Stitches West from the Yarn Place. When I saw the skein, I fell in love with it and I still do love the yarn, but all the color changes were gradual until the "stripe" section. The yarn was a dream to work with, but since I don't like the look of the shawl, I've given it up for something else.

This is the beginnings of A Handsome Triangle on page 32. The yarn is dark navy Grignasco Regina that I purchased when I was with Laura at our LYS. I've completed 80 of the 212 rows and although it says it's an intermediate pattern, I'm really not finding it all that difficult. Maybe the practice from the other shawl helped though. If all goes well, this should be a nice present for my mother-in-law (mum) for her June birthday.

On a side note, if you click the photo to make larger, you'll notice the perfect laceweight stitchmarkers from Team Entrelac. There's not a single open gap or rough edge (burr), so they are ideal!

Handsome Triangle Progress

Here is a picture of my handsome triangle shawl in Kidsilk Haze. Progress was slow since I stopped to work on something else, but it is back in action now. This is a picture of it after row 80. Sorry the detail is bad - I didn't have anything dark to photograph it against. But you can start to see some patterning happening.

Question though. What method are you all using for joining a new ball of yarn? The project is so lacy that you could see weaved in ends- or they could fall out? This is my first kidsilk project so I just wasn't sure the best way to go about it - any suggestions would be appreciated!

Handsome Triangle Progress

Here is a picture of my handsome triangle shawl in Kidsilk Haze. Progress was slow since I stopped to work on something else, but it is back in action now. This is a picture of it after row 80. Sorry the detail is bad - I didn't have anything dark to photograph it against. But you can start to see some patterning happening.

Question though. What method are you all using for joining a new ball of yarn? The project is so lacy that you could see weaved in ends- or they could fall out? This is my first kidsilk project so I just wasn't sure the best way to go about it - any suggestions would be appreciated!

Another Double Border Scarf

Apparently....well.....I'm addicted to this scarf.....can't get enough of it. I had bought 2 skeins of Rowan - Kidsilk haze for a scarf...any scarf, just to do another one from this book.But no, what do I do...I co another Double Border....it's like I can't help myself. The yarn is such a beautiful color, more of a fuscia than I can get my camera to show you.

I'm about half way through and should just-about-have-enough to do 19 repeats (instead of 20) but I've also downsized the needle to a size 6 to help make the scarf long enough. I don't want to chance getting on the 20th repeat and to about row 18 then run out of yarn....[just my luck]...so I'll stop with the 19th repeat. This one is likely to go into the 'Christmas stash' too...we'll see.

Melon is Finished!

I finished knitting my Melon Shawl. Off the needles it looked like this:



Then I pinned it out:





Although I enjoyed knitting this shawl, I did start to get a bored by the end of the center panel. There just wasn't enough going on with the pattern to keep me interested. I love the border though, and think that it provides the perfect counter-balance to the center panel's curvy, circular shapes. I would really recommend using a provisional cast on for the center panel and the border if you knit this shawl. I didn't read far enough ahead in the pattern to figure out that I should be doing that. It would have made it easier to attach the border and graft together the ends of the border as well.

I used Jaeger Spun Zephyr (the laceweight version) to make this shawl and I love it. It's seems to me to be a perfect lace knitting yarn. It's wool so it's flexible and soft and slippery on the needles, but it also has some silk blended in so that it has a fantastic sheen to it. I love it. The color is really sort of lavendar/violet rather than light blue. Anyway, I loved knitting this shawl and I will post pictures as soon as it is done blocking.

Knitting at the Edge

I've made it to the edge of the Cap Shawl, and I think we might have a FO in the next week or so. Before I started on the edging, I had almost 740 stitches in each round, which has made for some slow progress.

Since I downsized the yarn and needles for this shawl, I know she is going to be smaller than the 6ft, but I won't know how much smaller until I am blocking.

Cynder

Melon Border

I am now more than halfway done with the border on my Melon Shawl. The color is kind of a violet-periwinkle color. A very light, blue-purple. I've had a really hard time capturing it so far.

Started something new

Lace knitting really is addictive.
Just when I finished the first shawl I had to start the next one immediately. Now that I binded off the third one, I really wanted to start another one.

I chose "A Handsome Triangle" on page 30. And this one is for nobody else but me! The three scarves I knit during the last weeks were presents and so I wanted to knit another one for myself.

I had already four balls of the wool but I think that isn't enough so I wanted to make sure that I can get some more balls from the same dye lot before starting this new project.
On Saturday I met with my friend Melli and we visited the yarn store at Siegen. Lucky me, they had some balls from the same dye lot. So I bought three more balls - just to be sure that I won't run out of yarn.
I will add a ruffle to the scarf and so I will need a lot of yarn - many yards more than indicated in the pattern.

On Sunday I started knitting and the picture shows my progress after 28 rows. There's not much to see of the pattern, but you can imagine the beautiful colour. I use Rowan's Kidsilk Spray, colour no. 574.



Aren't the needles of my Boye needlemaster just perfect for this project?
By chance the 4mm needles are lilac too. But I think of changing to my bamboo needles again as I knit always very firm. But when using the lilac needles it is much firmer than usual and the stitches don't slide on the needle. So knitting would be a hard job.

By the way: this scarf needs my full concentration. There are yarnovers and "knit-togethers" in every row. So it's not a project for in-between but you always have to be aware that you follow the instructions correctly.

Karin

The VLT scarf patterns started me thinking -- hey, if you made them wider, you'd have a mini-shawl. It only took one skein of KP Gossamer to make this little shawl. It's 15" X 48". I used the spider-net pattern from VLT for the edging, which was about 11" deep. For the center panel, I wanted something a little more elaborate than the garter stitch/drop stitch design used in so many of the VLT scarves, so I chose the flower lace pattern from the cover sweater of the new issue of VK.

You can wear it like this, or overlap the edges and wear it off to the side, etc.

Blocking

is essential to lace knitting.

The first shawl I did from "our" book was "Stripes & Torchon Lace" from page 158.

Before blocking the shawl looked like a picture of misery in some way.

Didn't it?

While blocking you can imagine the beautiful design


and I really like how it is turning out so far.
Hope soon to have a picture of the finished piece which my best friend got for her birthday.

Karin

Melon Pictures

I finished the center panel of my Melon Shawl last night and started on the border. I'm loving the border, much more than I thought I would. Unfortunately, all of these pictures showcase the one big honking mistake that I made: forgetting to work the Melon stitch on the last repeat of about the tenth pattern repeat. Once I'm done I will wrap a strand of yarn around that repeat and it will not look so jackass.

Bit Of A Start

I bought this yarn to be a Melon Shawl, but the yarn wanted to be a Shoulder Shawl in Syrian Pattern.



Do I know why? No. But I do know I don't like Crystal Palace Kid Merino quite as well as Kidsilk Haze, though it does appear to be a good, less costly, substitute, and it comes in some interesting colors. It just doesn't have quite the sheen and softness of Kidsilk Haze.

I have no clue what I'm going to do with this shawl when I'm done. I have two triangle shawls already that I don't get to wear often enough.

Finished Melon

At last I have finished Melon and I love it . After blocking it, it now measures 23" wide by 86" long. I did the pattern as stated but the yarn I used was more fingering weight so I guess that accounts for it being bigger than the size stated in the book. I love the fact that I can wrap myself in it and the yarn which was 50% silk & 50% cashmere has soften so much after washing it



My next one from the book I think will be 'Dolphin Lace' which I have some Posh Yarn cashmere/silk in a deep pink to use . Not sure if this will be for me as I am not a 'pink person' but we will see :)

Black melon is done!

I finished my Melon shawl over the weekend. Seems to have been a popular thing to do! LOL Mine's in black Kidsilk Haze. I used all but 8g of the 4th ball. Glad I got it.



There's a close up of the lace on my blog, if you're interested.

Bad Pictures of My Melon Shawl

I've worked 40-some repeats of the center panel, so I'm more than halfway there.

FO: Melon Shawl

The melon shawl was the easiest shawl I have ever knitted. The pattern repeat is easily memorized and executed. I did not like the border shown in the book, however, so I used the narrow point border (page 183) instead. More details can be found on my blog.

-Heather

Shoulder Shawl...finished!

I finished the first of my three shawls-in-progress from this wonderful book and have already given it away as a belated birthday gift. I ended up enlarging it substantially - going to 281 sts before binding off, but I still couldn't figure out how to add the knitted on border! (I feel like a dunce...I am a pretty accomplished knitter but I sit down to do this and I get all thumbs and needles, can't find the stitches I'm picking up, can't remember which side I'm on etc, etc.) So once again (as the last one of these I did), I added the peaked edging border from the Swallowtail pattern. Maybe when I have more time, I can master this border nonsense, but this wasn't it.

The yarn was from Handpainted Yarns and at $5.95 for 850 yards, you can't beat it. It's soft as can be and worked up beautifully. I used size 3 needles and, even with making it larger than called for, I have probably a good 1/4 of the yarn left over! There are more photos on my blog if you're interested.

Finished size - 60" wide, 24" from top edge to center point

This pattern is a joy and I'll be making many more of them, I'm sure!

Double Border Scarf FO

We've returned from vacation and as promised here's the FO of the of the Double Border Scarf.

Double Bordered Scarf (pg. 104)
Yarn: Misti Alpaca
Color: Pink
Needle: size 7
Finished size blocked: 19” (point to point) by 67”

I had to get a little help (thanks Jennifer) to get this started because I had not knitted a pattern like this before. The pattern itself is actually pretty easy in regards to the stitches, however it does require a good bit of concentration to keep up with where you are at and what you should be doing at the time. I do love the results and think I would do this pattern again at some point. I'm doing another scarf at the moment, but it's not from this book. However, I do have several other patterns in the book earmarked for future projects. DBS goes in the stash for Christmas presents. I think the intended recipient will be thrilled.