Finished: Dianna shawl

Pattern: Dianna by MaweLucky/Jane Araujo (free pattern!)
Yarn: My own handspun
Fiber: Fine Shetland
Colorway: PeachesNCream
Price:??
Amount: Till I ran out of yarn
Needles: 4 mm
Gauge: -
Dimensions: ?
Modifications: Made a border
Comments:
The instructions are not for normal knitting, but it’s assumed that you will knit the WS rows backwards. Purling a WS row actually means purling backwards = knitting the WS row. Took me a while to figure that out…
 
I think the pattern doesn’t have a border or I didn’t like it, so I had to come up with my own design. Unfortunately, I didn’t have yarn left and since it was my own handspun I couldn’t get more. After giving it some thought I decided to use the leftover yarn I had used for the ”One-skein shawl with picot edge”. I had used it doubled as a 4-ply, but since my handspun was laceweight, I split it into half and used it as a 2-ply. I decided to do ruffles. I had already picked up the stitches for the borders and started knitting the ruffles, when I found some leftovers from my handspun (yeah, I did have some leftovers, but I had forgotten about it since there was a long break between finishing the leaves part and starting the border). I wondered if I could finish the leftovers and came up with the idea of knitting some rows of reversed stockinette with the handspun and doing the ruffles with the other yarn.

Honestly, knitting the border was a bit gruesome, because I had to rip back a couple of times. I finally settled on picking up two stitches for each border stitch with the handspun. Then I made the rufffles with the other yarn.

I’m quite pleased with this project. The yarn could be a bit softer, but it’s still a very nice airy shawl with nice color changes. I find the colors a bit too muted for myself (they look a bit more intense in the photos than in reality), but my mom likes these colors, so it’s ok.

The pattern is great and I love how nice the pattern brings out the colors of the handspun yarn. Once I figured out the aforementioned problem it was actually easy to knit. By the way, that was my first entrelac project!

I finished the project last year, but  hadn't managed to blog about it. I'd say, picture #9 is truest to the colors. If you want to see the images in a bigger resolution, you will have to go to my flickr page. Flickrs seems to have changed their rules about posting pictures yesterday and I don't have the original ones here to upload them on Blogger. By the way, I'm in Spain the next two months - must check out yarn shops!

Finished: Leafprints Shawlette

Pattern:Leafprints Shawlette by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Some lace yarn from Handpainted.com
Colorway: Wild Daisies
Price: don't know, but probably a couple of dollars
Amount: less than 850 g
Needles: 3 mm
Gauge: You should know by now that I rarely swatch when knitting shawls
Dimensions: big
Modifications:

• made the lace part symmetrical
• start at row 25 of lace chart until row 32, then do row 1 to row 32.
• 149 stitches (garter stitch) on each side, increase 38 stitches: 187 stitches on each side 36 x K4, yo, k5, yo

Comments:
Easy pattern. The yarn is not supersoft, but not that scratchy as I had assumed. It's not cashmere, but probably soft enough to wrap it around your neck. The color is gorgeous. It's really really nice. I have some yarn left, so maybe I will make a small shawl for myself.

The picture of the shawl were taken with a Canon Ixus 130. Honestly, I don't think I am that thrilled with the camera... The first picture was taken with a Nikon Coolpix and while I always thought that this camera wasn't great, I still find the colors of the pictures were better.

Finished: Ribbed Lace Bolero

Pattern: Ribbed Lace Bolero by Kelly Maher
Yarn: Filosoft by Wolle Rödel, 52 % merino, 48 % cotton, handwash at 30 °C, recommended needle size 4 -5 mm, recommended gauge 22 st x 28 rows = 10 cm
Color: white
Price: €3.75? per ball
Amount: 2.5
Needles: 3.5 mm for the ribbing, 4.5 mm for the body
Gauge:
Dimensions:
Modifications:
"Switch to size 8 needles now"

I think I did this a row earlier, so that the stitches that were going to be cabled would be on the needles with a size 8, just like the stitches that had been undergoing ssk and k2tog on the other side had been sitting on needles size 8.

Comments:
I'm convinced shrugs look like very clever constructions (you have a circle/rectangle and sew it here and here and voilà, a finished garment. How easy and clever is that?), but the fit is weird. There are three interconnected issues: collar, back, arms (armhole). Either the collar is too big or you have this bulk in the back or your armholes are too small. I think you will always only get a fit that is ok, but not great. Or maybe it's just my body. Ok, I might also rearrange the back material a bit by turning the collar in a bit more, then it might be acceptable. From the front it looks nice.

Love the yarn. I've already used it in another color, red, but it didn't feel as nice as in white.

Oh my, the combination of bad posture and ill fitting clothes...


I think I like pictures taken without flash better. It's weird how different I look in the picture with and without flash.


I like kitty, but kitty doesn't like me. Hmpf. Supposedly it's a very affectionate cat, but while I was talking to it, its tail was swinging nervously back and forth, as if it was sweeping the street.

Finished: Orangina in pink

Pattern: Orangina by Stefanie Japel (it's actually cheaper when you buy the PDF from Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/orangina
Yarn: "Seidenglanz" by Schachenmayr nomotta, 100 % cotton, 125 m/ 50 g26 st x 36 r = 10 cm x 10 cm, recommended needle size: 2.5 - 3.5 mm; one of my friends said that the yarn is now called "Catania". I can't remember exactly how "Catania" looks like, but I think it does look similar. Each ball had a couple of knots.
Color: 158
Price: €1.25, reduced from €1.75
Amount: 4 balls
Needles: 3.25 mm for the body and 2.5 mm for the ribbing. I would have preferred 2.75 mm needles, but didn't have circulars in the right length.
Gauge: 18 stitches (2 pattern repeates) in 9 cm
Dimensions: 9 pattern repeats each for front and back
Modifications:
Made it smaller. I was afraid it would emphasize my shoulders too much if it was too wide. The ribbing is also lower, but that's just because I assumed that with blocking the body would shrink lengthwise, so I knit a couple rows more. It didn't really shrink and I was just too lazy to rip back again and I thought that this piece was already full with mistakes anyway. And also, it looks ok that way. If I hadn't liked the look of it I probably would have ripped back.
I knit the top in the round after the armholes. If you knit in the round, you can reduce some stitches, but be aware - you can not just line the pattern repeats one after another. It will not work where the beginning and the end of the row meet. At the sides you need to keep some of the edge stitches. Trust me, I've repeated this over and over again until I finally understood that my knitting was correct and it just did not work out, no matter what I believed.

After joining to knit in the round and after like 10 cm I tried it on and realized that the armholes are too big. - I just don't know why they were too big! AAAAHHHH! I had measured it! At this point and after ripping back so much I decided to make the armholes smaller by sewing the side seams together.

Comments:
The yarn doesn't seem to be a great quality. Usually I don't block garments inbetween, but in this case I wanted to check the length of the lace part (I turned out to be longer then expected, but just couldn't bother anymore), so I soaked it in water, meaning, I did not wash it with any detergent, just soaked in water and then blocked it. After drying, checking the length, etc, I continued working on the ribbing, and guess what, there is a color difference. You can even see it in the picture.
The edge around the neck curls. The swatch was ok, but here the edge curls. I just blocked it again, but still, it seems like the curled edge is going to stay.
I think I like it, despite the armholes and the curling edge.

Finished: Ogee Lace Skirt

Pattern: Ogee Lace Skirt by Gryphon Perkins
Interweave Knits, Summer 2007
Yarn: Rowan Bamboo Tape
Color: white
Price: don't know anymore...
Amount: Less than 4 I think
Needles: When I started with the recommended needle size it was too loose. A year later, when I had to rip back a bit and redo the edge, it seems that my knitting has become tighter, because now I have to use a bigger needle size. Very strange…
Gauge: doesn't really matter, I guess, with warp skirt
Dimensions: ?
Modifications: Made it shorter and turned it upside down, because I didn't like the edge. It seemed to be kind of wavy. The leaves are pointing downwards now. I think I don't really like leaf patterns anyway where the leaves point upwards. That's against gravity and nature.
Comments: I washed it by mistake at 40 °C. After it came out it was a bit stiff and had shrunk quite. I pulled it apart and actually, now I like it better than before, because it has lost somewhat of the drape (it was too much for me before).
I don't really have much information about this project available, because I finished it such a long time ago. Before I made the modifications I didn't really like the skirt, so the it was just lying around.

Finished: Feather and Fan Shawl

Pattern: Feather and Fan Shawl by Eugen Beuger. Published in A Gathering of Lace
Yarn: Schachenmayr Nomotta Alpaka Fashion
Color: 122
Price: I was lucky that about half of the balls I used were on sale
Amount: 10? about 475 g. I used a tiny bit of the last ball to bind off and one of the balls was not completely 50 g, because I had used some of it for a previous project
Needles: 5 mm
Gauge: -
Dimensions: about 162 cm diameter sorry, after that girl n's comment I checked and it's actually 144 cm
Modifications: I stopped after row 126 and started doing the last edging rows
Comment: I've heard that people knitting the Hemlock Ring Blanket had problems with the feather and fan pattern puckering too much despite blocking (a not so easy task from what I have heard. I got told that someone compared it with fighting with an octopus). My guess was that there are not enough repeats in the round and this causes the puckering (the other variation is that the blanket grows too fast in diameter/length). With this blanket I had zero problems with blocking, just the usual fussing, but there was no excessive use of force needed to whip this thing into shape as other knitters seem to have with the Hemlock Ring, and I also haven't noticed any puckering yet. It's nice and flat without any visible tensions.

I'm counting 8 repeats of the feather and fan pattern in the round for the Hemlock Ring and this pattern has 24 repeats in the round. I haven't looked at the feather and fan pattern version of the Hemlock Ring myself, but from what my friends told me it seems to be knit in a similar as the feather and fan pattern in the shawl. My conclusion is that if I wanted to knit the Hemlock Ring I probably would work in modifications.

The reason I chose the Feather and Fan Shawl was the play of light and dark in the feather and fan pattern (which I'm actually only realizing now as the thought that floated my mind when I saw the shawl the first time was, "I want to knit that one!") and because I liked the flower in the center better. With the flower and the bright color the blanket looks very sunny.

Next time I would choose a thicker yarn though. It's still more like an übersize shawl than a blanket. The yarn is great though. I have a wrap cardigan that my mom made for me in the same yarn and it's really really soft. It's a delight to work with. I have three balls in red which I initially wanted to use for a shawl; now I want to use them for a beret. We'll see.

I washed the blanket in the washing machine (washing programm: wool, cold) with a regular wool wash, because it was too big to wash it in the sink. By the way, I wash most of my wool stuff in the washing machine (cold), even when it's not superwash wool. If I want to give an item a special treatment and when it's not too big I handwash it with Kookaburra, but that's it.

Finished: wedding stole

Pattern: Lead or Follow Lace Scarf by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer
Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, 210 m (229 yds)/25 g, recommended needle size 3.25 mm - 5 mm, gauge 18-25 stitches x 23-34 rows in 10 x 10 cm, 70% super kid mohair and 30% silk
Color: "Cream" #634 (it's an off-white, the other off-white Rowan offers is "Pearl", but it looks darker. The true white shade, "Bleached", what an awful name for a color, by the way, is discontinued.)
Price: about $13 per ball
Amount: 3 and a tiny bit of the forth to finish the last row before the binding-off row and the binding-off row
Needles: 5 mm
Gauge: -
Dimensions: about 192 x 68 cm
Modifications: I decided to go for a different border since I wanted it to look like a stole and less like a scarf. I kept the inner border though and added a similar row with holes on both ends. For the outer border used the one from the Lily-of-the-valley shawl from the book "Lace Style."

Width:
I did the 12 stitch repeat five times. I left out the 13 stitches part on the right side and the 13 stitches part on the left side. Total cast-on: 79 stitches (including the slip stitches on both sides, one for each).

Length:
12.5 repeats.

Inner border:
I wanted both ends of the stole to have a similar inner border as the ones on the side, which consisted of yarnovers and a garter stitch edge. I started with a provisional cast-on and knit three rows in garter stitch and then knit the row with holes.

Subtracting the slip stitches and the inner borders I had 69 stitches in the middle left. My plan was to [k2tog, yo] until the end. As I wanted to start and end with a yarnover though I had to knit the last three stitches together in order to maintain the same number of stitches.

When your stole is long enough, finish with a row with holes and three garter stitch rows.

Outer border:
For the border you need a multiple of 8 +2 stitches.

I increased 11 stitches on both ends = 90 stitches (it might not be necessary to pick that many for the border. Either that or I should have picked up more stitches on the side. The border on both sides is more stretched than the border on the two ends).

For both sides of the stole you're supposed to pick up three stitches from two slip stitches. I had to drop some of the picked up stitches (three on one side and five on the other? My inner perfectionist ran amok when it realized that things were not working out as expected.) in order to get a multiple of 8 + 2. I picked up 226 stitches on each side.

By the way, there are mistakes in the border (row 11 and 13). In the pictures you will see that the yarnovers are on both sides of the corner center stitch (count them), but the charts will tell you that the center stitch and the yarnovers in row 11 and 13 are separated by one knit stitch. Of course, I did notice that the pattern was kind of irregular, but instead of stopping and investigating further, I ignored the tiny nagging voice in my head that was preventing me from blissful mindless knitting. But it was ok, in the end I just had to figure out how to fix a mistake a couple of rows down in a lace pattern. Why have it easy when it can also be complicated and fun. :D It was fixable though without too much fussing around.

The border is really pointy. That's because I added extra stitches when binding off, meaning after binding the yarnover before a center stitch, I knit a stitch (basically you crochet a new stitch), bound off the center stitch, knit/crochet another stitch, bound off the yarn over. I think the border is a bit too pointy, but I really don't want to deal with this stole anymore. It has already woken up the perfectionist in me and that one exhausts me.

Difficulty: The pattern is doable and not really difficult. It is true lace and you also have to pay attention on the wrong side rows, but it's not too difficult. I recommend that you divide (highlight) the rows into groups of four, that makes it easier to read, but it also disentangles the pattern a bit.

Blocking was a pain in the ass. The stole is huge and I had no clue how and how much I wanted to block it. I spent an hour and half shifting the pins around till it looked right. The pattern seems to look better when you stretch it more lengthwise. The stole is very hole-y and the stitches are bigger than I would usually knit them, but I like the stained glass look here, it goes well with this pattern.

Overall I think it looks nice. I was a bit unsure before, but as a friend of mine said, just look on Ravelry for projects with Rowan Kidsilk Haze, everything knit with it will look nice. And I tend to agree with her.

Now, all I have to do is get this stole in time to my friend!







I went shopping today hence the green summer dress at a time when I have already turned on the heating... I'm not running like that anymore in case you were wondering. :D My intention was to buy winter skirts, but I came back with this summer dress (and a winter skirt). It doesn't look like a very clever idea, but it was on sale, and I know if I buy it now I will have enough dresses next summer. I don't really like this kind of anti-cycle shopping, but it's not such a bad idea for me actually. I don't care about shopping and I just hate having to shop when I need something now (like the winter skirts). I know, when next summer I open my wardrobe and find a new dress that has even already been paid, I'll be happy. :)







Since I have posted masses and masses of pictures it should be clear to you now why it's called "lead or follow lace," right?? :D


By the way, I got these a couple of days ago, too. You have to admit, they are really cute, aren't they? I wish they also had the tights in my size.

Finished: One-Skein Shawl

Pattern: One-Skein Shawl by Clara H. Parkes from Knitter's Review
Yarn: 1/15NM lace weight, 100% camelhair from Colourmart; I asked them to ply it for me, so I received a 2-ply yarn, but then I wanted a heavier yarn and used it doubled. So, what I used was a 4/15 NM yan (fingering weight?)
Color: Kid
Price: $16.00
Amount: I have yarn left, I think I used more than 100 g
Needles: 4.5 mm
Gauge: I made a mini-mini swatch to check if my needle size was right, but it's a shawl, so you don't have to swatch properly and measure how many stitches go into 10 cm. :p (you know who you are :p :p)
Dimensions: 150 cm wide and 75 cm from center to tip
Modifications:

I also modified the cast-on. Instead of casting on 5 stitches, I cast on 3 ((I'm convinced that it looks nicer that way, but don't have proof, because I didn't bother to cast on 5 and compare it with my 3-stitch cast-on. Just trust me. :D).



1. Row: Setup row: k to the end
2. Row: 1. row: k1, yo, k1, yo, k1 (=5 stitches)
3. Row: 2. row: k1, purl to last stitch, k1

Continue with the 1. row from the one-skein pattern (= your 3. row).

Every 9. and 11. row I added some holes:

k1 (edge stitch), yo, repeat [k2tog, yo], k1, yo, k1 (center stitch), yo, k1, repeat [yo, ssk], yo, k1 (edge stitch)

Edit: Sorry, I'm confusing. The first rows with holes are done in the 11. row and 13. row. After that it's every 9. and 11. row.

Picot edge: Using the cable cast-on, *cast on two stitches and bind them off. Bind off two more stitches (I purled them. I find the edge looks nicer that way and I was also hoping that I would get a less curly edge. In the end, I didn't have problems with the edge curling, but I also blocked a lot.).* Repeat from * to *








Yep, that's a spinning wheel that you're seeing in the left corner! :D It's a Minstrel from Kromski. I had a hard time deciding, because at first I like the antique look of this wheel, but then I thought I wanted something less frilly and with clear lines and shapes, like the Ashford Joy (I was also thinking of all the dust that would settle with time in the thousand corners of the Minstrel. While I don't like cleaning, I like things to be clean, if you know what I mean.). Having tried it before I did know that it was a good wheel and after reading Abby Franquemont's post about choosing the first wheel and her recommending it together with three, four other wheels I decided to go with that one (also the others were not really available here.). Sofar I'm really happy with it. :)




Same stuff as here, but spun with the wheel.




The blue yarn is Domestic (a bit scratchy. Or maybe overspun...? :o )