Snow Angel Shawl

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

I started to work on a lace shawl in a yarn that’s gradation-dyed to change from one colour to another over its length. I bought this yarn originally to make a cowl, but didn’t like the lace stitch so switched out for this pattern. It’s called Snow Angel by BooKnits, a new designer for me, but I’ve admired her designs for a while. The shawl blocks out to a crescent with lace dripping from the outside edge. This pattern is very well-written, both written out and charted so there’s a choice of which kind of directions to follow.

Here’s a peek at the lace so far. It looks like a lump because it isn’t blocked yet, but I think it will be very pretty. It starts with the green and will end with pink. Of course, it has beads.

Back of Roan Completed

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

So, it’s been a while since I put this fair isle project aside, but I dug it out last week (after finishing my KSH Stripe cardigan) and have now finished the back. Here it is:It’s curling a bit because it hasn’t been blocked yet, but is really a big rectangle, decreased in to a point at the top in the middle. It’s supposed to be oversized and is big – the back is 26″ wide. I took this picture outside, and the colours appear a bit more zingy than they are in real life.

The pattern is called Roan from Rowan Magazine #56. (I posted about this project when I began it, right here.) The cardigan is like a kimono and is supposed to be knit in thicker yarn. I had this Kauni Effektgarn in my stash so recalculated and cast on in this instead. This is two colourways of the Kauni, and the yarn changes colour graduallly as you knit. (The original design uses a number of colours, and the knitter changes yarns as knitting.) Because the yarn is thinner, I had to do more repeats of the band with the diamonds to get the sweater to the right length – I decided to make it a bit shorter than the pattern, to ensure I wasn’t overwhelmed by the sweater.

The two fronts together are the same shape as the back, just split down the middle. Because I want the colours to change the same way on the front and the back, I’m going to knit the fronts as one piece, then cut them apart. This is called steeking. I’ve never done a steek before, and the prospect of cutting my knitting does freak me out a bit. I have a lot of knitting to do before it’s time for that, though.

Off to cast on the fronts!

What do you think?

Another Hebrides

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

I finished this sweater last week and just love it:This is the Hebrides cardigan pattern (a free download from the Rowan yarns website) knit in Kidsilk Haze Stripe. This is the Cool colourway. (The pink isn’t quite as bright IRL as it appears in the photograph above, btw. ) When you look at the pattern on the Rowan site, you can see from the styling that the ease is calculated for you to wear the sweater right against the skin. Because I knew I’d wear this as a cardigan over top of blouses or t-shirts, I knit one size larger and left out the waist shaping. I knit one of these before in the Twilight colourway and knew immediately that I’d wear it all the time. (I do.) It was clear that I needed another one. For my size, it took about 2.5 balls of KSH Stripe.

I also found some perfect buttons in my stash – these were harvested from a Ralph Lauren skirt I made years ago. The skirt wore out (it was loved to death) but I liked the buttons so much that I kept them. Now they’ve finally found a new home. They’re exactly the right tones of blue – they’re a bit stripey, but that didn’t show up as well as I’d hoped.I’m going to cast on yet another of these cardigans, this time in a solid colour.

What do you think?

The Mermaid Shawl Puzzle

Posted on August 28, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

The Mermaid Shawl has had me puzzled. Last week, I figured out what was going on. Even though I’m using my own pattern, Undine, I didn’t follow the directions. In Undine, the ruffle is created with short rows at the outer edge of the shawl, and this ruffle remains the same width across the shawl. Any changes to the total width of the shawl are made in the body of it, right before the ruffle. (The increases are between the ruffle and the main part of the shawl.) This means that the rows in the body of the shawl are perpendicular to the lead edge, like this:When I began to knit the Mermaid Shawl, though, I didn’t read my own directions! I made my increases at the lead edge (i.e. the beginning of the right side row). This skewed the knit rows. Because of the location of the increase stitch, the rows fall at an angle to the lead edge, like this:The gussets that make the ruffles don’t appear to be in a separate band either. They just flow from the main shawl – in a way that would definitely please a mermaid.

This is pretty interesting. I had no idea this would happen. I would have expected my mistake to make very little difference. I was wrong about that!

If I had just continued, following the rest of the directions for Undine, the stripes would have been at an angle for the entire shawl. But, I had decided to make an inverted V in the back, again with short rows, to emulate the shawl in the Jane Eyre movie. The finished V looks like this:

My revised plan had been for the inverted V to be the middle of the shawl, BUT the knitting still doesn’t line up. In fact, it’s only this new part that is perpendicular to the lead edge, and that means that the picture above is actually the midpoint of the shawl.

I need to knit another inverted V of short rows before decreasing to the end of the shawl to make the shape come out right. The finished shawl will have three triangles. This means that I’ll run out of yarn – I’m half done, but have only 30% of my yarn left. I’m going to have to buy a third ball to finish. I do like it, though, and it will bug me if I don’t finish it so that the rows are straight.

What do you think?

More Progress on the Mermaid Shawl

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

I’ve been knitting and thought it time to show you my progress on that stripey shawl.I’m just past the midpoint. I made a variation to the pattern on a whim. I decided to do some short rows in the middle, so there will be an inverted V down the centre back. This will make the shawl narrower but will also give it a slightly different shape. I worked two stitches less for every second row from about the lime stripey bit until I got down to just a few more stitches than the godets require. (There are more details on my Ravelry project page.)

Look at the ruffled edge at the top and you can see the green godet which is the middle point of the shawl. (It’s the top green godet.) From that point, I’ve been adding back two stitches every second row and will continue until I’m working all of the stitches again. Once there, I’ll carry on with the decreases in the pattern to finish the shawl.

I’ll show you another picture of the turns once I’ve made more progress and you can see the inverted V more clearly. I’m quite happy with this one. What do you think?

Progress on the Mermaid Shawl

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

I thought I’d show you my progress on my Undine striped shawl today. I really like what the self-striping yarn is doing:You can also see how the hem is beginning to flutter. If I held that top edge (the one on the right) straight, it would ripple even more.

I’ll start to decrease the width of the shawl once I’ve used half of the yarn. The easiest way to determine that point is to weigh the balls of yarn. (I use the kitchen scale.) They were each 100g when I started. Now they’re both around 75g. When they get to 52 g or so, I’ll start to decrease. I want to make sure the shawl is symmetrical, so might do something different at the midpoint. We’ll see when I get there.

In the meantime, what do you think?

Knitting for a Mermaid

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Deborah Cooke

Because I’m having an administrivia week, I needed something to knit in garter stitch. I decided to use one of my own patterns, but make it stripey. The colours in this yarn are shades of blue and green, so that makes it fit for a mermaid. 🙂

The pattern is for a shawl with a ruffled edge and is called Undine. That’s the Ravelry link to the pattern (which is free download) but I also blogged about my first one here. That one was knit in a self-striping yarn – Noro Kureyon Sock – and I mirrored the striping pattern. I’ll add the picture here so you don’t have to click through:For this new one, I wanted stripes. I had two balls of Crazy Zauberball sock yarn, which is a self-striping yarn, in the colourway 2136. Originally, I planned to knit knee socks with this yarn, but I wasn’t happy with the way they were coming out. Plus, I’m more likely to wear a green shawl than green knee socks.

I found a mistake in my own shawl pattern in the set up! Yikes! So, I’ll have to fix the PDF, but here’s a detail shot of the set up tip of the shawl. Although I’m using two balls of yarn for this project, I did this part with only one.I joined the second ball after this, and began alternating between the balls, working two rows from each. Here’s a progress shot:
With the change in colours, you can see the godets more clearly in this version. At this point, I’ve worked seven godets, which make the hem of the shawl ripple when worn.

I’m having fun with this one. It’s not quite a mindless knit, which will keep me interested, as will the self-striping yarn. I also like how the striping is periodically disappearing when the colours from the two balls are similar. This could be avoided by using a solid yarn as one colour or a completely contrasting colourway, but I like when things slide in and out of focus. My Rav project page is here, if you want more detail.

What do you think?

Audiobook Socks

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Deborah Cooke

This past month, I’ve needed to listen to audio editions of my books to “proof” them. Taking a book to audio is a pretty interesting process, and one I hadn’t really thought about until I was already on the adventure. The narrator has to manage so many voices (especially in my books, which I’ve realized have lots of characters!) and keep them distinct from each other. He or she also has to show the emotional journey of the character, and pronounce all the words properly.

It turned out that I needed to follow along with the book on the first review of the audio files, just to make sure that no clauses or phrases were missing. This is a pretty intense process – the audio file for my first book taken to audio, The Rogue, is 13.5 hours long.

For the second listening, however, after the changes were all made and I was just checking the final version, I knit as I listened. I needed plain knitting, as I had to pay attention to the audio, so socks were the obvious choice. I don’t follow a pattern to knit socks anymore, since I’ve made so many pairs. I had some Patons Kroy FX in a yummy purple and blue set aside for new socks for myself, so I cast them on. I knit all but the second toe while “proofing” The Rogue, and here they are:

Colourspun Skye

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Deborah Cooke

A few years ago, I saw a men’s vest pattern in a Rowan Magazine and really liked it. I didn’t rush out to order the yarn, and by the time I thought I might knit it, two of the colours required for the pattern had been discontinued. I figured that vest wasn’t meant to be. But a little while ago, I noticed that there were a few balls of those very same discontinued colours available at an online store. I ordered them up, and because I really like this yarn, I cast on the vest despite having so many other projects on my needles.

Here’s the completed back:The pattern is called Skye and it was designed by Brandon Mably. I seem to knit a lot of Brandon Mably designs for Mr. Math. The yarn is called Colourspun, and it’s a very soft yarn. It’s the same yarn used in my Icicle Mitts. The discontinued colours are the red and the brown – all of the colours have long variegations, so it looks as if there are more than four colours used. (Red, brown, green, then beige for the grid.) They also shade into each other at some points, which I like a lot. I think it’s going to be pretty warm, giving that the beige wool is carried across the back of each square. (You can see that at the top, where it’s curled back a bit.) Mr. Math likes it a lot, though, so I’m sure he’ll wear it.

What do you think?

Kroy Socks

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Deborah Cooke

I started to knit these socks on the drive to and from Lori Foster’s Reader-Author Get-Together in June. (I was riding, not driving!) I finished the second toe on the last pair, so cast these on. As usual, this is my own sock pattern, the one I don’t have to think about anymore, and as usual, I’ve used a self-striping yarn.

This yarn is Patons Kroy Socks. Once upon a time, Kroy was available in a 3-ply yarn in solid colours. Now it seems to all be 4-ply, whether it’s solid or self-striping. I like the thicker version better – it feels more squooshy, although it does make a thicker sock. This is one of my favourite colourways of Kroy Socks, Summer Moss Jacquard. (Although I see on the Patons’ site that there are colours I haven’t seen before and like a lot – I’ll have to keep a lookout for Meadow Stripes, Mexicala Stripes and Fiesta Stripes.) I actually have enough of this colourway stashed to make a cardigan – the trick will be ensuring that the pieces are narrow enough so that the stripes work out well. I’m thinking I’ll have to put a seam down the centre back to make it work. Hmm. I did knit a pair of socks for Mr. Math in this colour of yarn, as well. (Ewww, now we can match!)

And here they are:

Wow, I feel so lucky. I have two new pairs of socks for the fall!

What do you think?

Alive & Knitting

Knitting and other tangled webs we weave

Tag Archives: self-striping yarn

Snow Angel Shawl

Back of Roan Completed

Another Hebrides

The Mermaid Shawl Puzzle

More Progress on the Mermaid Shawl

Progress on the Mermaid Shawl

Knitting for a Mermaid

Audiobook Socks

Colourspun Skye

Kroy Socks