Tag Archives: Homespun

Sunday Design Notebook

Knoontime Knitting
Picture from Lion Brand website.

My next project is the Everyday Flair Bolero by Lion Brand. It’s one of their free patterns.  I’m making it out of the Edwardian colorway, which appears black but is heathered dark grey.  It’s listed as a Beginner pattern, easy to make, but I disagree.  It is a pretty pattern, and will look good on the friend I’m making it for.  Boleros don’t look flattering on my figure but she is much shorter than I am and quite petite; the bolero will highlight her curves and look good on her body.

It turns out, when I read the comments for the pattern, I’m not alone in that opinion.  The difficulty lies in the way the pattern is written.  There are two issues with it:  first, the order of operations is confusing and, second, the second front piece is merely written as “repeat but reverse all shaping.”  I’m having to take very careful notes and use several markers to keep the pattern in order, which is ironic, since the pattern is a simple K3/P2 on RS, K on the WS.  I restarted the second front piece four times, because the pattern is very easy to jog and won’t look good that way.

This is the first front piece, showing the pattern of K3/P2 ribbing.  On the WS, all stitches are K, which makes it appear like a garter rib stitch.  When you finish the front of the sweater, you slide it off to a holder so I’m using a circular needle to hold the stitches in place.  Each of these sides will be joined and the sweater finished in one piece.

This is the second front piece, Take Four.  ðŸ™‚ 

I should be finished with the second front piece today and will then join it.  I will say, as long as the pieces are done correctly, the sweater knits up quickly.

Humpday Update – Bryce Canyon Shawl and Prayer Shawl

Knoontime Knitting

I finished the Bryce Canyon Shawl today. The last step was to add a 6 row garter stitch border to match the edges of the shawl and the bottom of the triangle. Then I used a knit one, purl one bind-off to make sure it would be elastic enough. The edge took a while to finish but I’m pleased with the results. I’ll share the bind-off here since I’ve used it a couple other times and really like it.

1. Cut the yarn 3 times the width of the edge and thread a yarn needle. Insert the yarn needle purlwise into the first stitch. Pull the yarn through. With the yarn needle behind the next stitch, insert it knitwise into the purl stitch and pull the yarn through.

2. *Slip the first knit stitch knitwise and insert the yarn needle into the second stitch on the needle purlwise. Pull the yarn through.

3. Slip the first stitch purlwise. Go behind the next stitch and insert the needle knitwise into the next stitch. Pull the yarn through. Repeat from the * in step 2 until all the stitches are bound off.

The next step is to block the shawl. It is stretched out of the way because of the lace. It needs to be stretched to allow the lace to lay flat. I’ll post pictures of that, but here are the images of the finished shawl (below).

In addition, I finished the prayer shawl for a friend of a friend who has colon cancer. It’s a triangle shawl like the Bryce Canyon Shawl, but with an allover lace pattern that’s K1, *YO, K2T. The edges are a 3-stitch garter stitch border with a YO, which is where the shape comes from. I used a picot bind-off which is quite pretty, along with 3 tassels.

This is an overall view of the shawl that shows the 3 lace diamonds and the lace outline, which is a vertical lace trellis stitch from Barbara Walker.

This is the bottom, center, medallion, also from Barbara Walker.

This is the medallion on the left.  When worn, this appears over the left shoulder and down the arm.

This is the right medallion and, like the left, appears on the arm.

This shows the bound-off edge with the garter stitch edge and the sewing needle bind-off.
This is the first comprehensive picture of the Prayer Shawl.  I used Lion Brand Homespun, in Harvest colorway.  The shawl is too large to show flat (it’s on a Full bed), so I folded the edges.  I used tassels on each of the 3 corners.

I stepped back to show the shawl again.  I love the way the yarn stripes.

This is a detail of the picot bind-off, on the inside left; ont he inside right you can see the garter edge with yarn-over increase.  The bind-off takes a while, but as you can see the results are worth it.

The preparation of the Prayer Shawl will simply be to wash and dry it.  It doesn’t require blocking, since the yarn doesn’t pull out of shape.