Alpine Knit Scarf

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s a project from Victorian Lace Today that was never documented on the blog. It’s a wide scarf—really, it’s a stole—and I knit it in Malabrigo Lace in the colourway Whale’s Tale. The pattern is the Alpine Knit Scarf with Double Rose Leaf Center Pattern and Diamond Border by Jane Sowerby.

Alpine Lace shawl from Victorian Lace Today knit in Malabrigo Lace by Deborah Cooke

My finished shawl is about 55″ long and 18″ wide.

There are several interesting details here. One is that photography often reveals colour shifts that aren’t as noticable in real life. Malabrigo Lace, like many handpainted yarns, has colour variations between skeins. I didn’t know anything about alternating skeins when I knit this and you can see, just a little past halfway and to the right, where I changed from one skein to the next. The left skein is a little bluer and the colours in the right skein are a little less blended.

You might also agree with the idea that lace shouldn’t be knit in yarns with color variations because it hides the detail of the lace. I kind of like it.

Here’s a shot of about half of the shawl (the right half above). Even in the handpainted yarn, you can see that this pattern has a border with a central panel in a different lace pattern, and that they’re separated (and edged) with garter stitch. The Malabrigo didn’t really pool in this knit, which was a nice bonus.

Alpine Lace shawl from Victorian Lace Today knit in Malabrigo Lace by Deborah Cooke This is a beautiful pattern and I loved knitting it. Malabrigo Lace is very (very!) soft, too. I would like to knit it again in a more solid colour, just to see the difference.

You can see the pattern stitch a bit better in this older photo:

Alpine Lace Shawl knit by Deborah Cooke

My Ravelry project page says I knit this in 2007! It’s been living in the cedar chest ever since. One of the good things about digging it out for a new photograph is that I’ve kept it out and am (finally) wearing it.

Charlotte’s Web Shawl Finished

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Deborah Cooke

Today’s Fibre Friday post is a little late, because I needed to wait for some light to take pictures. We had snow, so that made a good backdrop, but it wasn’t sunny yet so the colours are a bit dull compared to real life.

This is my Charlotte’s Web shawl, knit in Koigu KPPPM. I bought a kit with ten skeins in shades of purple and the pattern book. Here are the skeins and the shawl in progress: Charlotte's Web Shawl by Maie Landra knit in Koigu KPPPM by Deborah Cooke

I’m using the progression at the lower right corner. The other five skeins are the remaining ones from the kit that I didn’t use in this shawl. You can see that the lace pattern is bunched up. I knew it would blossom when it was blocked, and wow, I was right. Charlotte's Web Shawl by Maie Landra knit in Koigu KPPPM by Deborah Cooke

The blocked shawl is over a meter deep. I really like the colour gradation in it. I was worried about the fifth colour, that it might be too inky, but IRL it picks up the rosy and inky tones of #4.

As mentioned before, I decided against the fringed edge and tried to use up all the yarn instead in the shawl. I knit the last four rows with the first colour, then did an I-cord bind-off with it.

Here’s a close-up of that lace pattern: Charlotte's Web Shawl by Maie Landra knit in Koigu KPPPM by Deborah Cooke

What do you think?

Renaissance Fan Shawl

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Deborah Cooke

I just finished this shawl, which was a bit of an impulsive buy. The kit came from Earthfaire, with beads and yarn included. I thought it was pretty and ordered it—when it arrived, the colours were so beautiful that the project jumped queue and leaped onto my needles. I’m really happy with how it came out. Renaissance Fan by Nim Teasdale knit in The Unique Sheep Luxe (Earthfaire kit) by Deborah Cooke

The pattern is called Renaissance Fan by Nim Teasdale (the same designer who created the Dragon Scarf I showed you a few weeks ago.) That’s a Ravelry link, and you can buy the pattern there. I bought the kit from Earthfaire, which puts together wonderful kits often with The Unique Sheep gradient-dyed yarn and matching beads. This one isn’t on the site anymore. It came with six skeins of yarn, shading from purple to green.

Renaissance Fan by Nim Teasdale knit in The Unique Sheep Luxe (Earthfaire kit) by Deborah Cooke

The beads included in the kit were purple, although they’re hard to see even in this detail shot. They look great on the actual shawl. You can see that I made a slight miscalculation and ran out of the last green. Fortunately, I had a little bit of lime green left from my Bitterblue shawl (also an Earthfaire kit using TUS yarn, and dyed on the same base yarn – it was meant to be!) so I was able to cast off in lime. I like it!

Renaissance Fan by Nim Teasdale knit in The Unique Sheep Luxe (Earthfaire kit) by Deborah Cooke

What do you think?

Celestarium Shawl

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Deborah Cooke

This year, I’m trying to finish up all the knitting I have in progress, before casting on anything new. I have a LOT on the go, so this is going to take a while. (I also have very little discipline when it comes to knitting and keep casting on more projects, but that’s another challenge. The rationale is that I’m stash-busting.)

My current focus is a circular shawl in gradient-dyed yarn. Let’s talk about that today.

Once upon a time (way back in 2012), a designer created a circular knitted shawl that was essentially a map of the heavens. For every star visible above in the northern hemisphere, there’s a hole and a bead in the shawl. The pattern is called Celestarium. (Subsequently, she did one for the southern hemisphere called Southern Skies.) This is a pretty cool pattern, IMO, and qualifies as geek knitting. There are over 1000 Celestarium shawl projects on Ravelry, if you have some time to browse. Almost 600 of them are completed.

Some time after that, Earthfaire created a kit for the shawl, featuring gradient-dyed yarn from the Unique Sheep and crystal beads. Here’s the product page for the kit, although they don’t have any more.

I did get a kit when they were available, although it’s been waiting on me for a while. (Stash must age before use, you know.) The colourway is called Twilight. Mine shades from purple through to deep blue black. (You could choose to have it shade the other way – the last shade is the biggest skein and is for the border.) This is the same yarn base as my BitterBlue shawl – it’s a merino and tussah silk blend called Luxe. I really like this yarn, probably because I really like raw silk. It also doesn’t have the seracin smell that some silk yarn has, which I really really really dislike.

I’ve been knitting on my Celestarium for quite a while now. It has a lot of plain knitting, with the occasional star – which stands to reason. Even on a starry night, there’s more sky than stars! The charts are huge because there are no repeats: the final chart prints on eight sheets of paper, which then are taped together lengthwise to show the rows.

This is not TV knitting.

Here’s a star: Celestarium by Audry Nicklin knit in the Unique Sheep Luxe (Earthfaire kit) by Deborah Cooke See the little hole to the left of that middle bead? This is from the part closer to the middle of the shawl, where it’s more purple.

(Mr. Math has found a pun for this one, btw. When I drop a bead, he calls it a falling star. When I find it, he asks if I’ve caught a fallen star. Of course, he then advises me to put it in my pocket and save it for a rainy day.)

Round shawls that increase in diameter at a regular rate are called pi-shawls, and are based upon a design by Elizabeth Zimmerman. (My Urdr shawl was another of these.) What happens is that the number of stitches doubles at set intervals, which creates circular bands of the same stitch count. Clever designers make magic happen in these bands. When knitting a pi-shawl, I find that the first few charts are done really quickly, then the stitch count gets high enough to slow me down. The Celestarium shawl is knitted with fingering weight yarn, so the final chart has 576 stitches in each round. (The Urdr shawl was knit in lace weight, so the stitch count doubled one more time on that one.)

I’ve finished the body of the shawl, knit some extra rounds around the outside and am now knitting the border. I chose a traditional Shetland border called Wave Lace. It’ll look much better blocked, but here it is, still bunched up on the needles, but stretched out a little bit on the rug. Celestarium by Audry Nicklin knit in the Unique Sheep Luxe (Earthfaire kit) by Deborah Cooke I actually pulled two stitches off the needle accidentally when taking this shot. =8-o

800 rows of border to go, then it’ll get a good block. I’m looking forward to seeing it then – blocking lace is magical.

What do you think?

Finished Snow Angel Shawl

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Deborah Cooke

You might remember that I was knitting a lace shawl. The pattern is called Snow Angel and it’s by BooKnits – here’s the Ravelry link for the pattern. I knit it in a gradient dyed yarn called Freia Ombré Lace in the colourway Autumn Rose. I actually ran out of yarn, so used some Elann Silken Kydd from my stash. I think the colourway is Baked Apple, and I worried it might be a bit dark, but I like it. I also used green glass beads with copper linings, in the positions specified in the pattern.

Here’s the finished and blocked shawl on the back of the couch. I’m not sure why I’m so surprised by the size of it but I am. I had in mind that it was going to be a scarfy little thing, but it’s a shawl. The colour is the most true to life in this first picture. Snow Angel by Boo Knits knit by Deborah Cooke in Freia Ombre Wool/Nylon Lace

Here’s the whole thing spread on a rug so you can see the crescent shape of it, and the gradation in the colour. And yes, it’s too big for this rug! Snow Angel by Boo Knits knit by Deborah Cooke in Freia Ombre Wool/Nylon Lace And here’s a detail of the middle of the shawl, though it’s a bit blurry. It’s always amazing to see how the lace opens up when it’s blocked. It was hard to discern the pattern in those photographs taken while the shawl was on the needles, but not it’s obvious. Snow Angel by Boo Knits knit by Deborah Cooke in Freia Ombre Wool/Nylon Lace I’m very happy with this one. What do you think?

Those Wyrd Sisters

Posted on May 29, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

I was going to tell you about a new shawl project today, but instead, I’m going to show you another one that I finally finished. (Yay!) That post about the new project has been bumped to next Friday.

When I was writing the Dragon Diaries, I did a lot of research on the Wyrd sisters in Norse mythology, also called the Norns (or sometimes the Nairns). These three immortals decide the fate of all living beings – in the myths, they’re spinners, but in Zoë’s books, they’re knitters too. Around about the same time, I was intrigued to discover that a knitting designer had created a trio of shawls to celebrate these three sisters. I had this idea that I’d knit them all to commemorate the publication of Zoë’s story.

I finally cast on in 2013.

I did finish the first one, Verdandi, pretty quickly. Verdandi is the sister who governs the present, so I called my project “Is”. This is a triangular shawl, and I knit mine in Fleece Artist Nyoni. This mohair, wool, silk and nylon blend is discontinued (so that’s a Ravelry link), which is too bad because it’s a scrumptious yarn. I still have a bit in the stash in another green colour. 🙂

The post about my completed Verdandi is right here.

Then I cast on the second shawl, Urdr. Urdr is the sister who governs the past, so my project is called “Was”. That was in September 2013. This is a huge round shawl knit in very fine laceweight yarn. The idea behind the design is that this shawl is supposed to represent the well at the root of the world tree, Yggdrasil, which the sisters tend. I used a gradient colourway from the Unique Sheep called Brigid, which made me think of copper cauldrons and ancient goddesses. (You can see Brigid on this page of the Gradiance colourways. It’s in the middle of the fourth row. Mine didn’t look quite like this sample, but each base yarn takes colour differently. Mine was very teal at the one end and quite a warm grey gold at the other with no mauve or blue bits—actually it has colours like the two middle skeins in the sample.) The base yarn is Ling, which is a silk and merino blend.

Knitting this shawl became a bit of a slog, as the rows at the end had more than 1200 stitches, and I added rows to use more of the yarn. Also, knitted lace looks like nothing until it’s blocked. I was losing heart because I had what looked like a lump in my lap each time I picked up the needles. I told Mr. Math about two weeks ago that I had to finish it, and he said “What’s the rush? You’ll just cast on another one.” Such was my mood that I wasn’t so sure of that. Maybe this would be The Last Shawl.

I should have anticipated that blocking would change everything. it’s such a magical process. Imagine my surprise when my lump stretched out to look like this:It’s at least six feet in diameter and so lovely that I can’t stop looking at it. The yarn is dyed in gradients, which means that there are six skeins in the set, and you change from one to the next as you knit.

Here’s a detail shot, after blocking, on the couch. You can see the colours better in this shot, although IRL, the gradation is more subtle and the middle is less blue than it looks here:It’s supposed to have nupps (which are little knitted knots) but I don’t like knitting nupps so I put beads in those places instead. Because I didn’t make nupps, I used less yarn. I wanted to have the entire gradation of colour, though, so I added repeats to the border. I also added more beads to the outside edge. Details are on my Ravelry project page.

It was totally worth it, and I’m ready to cast on another shawl, if not two! I’ll tell you next week about my nerd knit in that raw silk and merino blend (in another gradient colourway from the Unique Sheep, also with beads). There’s also the third Wyrd sister’s shawl to knit. It’s called Skuld, for the third sister who controls the future. My project will be named “Might Be” and I have some lovely Fleece Artist yarn set aside for it. I’m going to try to be good, though, and finish the lace stole that’s on my needles and only one third knitted before casting on another. (Ha.)

What do you think of my Urdr?

Icicle Mittens

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Deborah Cooke

I subscribe to Rowan‘s knitting magazine, partly because I love the patterns and partly because I love the photography. These “magazines” are really beautiful books.

Each year, magazine subscribers receive a gift from Rowan. It’s usually yarn with a pattern, and is a good way to try out their yarns. Usually, I don’t quite knit the pattern supplied with the yarn. Sometimes, it just goes into the stash and doesn’t get knit at all. This year, I decided to just do it, and knit the supplied pattern. Here’s the result:The pattern is called Icicle Mitts (although it’s Ice Cable Mitts in this Ravelry link), and it’s by Martin Storey. The yarn is Colourspun in Jervaulx – you can see that there’s variation in the colour of the yarn as it goes. The colour is fairly true in this picture, and not as vividly red as shown on their website. These were a pretty easy and quick knit, and are surprisingly warm, even with all the holes in the lace. They come up to my elbows, so I’m not sure when I’ll wear them, but they’re pretty. Here’s my Ravelry project page with some notes.

And they’re one project that was finished this winter!

The Completed Irtfa’a Shawl

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s a shawl that was on my needles for years. I kept stalling out on it, but it’s finally done—and it’s blocked too! The challenge this week was figuring out a way to photograph it, because it’s huge.

First off, the pattern. I talked about this one already once, right here. It’s a Faroese shawl, a pattern called Irtfa’a from Anne Hanson of Knitspot. Second, the yarn. I used a handpainted 2-ply merino lace called Fly Designs Dovely—the colour is Swamp Teal. (I’ve thought all along that the colour name needed some revision.) Here’s my Ravelry project page.

And here’s the finished shawl. It’s HUGE! 36″ from the centre back neck in all directions.What do you think?

I thought I was going to cast on my Firedance shawl next, but instead, Urdr made it on to my needles. I’m about a third done, and it’s a pretty knit. It’s the second of three shawls about the three Wyrd Sisters, the Norns from Norse mythology who have cameos in Zoë’s paranormal YA trilogy The Dragon Diaries. You might remember that I finished the first shawl in the series, Verdandi, last winter. I’m saving Skuld for last, just because that’s what she likes best.

Irtfa’a Shawl

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

This shawl has been on my needles for what seems like half of forever. It can’t really have been that long, because I bought the yarn in 2009 at Little Knits in Seattle – I was attending the Emerald City conference and Pam and I did a yarn trawl. The pattern is Irtfa’a by Anne Hanson.This is a Faroese shawl, which means it has a distinctive shape. A Faroese shawl has a vertical band down the centre back – you can see it still scrunched on the needles here – then each side extends like a wing. The border along the hem is knitted on last, which is what I’m in the middle of doing right now. Even though the shawl isn’t blocked, you can already see the shape of it, at least on this left side. The shape is even more clear in the shot on Anne’s website, because that shawl is finished and blocked. (Here’s the link again.)

Here’s a closer look:I knit this following the pattern instructions until I got to the hem. First of all, I added some rows to the hem of the shawl to make the last set of points finish out in diamonds. That’s hard to see here, but will be more clear once it’s blocked. (I like it a lot.) I added some beads (of course!) too. I also changed out the border pattern. Of course, I ended up with a wider one so it’s taking me a while to finish, but it’s a pattern I memorized quickly. (It’s a modified version of a border included in the end matter of Victorian Lace Today.) Here’s my Ravelry project page with a more in depth description of my mods.

I’m hoping to have this one finished soon, so I can cast on my Fire Dance Circle Shawl.

Verdandi

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Deborah Cooke

You might remember that the three Norns have cameo appearances in my Dragon Diaries YA trilogy. While I was writing that series, I saw a trio of shawl patterns saluting the three Wyrd sisters, and knew I had to knit them. I’ve just finished the first one. It’s called Verdandi – she’s the sister in charge of what is. She’s the first sister to appear in my series of books and turns up in Flying Blind, where she was knitting snowdrifts.

Here’s the shawl:And here’s a detail shot of the tip:
The yarn is Fleece Artist Nyoni, which I love to bits, and I used 700m of it. I cast off in Knitpicks Palette in Bark because I ran out of the Nyoni. There are beads added to the hem, plus I made the shawl bigger by adding repeats of the charts. It’s 39″ down the spine of the shawl. I’m not sure how to measure the wings, but they’re big. The design is intended to evoke the leaves on the world tree Yggdrasil – here’s a link to the designer’s website page for this pattern.

I’m quite pleased with this shawl. The pattern was easy to follow, too.

What do you think?

Alive & Knitting

Knitting and other tangled webs we weave

Category Archives: Lace

Alpine Knit Scarf

Charlotte’s Web Shawl Finished

Renaissance Fan Shawl

Celestarium Shawl

Finished Snow Angel Shawl

Those Wyrd Sisters

Icicle Mittens

The Completed Irtfa’a Shawl

Irtfa’a Shawl

Verdandi