shawl

An FO and And a WIP

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I have finished the comfort shawl I was working on for a friend at church. It’s a free pattern and I have linked it to the Raverly page. It’s a nice mindless knit so you can think about why you’re knitting it, or if it’s not for someone else, you can think about whatever you want :P. I used 4 skeins of Lion Brand Home Spun yarn. It looks like it has grey in it, but that is lavender, again not a great camera or maybe it’s just me :P.

I have started another Flax Baby Sweater by Tin Can Knits , I really like knitting this sweater, it is in sizes 0 to 6XL. The color way I’m using is Teal Stripe and as usually I have to do a little color management on the sleeves. For future baby sweaters, since I am knitting so many of these :P, I will be using Yarn Bee Warm and Cozy that is kinda solid colors, but not quite, they have a slightly shaded feel to them so no color management.

Fall is here, we are still in the 60’s and 70’s (F) which is fine :), but the leaves are starting to change because we are into the 40’s at night off and on now. Only nice thing about fall is my electric bill goes down, lol. Gotta take your blessings where you can, and I wouldn’t mind fall as much but it means winter is right around the corner and I am not a winter kinda girl. 30, 40 and 50F below zero temps are not my cup of tea, but I have to admit, hot chocolate helps, but then chocolate helps most things, lol.

Knitting and Spinning Updates and a New Cria!

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In the first picture are some of the things I am actively working on, a little girl baby sweater (yes the Flax :)), it’s in the Yarn Bee Soft & Sleek in Coral colorway. The larger item is a garter stitch comfort shawl in Lion Brand Homespun in the Waterfall Cascade colorway. The last item is the hat I will be knitting for my family member out of the lavender hand-spun (wool with a little alpaca blended in) that is showing in the next picture. I haven’t started the hat (Snowtracks Cap by Timothy Peters) yet, but I did get it wound into a ball. I actually enjoy the hand winding process, I find it a mindless and peaceful experience, well except when it is tangled as I wind, then it’s just an experience :P.

The next picture is all the yarn I’ve spun this year, (well except the orange skein it was a fractal spin I did last year, it’s just pretty :P).

The next two pictures are the alpaca cria (baby alpaca) roving I am spinning on my Rick Reeves double drive wheel. The alpaca fiber is butter soft as it goes through my fingers, and oh my it almost spins itself!! This roving was from a cria fleece that my daughter bought me a few years back that I had sent off to a mill in the east to turn into roving and they did a tremendous job!!

The last picture is one of my son’s alpaca, Summit, and her new cria, who was born this last Thursday, isn’t he a cutie, he’s white just like his mom! His dad was a beautiful fawn color from another herd. They have one more cria to be born in the next two weeks and that will make 4 new babies this year.

Update on My Shawl and Derecho Storm Last Month

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I wanted to show the progress on the wedding shawl.  The fix worked and it is progressing.  I am farther than the picture shows as I haven’t taken a new picture since this one, and as you know lace is rather unremarkable before it’s blocked :P.  When this is blocked those daisy petals will really open up.  I am on my 3rd ball of yarn and have 2 more to go, need to have this done by the 5th of next month, yikes!

I haven’t been online much lately, the 10th of last month we had what they call a Derecho storm, it is a very large and powerful thunderstorm that covered 100’s of miles with hurricane type straight line winds, it’s also called an inland hurricane.  In my area they reached 112 mph, a level 3 hurricane.  I’ve included some pictures of a little of the damage, these were taken a couple of days after the storm because it was really hard to get around on the streets for a couple of days.  I was one of the lucky ones, the apts I live in received very little damage, because the owner had just had to have the roof fixed from a similar storm the month before with straight line winds to 90 mph.  I was only without power for 27 hrs and so I didn’t lose any food, but some people were without power for 3 weeks, and it is very muggy and hot here in the Midwest in Aug!  I was without internet tho for about 2 1/2 weeks and my phone service was spotty.  The storm literally uprooted large trees or ripped off their branches or broke the trees in half, houses lost shingles, or parts of their roofs and siding. We still have branches and trees on the side of the roads for the city to pick up and dispose of and there are some side roads that are still closed to through traffic.  Not all the damaged trees have been cut down yet, a lot of them remind me of the poor Charlie Brown Christmas tree as they were stripped of their leaves and branches.  People are still waiting for companies to fix their roofs, and some lost cars to the trees that fell.  It was a mess and lasted for about 50 min, which is a long time, but like I said it was a very large storm that came through IA, ND and Northern IL, most of which lost their power for varying amounts of time.

Hope you are all well.

My Daisy Rectangular Shawl has been Reworked for Errors

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My Shawl pattern fixed

I reworked my Daisy Rectangular Shawl to fix an error I had made in the design.  It’s working out for me but since I don’t have a tech editor, I hope I have fixed it 😛  I have updated the pattern on that page.  I have only done one repeat of the 24 row pattern and this is not blocked, so the lace is … well you know how lace is before it’s blocked :P.  Another lady who knit this pattern used stitch markers between the repeats because she said it drove her crazy until she did,  but marking the repeats messed me up, guess I’m a little strange, I have no problem counting stitches between repeats and reading my work,  You use whatever works for you :).

I’ll have updates on my progress, as I have to have this done by Oct.  Hope you enjoy the pattern if you have a mind to knit it. 🙂

Summer Solstice, New Progress Keepers and Lace Bookmarks

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Sorry Word Press has changed some things and I don’t know how to get around in it yet, sigh.

Ok it’s the Summer Solstice, which for me means our daylight hrs will start to get shorter.  I only pay attention to the solstices because they signal days getting shorter or longer.  I always look more forward to the Winter Solstice, because it means the daylight hrs are increasing and Spring is coming. 🙂  I guess I shouldn’t look at Summer Solstice as a negative and just enjoy the summer and fall without worrying about winter yet.  Can you tell I am not a winter person, and yet I live in the Mid West?

I have been working on the lace book marks and they are now all sent out to their intended recipients.  I knit them on size 1 (US size) needles using left over sock yarn, used about 4 to 5 grams including the tassle, depending on how thick your sock yarn is.  They are quick and easy.

This past week I got a surprise package in the mail.  I opened it up and it was from one of my favorite stitch marker/progress keeper makers, Adoreknit .  She knows I am an huge Mandalorian fan.  I was so excited when I opened it and found these two Mandalorian progress keepers!  Put a big smile on my face, baby Yoda is adorning one of my WIPs, is he not so cute!  Makers are the best people!

I got the new yarn I ordered for the wedding shawl that I need to have done before October.   The yarn I ordered before was too coarse for bare shoulders and I returned it.  I ordered both yarns from LoveCrafts and they were very good about taking the previous order back.   I’m using my Daisy Rectangular Shawl pattern.  I hope I have corrected the error (miscalculation) on two rows being too close.  I haven’t updated my pattern yet because I want to knit up my correction to make sure I didn’t make it worse :P.  If this corrects it, I will update the pattern.  I will post more on this shawl (yarn, needles etc) as I get further in the pattern as I have only finished the border on the bottom at the moment.

I’m on the last sleeve of the Flax baby sweater.  I will post a picture when it’s done :).

December is finally here! Plus Flax Sweater is Finished!

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I finished the Flax infant sweater by Tin Can Knits.  Love her design, knit from the top down and no joining or sewing up seams, perfect!!  Wish to colors showed up better, I seriously lack photo skills!  It has light blue, pink, purple, green and yellow.

The 2nd picture is a musical clock that I received as a gift on Thanksgiving.  My son’s mother-in-law and I exchange gifts on Thanksgiving and this was the gift she gave me.  My eyes almost popped out of my head, I love it so much.  It plays music on the hr and turns off the musical chimes when it’s dark so it won’t wake you up, how is that for awesome.  I gave her the Changing Stair Cases shawl  I had been knitting for her, hehe, she was also very excited :), lace shawls will do that ;).  Life is good :P.  I’m still working on some Charity hats, but I need to pick my next project.  Well actually I think it has picked me and I need to finish my spin for the hat I’m making for my family member.  I will have some time later this week to work on finishing it.  Hope everyone has a great December, only 3 or 4 more months (depending on where you live) until Spring :P.

Changing Staircases Shawl and Diagonal Garter Stitch Scarf Done!

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I was up late last night blocking my Changing Staircases Shawl.  Was very fun to knit, I will definitely knit it again!  The pattern is easy, I just have one word of warning, pay attention to the beginning of the last row of each section so you don’t have to tink back to do the part you forgot :P.  The link gives info on the pattern and yarn I used.  I can hardly wait until Christmas to give this gift!

I also finished the Diagonal Garter Stitch Scarf I was knitting with my friend Kari (info for my yarn and needles in link.)  She was killed in a one car accident last October, and I decided to finish mine in her memory.  It’s an easy pattern, tho since I can’t remember where I got it and I can’t find it online, I can not share it.  There are many similar patterns out there that you can search.

Now I can start the Little Lace Daisy Scarf (one of my own patterns) from the Teal merino that I hand spun.  Been a nice vacation, one more week then back to work :P.

Fractal Spinning Done!

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It’s either my photo skills or my camera (could be both), but my spinning pictures are really muted.  In rl (real life) these are brighter.  The fractal spin does mute things a little bit but the purple bobbin on the bottom was brighter purples and the aqua is a little darker (tho not dull) and has more blue hues scattered through out in it.  I got 274 yards of yarn and it weighted 106 grams, that would make it a light sport weight I think.  It was a fun spin and I will have to dig around for patterns that require that much yardage or less to make something nice.  Maybe a cowl or if it’s enough yardage a hat and mitt set.  I’m not a big fan of yarn chicken, so I will be looking at patterns. 🙂

I’m going to start the scarf for my friend from the teal yarn that I finished spinning just before this last spin.  I think I’m going to knit my Little Lace Daisy Scarf pattern.  But I will add a few more stitches to the edges to make it a little wider.   I showed her the finished yarn and she loved the teal color :).

I also am going to work on finishing the Changing Staircases Shawl that I have been working on.  I think I only have two more complete pattern sections (20 rows each) to be done.  Then I can block it and store it, it’s a Christmas gift.  Not waiting until closer to Christmas like I did last year, because if you remember “Murphy” moved in and I broke my hand last August and there was no Christmas knitting.  “Murphy” isn’t allowed at my house anymore :P.

I will be planning my next spin, but I want to finish the shawl first and get started on the scarf, then I won’t feel so anxious.  I generally do not have more than 2 to 3 projects going at any given time.  One is always a mindless knit for stressed out and non thinking days (usually a dishcloth or diagonal scarf, both which are very mindless knits.)  When I have more than that, I feel drawn in to many ways and anxious.  When I get more comfortable with the heels and gussets on socks, I will add them to my mindless knits :).  Besides I need a reason to test out my Flexi Flip needles (looks like they are on sale for 20% off at the moment.)  Maybe they will still be on sale when I get paid!

Shawl Update

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The Changing Staircases shawl doesn’t look like much yet, but then it’s not blocked and you can’t really see all the points along the right edge (as you are looking at it.)  They will be much more defined and the lace sections will be more open after blocking.  Blocking should also make the shawl a bit larger.  I don’t think I’m quite 2/3’s done, but I’m making progress.  This is an easy pattern and it’s an enjoyable knit.   I almost forgot, the 2nd picture is a progress keeper I won on Raverly last year or the year before, the creator has a shop on Etsy called the Victorian Studio Shop and she has lots of wonderful stitch markers and progress keepers, her polymer clay crafting is amazing.  This is a Chocolate Frog (Harry Potter reference) and is helping me keep track of my rows :).  Yeah, he’s not real chocolate, or he wouldn’t be there anymore helping me keep track of my rows :P.

I decided I might need a little more yarn for the scarf I’m making for my friend, so I am spinning about 60 more grams of roving.   I was worried about running out of yarn and having a scarf that was shorter than I wanted.  Because I probably will not have a perfect match when I dye it to match the skein I have already spun, I didn’t start the scarf yet so I can put the different shade on the ends and blend it in as I knit.  Since it’s a dark teal I’m hoping the shades won’t be terribly different, but plans in my head don’t always translate out the same when I do them, however, it’s always worth a try :).  Trying is how we learn ;).

It’s a beautiful day, think I will go outside on my balcony and spin for a bit. 🙂