One Skein Shawls – Gaia and Citron

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Deborah Cooke

I seem to have had a number of one-skein shawls on the needles this winter, many of which ended up as gifts. This makes everyone happy – I have something fun and quick to knit, and the recipient gets a pretty shawl.

One I just loved is also the shawl I forgot to photograph before it went on its way. Oops! The pattern is called the Gaia Shawl by Ann Carroll Gilmour. Here’s a Ravelry link that will work whether you have a Ravelry account or not. It uses one skein of Noro Kureyon Sock, a fave yarn of mine, and you get to play with making changes as you go. It came out so pretty and was a quick knit.

My most recent little shawl is this one, also knit in Noro Kureyon Sock. The pattern is Citron, and it’s a free pattern from Knitty.com. Here it is:Because I was worried about the size of the finished shawl, I added a row of holes in the middle of each stockinette section to make it a bit less solid, and also some beads around the hem. I didn’t have enough yarn for the frill, but it came out nicely without it. It’s supposed to have a ruffly row in between the rows of solid stockinette – in blocking, those ruffles flattened out, but now that the pins are off, it’s ruffling up again. I was afraid for a day that I had blocked it too hard, but all seems to be well.

Here you can see the beads:

Another quick and pretty knit; another perfect gift!

Have you knit any quick projects lately?

Bitterroot Shawl in Kauni

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Deborah Cooke

I have been getting some knitting done this winter, so it’s time to show you a few things.

First is a shawl in Kauni Effektgarn. The pattern is a free one from Knitty.com, called Bitterroot by Rosemary Hill.

You can see that I had a hard time finding a big enough space to photograph it. As it was, I had to stand on a chair – and there’s junk in the corners. Photography isn’t my best trick! Here’s a detail shot of the centre tip:This shawl was a surprisingly quick knit – or maybe it was just too addictive to put down! I did add beads, as specified by the pattern. The beads are silver, so they hide (especially in the pictures) but they catch the light in a starry kind of way. I like how the outside edge is just barely black. That was a nice coincidence with the colour changes.

My Ravelry project page is here.

I’m really happy with this one, and just might have to knit another…

The Beet

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Deborah Cooke

A while back, I wrote about Norah Gaughan’s knitted beet. Many of you will have seen the writing on the wall with that post, and will have guessed this would happen sooner or later. I had to knit the beet, for no other reason than that I like it. (In fact, I would have knit it sooner, if the pattern had been available for purchase as a downloadable .pdf. As it was, I had to find the booklet at a LYS.)

Here it is:

I dipped into the stash to knit this. My beet is knit in KnitPicks Palette (the bright pink, held double), KnitPicks Wool of the Andes (the purple) and two shades of green of Patons Classic Wool. I used black pipe cleaners and they do peek through the gaps a bit, but I think they look better than white ones would have (the other choice.) My Ravelry project page is here.

I had thought I’d make three, maybe tie them in a bunch, but it’s much larger than anticipated. One is enough! Right now, it’s in the kitchen, although I’ve no idea where it will end up. It was a fun and quick knit. I fulled it a bit – a nice hot soak – to soften the look of the leaves and disguise the white of the polyester stuffing a bit more. I also put pipecleaners in the stems of the leaves as they were really floppy.

I’m really happy with it, although it is a bit of a silly thing.

Have you knit any vegetables lately?

Spider’s Web Shawl

Posted on February 15, 2010 by Deborah Cooke

This is the semi-circular Spider’s Web Shawl from Jane Sowerby’s book, VICTORIAN LACE TODAY. One of these days, I’ll knit the full circle version. The yarn is from Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 which comes with a skein of Angelhair dyed the same colourway. I used the yarns separately, knitting the middle of the shawl from the merino and the lacy edge from the Angelhair. I used another Fleece Artist yarn, Somoko, in red for the band between the two sections and for the outer hem. See the gold beads?

The Queen Susan Shawl

Posted on December 4, 2009 by Deborah Cooke

I stumbled across this recently and am amazed, fascinated, and dazzled. Check out this blog post about a group project that evolved from a question on Ravelry – a knitter reverse-engineered an historic Shetland lace shawl and a group of Ravelry knitter undertook the test knitting so the pattern could be made available:

Fleegle on the Queen Susan Shawl

Isn’t that the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen? And a great story, too.

I think I need to both live longer and knit faster to knit all the projects I want to knit!

In the Mood for Gloves…

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Deborah Cooke

On the flights to and from Seattle, I knit my first glove. The pattern is called Knotty Gloves, and is a free Ravelry download right now.

I used Malabrigo Sock, because it seemed too soft to me to make good tough socks. It was so pretty that I had to buy it anyway. The colour is called Solis.

I finally finished the second one and sewed in all the ends. Here they are:

Once again, we have the photography challenge. With the flash, the colour comes out more true (it’s teal) but the cable detail is lost. This shot was taken without the flash, so you can see the cables, but the colour isn’t even close. This colourway is all greens and teals – not blue as it appears here. You wanted to see the cables, though, right?

My Ravelry project page is here.

They came out quite nicely, nicely enough that I might try another pair in another yarn. (They look better on my hands than on the floor, but it’s tough to take a picture of your own hands.) The pattern is terrific – very clear and error-free. If you’re like me and had never knit gloves, these might be a good start. I wanted them to have long cuffs so knit an extra dozen rows of ribbing before starting the pattern. They probably would have been long enough, if I’d just followed the directions, but there you go.

This project, unfortunately, did very little to diminish my stash – it used only half the ball of Malabrigo Sock, so now I need to knit something with the other half. Hmmmm….

Revontuli

Posted on November 25, 2009 by Deborah Cooke

There’s not a pot of gold at the end of the Kauni rainbow – just some northern lights.

As mentioned yesterday, I used the EQ or Rainbow colourway of Kauni in Mr. C’s Elrond sweater. I paired it with the EF colourway, which is navy, purple and blue, so some of the rainbow didn’t have enough contrast. I broke out the purple, turquoise and green bits of the rainbow and set those parts aside. When his sweater was done, there was a ziplock full of purple, turquoise and green.

I thought of making something for myself, maybe another shawl.

This pattern is called Revontuli, which apparently is the Finnish word for the northern lights. (That’s a Ravelry link.) It just so happens that every time I’ve seen the northern lights, they’ve been lime green or turquoise, so this worked out perfectly. There’s a smidge of yellow at the centre cast on and at the outer hem.

I washed this by hand once, giving it a good soak, but it still didn’t soften as much as Mr. C.’s sweater. So, into the pillowcase and into the washing machine it went. Here’s the finished piece – I love it!

The colours are not quite as vivid as the flash makes it appear – it shades from gold at the centre into lime, then a softer turquoise than this, then purple. I turn back at red-purple. This looks quite primary, but the real thing is more like petroleum on water. I like that palette!

It shrank quite a bit in the washer, because it was knit at a looser gauge (on 4.5mm needles). It blocked 33″ from the middle to each point when I washed it by hand – after the washer, it blocked at 28″. It’s not felted, though – you can still see the stitches – but it is closer to being felted than Mr. C.’s sweater. Once again, the Kauni really softened. This is like having a soft blanket tucked around the shoulders. I think I’ll wear it a lot because it is so snuggly.

The Elrond Sweater

Posted on November 24, 2009 by Deborah Cooke

I finished Mr. C.’s Kauni fair isle sweater a while back. (You may remember me talking about the swatching and the pattern choice here.)

When it came off the needles, it looked like this:

It sat for a bit while I worked up the nerve to throw the completed sweater into the washing machine. I had to do it, because I had knit the sweater 10% too big to allow for the shrinkage in washing. It didn’t fit him, so into the pillowcase it went, then into the machine. That was a stressful 45 minutes! But it came out beautifully soft and 10% smaller.

It had to sit a few days more before I was ready to sew in the zipper. I always fret about sewing zips in with the machine, but not enough to baste them by hand first. This one, as has recently been the case, went in perfectly the first time.

Since then, Mr. C. has had it on his back and I’ve been trying to get it from him to take a picture of it! Here it is, all done:

Yet more proof that I’m not a photographer! Unfortunately, you can’t feel how much the wool softened in the washing machine. It’s incredible. The sweater is so soft now that you wouldn’t think it was the same yarn. It didn’t felt – it just fulled and shrank.

For this sweater, I used the Kauni Rainbow colourway for the bright bits, but not all of the colour repeat. The purple, turquoise and green bits didn’t contrast enough with the purple, navy and blue background, so I broke them out of each repeat. I had a whole pile of these pieces left, so I knit something else with them. I’ll show it to you tomorrow.

Magnificent Mittens

Posted on October 27, 2009 by Deborah Cooke

When Pam and I visited Little Knits in Seattle, Fulay put a ball of this yarn into my hands. I simply could not put it down. It was so soft and the colours were so lovely. It’s called Kauri Merino-Possum-Silk and this is the fingering weight. We rummaged in the box – with authorization – and I chose two colours, 02 Kea and 14 (I think) Red Waina.

This yarn is a blend of merino, possum and silk. It’s extremely soft, and feels a great deal like alpaca. A bit of research revealed that it has other similarities to alpaca – possum is another hollow fibre, thus both light and warm. Evidently it also takes dye well, like alpaca, and that bit of silk gives it a lovely smooth gloss. More about the fibre itself right HERE and about conservation efforts HERE. I have mixed feelings about this stuff – it is a “kill fibre” – but let’s not get into that today. (If I had known the whole story, I probably would have just bought alpaca.)

I decided to knit a pair of mitts from MAGNIFICENT MITTENS by Anna Zilboorg, a book that is out of print but provides oodles of lovely eye candy. It’s taken me many versions over the past year or two to get to liking my cast-on – these mitten patterns are knit from the fingertip down. And here they are:

The red is leftover Hand Maiden Somoku. The red in the cuff and on the mitt itself is done in duplicate stitch, btw. I still have to knit the linings, but the mitts are lovely and soft and warm already. What do you think?

Crazy Zauberball Socks

Posted on October 20, 2009 by Deborah Cooke

I finished these a few weeks ago, but forgot to show you. These are knit from a Crazy Zauberball – “crazy” means that it’s the marled sock yarn. Both Crazy Zauberball and Zauberball have long slow gradations of colour.

Here’s what mine looked like when I bought it:

And here are my finished socks:

The LYSO warned me that I wouldn’t be able to match the socks – she knows how matchy matchy I am! – and they don’t match. In fact, I think the first repeat is still to come in the partial ball leftover from my socks, so it wasn’t even possible to make them match. All the same, they do look like they belong together. I like that the light bands on the feet are in roughly the same place and that they both have dark toes.

The colours in this yarn are pretty and it was nice to knit. It’s thinner than I’d realized though – I wish I’d knit my socks on 2.25mm or even 2.0mm needles (instead of 2.5mm) as they seem rather well-ventilated. I washed them before taking this shot and the yarn fuzzed up a bit but didn’t full or shrink. It’s very soft, soft enough to use for baby garments, and it’ll be interesting to see how it wears.

Have you knit any interesting socks yet? Have you tried the Zauberball? What do you think of it?

Alive & Knitting

Knitting and other tangled webs we weave