Ta Da!

I remembered!  And though the model was busy, I do have a couple of photographs of the finished shawl.  With a person will hopefully come soon!

But here is Moana:

Little sister to Arcobaleno ... can you see the family resemblance??? 

Oops!

Well, I fully intended to return with a picture of the finished Supersymmetry ... and here it is July!

I have yet to get a modelled shot but I did fold it so that the stripes are on the inside:

Not quite sure what I will do with it -- but it's another skein of stash yarn that has been converted into a Finished Object!

I moved on to another shawl by the same designer.  The shawl is called Rocky Mountaineer and I couldn't resist it since last fall I travelled on the Rocky Mountaineer train through the Canadian Rockies.  I chose my yarn with great care, and wound up with a reminder of the glacial lakes as well as my travels through the mountains.

A friend very obligingly modelled it for me:

It seems to me that this is the perfect shawl for those places that are over airconditioned.

Tonight I finished a test knit for Tanja Luescher (Knitted in Switzerland Designs) and then wrestled with it to get it blocked.  Tomorrow I'll unpin it and see how well I've done.  It was an interesting knit.  I'd done a previous test knit for Tanja which used a skein and not quite a half of a second skein of laceweight yarn.  This shawl used a combination of fingering weight and laceweight - and provided the perfect opportunity to use up that part skein.

The other test knit was Arcobaleno:

A modelled shot can be found here.  Thanks, Shauna!

This is the shawl that provided the leftover laceweight shawl.  We'll see how long it takes me to come back here and post a picture!  But for now, good night!

 
 
 

It WAS Enough!

My shawl is still blocking/drying, but I wanted to say that not only was it enough yarn, but that is was more than enough.  I have about 10 grams that I can use in the sock yarn blanket I am crocheting (more like NOT crocheting ...)

My Every Life Needs Symmetry shawl blocking:

I'm hoping to get a modelled shot tomorrow.  At the very least I'll be able to pose it so that the two sides can be compared. 

Still Here!

Well, after a long absence I thought I'd check in to say that I'm still here, and still knitting!

Right now I've ventured into the realm of a designer who is new to me, and who uses a different approach to construction, which intrigues me.

So, right now, on my needles I have a shawl called Supersymmetry 
Susan Ashcroft is the designer in question and I have more than 2/3 of this shawl completed.

First, you knit one section

In case you are wondering, the reverse stockinette side is the right side, which means that the fact that this yarn is self-striping (I had no idea!) does not detract from the design, which it might if the other side was used.

Then you knit a second section which is a mirror image of the first

And then, you join them together

Susan's instructions are quite precise, and she uses percentages and yarn weights, so this should work out really well.  But this is my first time, and I look at the amount of yarn left, and the gap I have yet to fill (Plus the shaping after both sections are joined) and I feel a mild sense of panic.  So I am doing what all good knitters do in such a situation -- knit faster!

So, please excuse me, I'm off to see if I can finish this shawl before I run out of yarn!


 

Stash Alert!

One of the threads on Ravelry prompted me to get out my ColourMart yarn, so that I could start listing my stash ... new yarns are ssuch a temptation and it's so easy to forget what is already tucked away.

Even knowing that I had a nice collection I was a little shocked when I saw this:

ColourMart seals each cone in plastic before shipping and lots of mine is still protected .... and a couple more orders are on their way!!!

Note to self: knit more before ordering (or even visiting their site!)

That would be stay away from here

Holiday Knitting

I'm just back from 2 weeks in the DR. Two weeks of sunshine and no obligations -- and knitting whenever I wanted!

I have a couple of projects still on the needles, but have one new one finished, and blocking .... it's taking a while to dry.

It's Ethereal Triangular Shawl by Lakshmi Juneja. It's a free pattern on Ravelry, knit with ColourMart Chasmere/Cotton 3/15 NM shiny cotton yarn (love this yarn, it's gorgeous to knit with!)

I also have After Hours shawl on the needles - knitting it in Zauberball in teal and black. And Firebird in a delightful mohair yarn with a gold metallic thread that I found on Elann.com. Photos when I've made some more progress.

And I left my Antonia by Birgit Freyer at home because it simply needs its edging, and I wanted to be sure I wouldn't run out of projects while I was away. It's in Colourmart Cash/Cotton shiny cotton too - only it's in Lapis Lazul. The other is in the colourway Granate. I did say I love the feel of knitting with this yarn!

A Belated Happy New Year!

How appropriate that I should start the new year - belatedly - with a belated Advent Calendar Shawl .... I just couldn't get it together - and Advent is not the best time for me to start new projects. So here is my Advent Calendar Shawl
It was not my favourite knit. I discovered and confirmed as I knit this, that I do not enjoy knitting sampler type shawls with spacers in between. I prefer shawls and stole that flow. There were lots of sections where I enjoyed the lace design - just not the choppiness of it! I'll know for another time. This picture doesn't show the whole shawl -- it's 84" long by 24" wide

It was knit in Knit Picks Shadow, colourway Sunset and took just under 1000 yards of yarn. That's because I skipped 3 of the 24 days. The pattern can be found here on Ravelry.

My reward for not quitting was a much quicker knit - and smaller shawlette. It took 1 skein of sockweight yarn. I used Unwind's SeaWool. The colourway tag is lost!
Here is Pimpelliese

Best of all -- both were knit from stash yarn so I can feel virtuous. The yarn stretches when wet, so my finished shawlette is 181 cm X 40 cm at the deepest point.

Now I need to decide what will be shawl #3 for this year. I've signed up for 11 shawls in 2011. Now I feel somewhat caught up, and more as if it might be possible to accomplish it!