Papillon

Things have been quiet here on the blog for a bit, and I apologize for that. I was slammed at work in April and didn’t have much time for crafting, then had a few fails. 😦 That’s always disheartening. I may circle back to them and see what can be salvaged, then share the results with you. In the meantime, here’s one that is having a happier adventure the second time around.

Papillon is a beautiful and clever shawl pattern using short rows and designed by Marin Melchior. (That’s a Ravelry link.) It’s knit in fingering weight with two colours, one solid and one not.

Remember this Koigu KPPPM that I first used in the body of my teal Navelli?

Navelli by Caitlin Hunter knit in Koigu KPPPM and Shibui Knits Sock by Deborah Cooke

I frogged it back because of the pooling. This yarn has longer sections of each colour (at least for Koigu) so I thought it might work for Papillon.

Papillon shawl knit in Koigu KPPPM by Deborah Cooke

It didn’t really work in this pattern either. :-/

I was determined to use my stash yarn, though, and dug in again. This time, I chose some Noro Silk Garden Sock, which has longer colour changes, and for contrast, a very black alpaca yarn from a local farm. There’s a tiny shimmer of blue spun in with the black alpaca yarn, too. Here’s the beginning:

Papillon shawl knit in Noro Silk Garden Sock by Deborah Cooke

I’m much happier with this version! This is knitting up much more thickly even on the same needles, but since I’m not sure how much black there is (that label’s long gone) I’m sticking to the 3.5mm needles and hoping I have enough black to finish.

Finally, a success!

I have some sweaters breaking free of Sleeve Island and will share one with you next time.

Another Undine

I started this stripey shawl almost a year ago. It’s my own Undine pattern, but with a modification (and a correction). I blogged several times already about this one: Knitting for a Mermaid, Progress on the Mermaid Shawl, More Progress on the Mermaid Shawl, and The Mermaid Shawl Puzzle. It’s been a bit of a process, and I won’t review all my revelations and corrections again today.

It’s done!

variation of Undine by Deborah Cooke knit in Crazy Zauberball sock yarn by Deborah Cooke

It’s knit of Crazy Zauberball, which is a self-striping sock yarn, and I started with two balls. I alternated two rows from each ball. I thought I did some clever calculations to finish the shawl with two balls, but there was an error in my calculations. I needed 2.7 balls to finish.

variation of Undine by Deborah Cooke knit in Crazy Zauberball sock yarn by Deborah Cooke

I love how the stripes came out, and the ruffled edge. I’m not going to block this one – I don’t usually block shawls knit in garter stitch because I like the springiness of them – so once the ends are sewn in, it’s ready to wear!

My Ravelry project page for this one is right here.

What do you think?

Easy Triangular Shawl

I knit the green version of this shawl last winter. I’d been knitting up a pattern that didn’t work out – I ran out of yarn before the border, and didn’t love it anyway – so I frogged all 750m. Then I was annoyed, so I just started to knit, making up a pattern as I went. I really liked the result – here it is:Easy Triangle Shawl by Deborah Cooke knit in Fleece Artist Nyoni by Deborah Cooke

The yarn is Fleece Artist Nyoni, which I like a lot. It has a bit of mohair in it – goat mohair – so is springy, and the colours are gorgeous.

Things didn’t go any further until I wore it – and someone asked me about the pattern. Oh. I couldn’t find my notes – at least none that were very coherent – so I sat down with graph paper to reverse-engineer the pattern. It was easier to make it up as I went than to figure out later what I’d done! Needless to say, I wasn’t enormously confident in my instructions. I hit the stash, found this blue sock yarn, and knit the shawl again, following my instructions.

Easy Triangle Shawl by Deborah Cooke knit in Diamond Fancy Free by Deborah CookeA good thing too, as there were a few mistakes. I knit a second version in garter stitch, while the first was in stockinette. Same pattern instructions – the only difference is whether you knit or purl the wrong side rows. The garter stitch one came out a bit smaller, a combination of smaller needles and the tendency of garter to pull together. I also added some stitches into the mesh bit in the middle of the shawl – it’s a bit tight on the green version – and added beads to the blue one. You can see the blue version and the beads in a detail shot posted on Ravelry with the pattern.

I like them both, though, and the corrected pattern is now available as a free download on Ravelry. What do you think?