Tag Archives: Knitting Projects

Humpday Update – Pictures and Thoughts – the Bryce Canyon Shawl

Knoontime Knitting
The Bryce Canyon Shawl
You know, it’s hot enough here in Chicago to fry an egg on the sidewalk (maybe not literally, but it sure feels like it), so working on a shawl that is reminiscent of my time in the desert is, perhaps, fitting.

As I work on it, I am surprised by my progress.  It feels massive, like it will never be done; as I add new yarn only a couple inches from the last addition I worry I won’t have enough yarn and will never get to work on my other projects.  My Puritanical Critic chimes in with, you’d better not work on anything until this is done, and I despair.

Yet I see progress.  There are four more inches over the last medallion, which surprises me.  When did I have time to add four inches?  I only just finished that medallion this last weekend!  But this is the magic of knitting.  Stitch by stitch, inch by inch, progress accumulates.

Kind of like life.

My husband is the professional photographer, which you can sort of tell since all you see of me is the top of my forehead.  And MAN can you tell it’s hot by how shiny my head is!  What a pate.

Oh, right.  The knitting, Noony, is why they’re reading this.  ~blush~

See how many inches I’ve added above the ending of the center medallion?  Wowsers.

Okay, this time I got my eyes, at least.  I’m still wearing my old glasses, since my new ones had to go back to the doctor to be fixed and they’re not ready yet.  This is one of the two medallions that will be on the top.

And this is a close-up of that medallion.  I love Barbara Walker’s sampler ideas!  These are so fun to make.  I’m on row 84 here.  Only about 50 more to go before the end, then I’ll add a few inches of the lace stitch.  (It’s called “faggoting,” but I keep not typing that because it makes me blush and I don’t want folks to think I’m being rude.)

Journey Into 3-D

Knoontime Knitting

This weekend I had an object lesson in the difference between 2-D planning and 3-D execution.  Namely, yarn estimation.

When my baby Bryce Canyon Shawl was nice and small, it was easy to imagine I’d only need a few skeins of yarn.  I’d done other triangle shawls and wanted this one to be “bigger” (technical term) so I knew if I got more yarn, I’d be fine.  So I got a few skeins.

Then I threw in the wrinkle of the two extra lace medallions.

But this also means that there are continuous increases, all the way up the shawl.

Those of you who already knit know what’s coming.  I ran out of yarn this weekend.  We went and picked up six more skeins, after running my new estimate by my husband who isn’t as geometrically challenged as me.  We shall see.

Here’s a couple progress photos for you.

The center medallion is now done, as of this weekend.  I put it on my dress form to take this picture, which turned out surprisingly well.  However, the fabric I already had on the dress form clashes horribly, which is why I’m not showing you the view from the front.

The side medallions are getting really big.  I love the way they get set off by the lace on either side; I think it’s coming out really well.  I love it when a plan comes together!

Humpday Update: Designing the Bryce Canyon Shawl

Knoontime Knitting

The design of the Bryce Canyon Shawl is coming together.  I selected two more lace diamonds to incorporate; they’ll start at the midpoint of the center medallion.  I’m estimating the shape on the fly, rather than working it out mathematically; I decided I didn’t want to draw it out but am trusting my gut.  We shall see.

I’m loving the colors and the way the yarn looks in the pattern.  Lion Brand did a nice job with this fiber.

As an aside, my birthday present arrived from KnitPicks and now I’m all excited.  I want to play with it (16 balls of electric dark blue and 16 balls of maple syrup brown), but I’m staying focused on the shawl at the moment.  I don’t know if I want to make one blue sweater and one brown, or do two mosaics with both colors.  We shall see.

But for now, here are some pictures of the Bryce Canyon Shawl so you can see how the design progresses:

This is a picture from last week, and you can see the start of the center medallion.  It will be a diamond and has a 3 stitch border in plain stockinette stitch on either side, with a yarn over (i.e. a hole) just inside that.

The two small clear crystals aren’t beads, those are stitch markers and they sit on either side of the medallion (this is one way you can keep track of knitting pattern changes).  They don’t have to be fancy, and in fact I have several plain steel rings on the needles but I wanted to use my fancy rings for the medallion since I have them and they’re pretty.

They’re actually a little annoying to work with, to be honest.  There’s a bar that hangs down from the ring, and it’s twisted metal.  That’s what is used to attach the crystal.  The problem is that a) it attaches to the stitches sometimes, and b) it gets in the way of the needles when I’m knitting.  I make it work, because I like the way they look as I’m working, but they’re not the most practical of beasts.  I prefer the plain steel rings my husband made for me from heavy-gauge steel wire.

Here is how it looks today. The faux cable look of the center “V” is deceptive; that’s just because the needle isn’t long enough to let the pattern lay flat.  But in this view, you can see the center medallion progressing up to its middle panel (a helix laying sideways that mimics the vertical one you can see).

The little white bit that looks like a scrap of paper on the left is a scrap of paper.  🙂  I was knitting outside yesterday, sitting on the grass by the river, and dropped one of my rings.  The grass ate it.  I spent quit a while looking for it, too, but no luck.

I decided to stop increasing the lace lattice that is on the outside.  Since I’m adding two medallions and they have their own increases/decreases, I stopped adding stitches at the sides and will let it grow from the stitches within the medallions.  I may change my mind once it grows some more, but we’ll see.  (That’s the geometry I mentioned earlier.)

This final image shows the right-hand medallion just beginning.  There are only about 6 rows so far, so it’s not easy to see in this image, but you can at least get an idea of where it will go.  The lattice will continue between the medallions on the sides and the center panel, to keep the overall feel of the shawl consistent.

That’s our Wednesday update.  Happy knitting!

New Shawl Design

Knoontime Knitting

I bought some lovely yarn from Lion Brand, called “Amazing.”  The colorway is Regatta, which is a subtle rainbow of overdyed colors.  I decided to make a triangle shawl with it, using a couple different lace patterns and center diamonds from Barbara Walker’s Fourth Treasury of Knitting Patterns.

In designing, I first tried a swatch of stockinette stitch.  Somehow, I misread the ball band and thought it wanted Size 6 U.S. and made the swatch with those needles.  It didn’t look the way I wanted, especially the honeycomb slipped stitch design.

Then I read the ball band.  Size 9 U.S.

Oh.

Trying it with Size 9 produced better results, but still too dense of a pattern when I knitted a simple moss stitch.  I took that out and played with Vertical Lace Trellis, also by Barbara Walker but this time in her A Treasury of Knitting Patterns.  I added an increase stitch on either side of every even row.  Due to the nature of the pattern, I simply didn’t use a decrease on the one side, but added a make 1 to the other.  While this allowed me to get the correct stitch count, it pulled the design out of shape.

I’m going to pull this swatch out, and try it again with simple make ones, while banding the lace with a simple garter stitch edge.  That will let me center the triangle in the middle, keeping the edges straight.  We’ll see how that works from here.

A Bit of Baby…

Knoontime Knitting

Wow, it’s already October! Time passes so quickly, eh?

I have been knitting, just not writing about it. Currently, I am working on holiday gifts and a very quick baby blanket for my husband’s boss, to give to him tonight at his birthday party. He just had a baby (well, his wife did), and so I wanted to have the blanket done when I see him. JUST finished it today! ~pants~

It’s from a very easy pattern book by Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss called 7 Day Afghans called “Raspberries and Cream.” I varied the pattern a bit and used two slip stitches for the main color rather than one; I like the receding window pane effect as well as the loft of the resultant fabric.

I don’t have time to wash it before tonight, and it needs to be; while blocking isn’t strictly necessary with the acrylic yarn I used it does need to be reshaped and washing will help that. It has a two-inch seed-stitch border around it which allows it to lay flat.

In this image, you can see the back of the blanket and how the two-stitch carries along the back help it to be extra fluffy. It’s a nice blanket to squish against and I think it will feel really nice against baby’s skin.

Fiji Kit

Knoontime Knitting

My friend works in an industrial sales office, and is around men most of the day. She lives in the Midwest, but I think would be more comfortable in a writing cabana by the ocean where she had nothing to do all day but write.

Since I can’t buy her the cabana in the Caribbean, I’m making her a desk set instead. It’s one of those awful, uber-cute desk sets, too – the kind you find at White Elephant sales and bad parties.

Yes, I’m that kind of friend. ~leer~

But in all seriousness, the box for paperclips and the stapler cover shaped like a shark are worth the kitsch. Here’s a picture of the kit in its entirety:

I’ve finished knitting the cabana box cover bits, and now all that’s left is to felt them. Since the rest needs to be felted too, I figured I’d do it all at one time to save washer water. Here are the box pieces:

This is the base piece, done in plain stockinette stitch (which is knit a row, purl a row). I actually finished these and realize I don’t have a picture of that, so that will have to wait. But here are some more pix:

This is the base all finished up. As you can see, it’s quite long. It will shrink when it’s felted, and it will be sewn together over a plastic mesh base.

The bottom is knit in plain stockinette in a sand color. At first, I couldn’t figure out why they selected a mud brown for such a cheerful piece, and then I realized that it’s supposed to be the sand floor.

Duh.

These were fun to knit. The cabana caps are just about the right size to be a cat hat.

Yeah, don’t try that at home…

Knit in the round, you can see the gradual decrease pattern in the grid under the knitting. You decrease each of the four sides on the decrease rounds, so it has a very pronounced triangular or pyramidical shape.

Next we come to the wrist rest. Knit in intarsia, it’s got a complex little picture of fish and kelp. Quite cute, if you’re needlepointing.

Rather more complex if you’re knitting. Each of those strings hanging down is a bobbin of color that you pick up and knit with at the relevant point in the design. While one could knit complex needlepoint or counted cross-stitch charts this way, it is very detailed and requires concentration.

I’m just past the halfway point in the intarsia design, and should be done in another week. The rows take about 15 minutes each, since they require wrapping each new color. I could not for the life of me figure out why the stripes on the edges are brown and light brown, until someone said “oh, when does the color start after the sand?”

Bong.

Sand.

Duh.

~knityfy~

Update from the Itinerant Knitter

Knoontime Knitting

Our writing group, the Writers Retreat, had a mini-retreat March 4th through the 6th in Indianapolis, Indiana. Authors A. Catherine Noon, Nicole Gordon, Darla M. Sands, and the Pack Rat met for a weekend of touring and hanging out and, of course, writing.
Since I went along, we of course had to do a side-trip to the LYS (Local Yarn Shop). We visited:

Mass. Ave. Knit Shop
Susan Brennan, Proprietor
862 Virginia Avenue
Indianapolis, Indiana 46203
Main tel: (317) 638-1833
Website

It’s a very large store with a big sale room. I found some neat stuff on sale:

di.ve brand, from Biella – Itally, a ribbon yarn that’s full of luscious fall colors and a startlingly bright silver splash. It’s the Luxus line, which is 91% Polyamid and 9% Polyester; I bought color 29204, lot 1496.

I first swatched with garter stitch on size 10 needles. It yielded a very dense fabric, springy and stiff. I didn’t like it, and since garter uses up so much yarn and I only bought three balls, I decided to try something else.

I swatched a pattern from Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns called “Vertical Lace Trellis.”

Vertical Lace Trellis
Odd # sts.
R1 & 3 (WS): P
R2: K1 *YO, K2T
R4 *SSK, YO, REP *, END K1

Since it’s only 4 rows, and only 2 of those rows are the pattern row and the rest is purl stitches, it’s a very easy pattern to follow. I’ve done another scarf in this pattern, but need to post some pictures of it. In the meantime, here’s what I’m trying with the Luxus:

CO 3
YO after first and before last stitch, all even-numbered rows; do pattern in the middle on the odd-numbered stitches.

This will create a triangle shawl.

I think I’ll add a bead at the point of the triangle for weight, or maybe some tassels. We’ll see.

Holiday Knitting: The Bolero of Doom

Knoontime Knitting

I decided to tackle a bolero for my friend R…, and figured it would be easy because it’s a Lion Brand free pattern.  It stumped me a little at first, because of instructions like “and at the same time” in all caps.  But I took it apart, started over again, and am pleased to report that I have now finished the left front.

Read on!

First, we found the pattern at the store, but it’s also available online.  Click here.

Since R… has a dress code at work, we decided to use a black tone for the sweater so she could use the bolero there. We settled on 312 Edwardian, Art #790, Lot #10289.

Once I finally got the hang of it, it was easy to do.  The instructions “and at the same time” made more sense once I realized there’s a distinct left side and right side to the piece – in this case, when I say “side,” I mean “edge.”  See below:

At the bottom of the image is a blue tie, to indicate “center front.”  Once I realized that, the schematic helped me to determine that the shaping (note the pronounced slope on the left) of the piece.

After that, finishing the left front piece was a snap.  Here it is, using the simple expedient of an extra knitting needle as a stitch holder:

All of a sudden, it begins to look like a sweater!

For you stitch-a-holics out there, here’s a detail of the pattern stitch:

It’s called a broken rib stitch.  All wrong-side rows are knit; all right side are K3, P2.  It’s a nice, nubby texture; particularly with the Homespun brand yarn.

Mochi Progress

Knoontime Knitting

I’ve been working away… well, playing away, really… with my shawl.  Here are a couple quick updates.

I’m on row 14 of a 16 stitch sample of rippled rib.  I may extend it past this current spot because I like how it’s shaping up and one repeat of the pattern is a little too little to see.
I’m learning to read charts now, which is getting easier the more I play with them.  I’m using post-its to track the row I’m on and I numbered the stitches on the post-it, which helped me to keep track of them.  I found that to be a lot more helpful than trying to count in the middle of the row.  As long as I kept count of what stitch I’m on in the knitting itself, then I know what stitch I’m on in the diagram.

The stitch in the middle is the cross-stitch pattern that I mentioned in my previous article on this project.  It has less give than other patterns, and would be good for a jacket or something that needs to hold its shape.  I love the look of it, but it’s less loose than I would like for a shawl.  I may continue with it for this project anyway, simply for the practice.

The wavy ribs that I’m working now are at the top of the photograph and in the detail below; I like them in the book but less so on this project so far because it’s only one pattern repeat.  That’s why I think I might continue the pattern through several more repeats in order for it to establish itself on the piece.

This shows the lace in the pattern, but it’s hard to see the rows of wavy ribs that go up vertically along it.  I’d love to try it with a worsted-weight or heavy yarn in a scarf with a couple of repeats width will allow the pattern to really shine.  (This yarn is a lace weight, maybe a DK, but very light.  Worsted-weight is more traditional, what Americans think of when they think ‘skein of yarn’ in the store.)

Mochi Update – Tunisian Redux

Knoontime Knitting

I decided to change the project I used the Mochi Mini yarn for.  Originally, I wanted to do a Tunisian scarf, but it kept not working out the way I wanted.  I blogged about it here.

Using a design by Cheryl Oberle as a starting point, I am doing a triangular shawl.  I’m using a stitch from Barbara Walker’s stitch dictionary, the second volume, for the middle panel.  In the original pattern, it’s a 35 row repeat of garter; instead, I’m doing a 36 row repeat of the texture stitch.

The funny part is that when I started it, I thought the top was where the triangle was supposed to form.  There is a four-stitch increase every other row, two of which are in the center; which means it’s a mitered corner.

Uh, duh.

You can see I sort of pulled the center out of shape and will have to block aggressively when I finish it.  I think I’ll also add a picot row along that top since in the center there’s only the two yarn-overs to hold the edge, which will be subjected to quite a bit of stress.

This next image shows the mitering and the center yarn-over increases.  I like the striping effect of this yarn.  One thing I don’t care for, though, is the way it knots with itself.  The filament has quite a bit of fuzz that develops pills, and then the yarn knots on itself.  I’ve already had several severe tangles in just this first yarn ball and, despite the appearance, won’t work with this yarn again because of that.  It’s just not worth the time to untangle everything.

This shot shows the four row texture repeat from Barbara Walker’s guide.  I like this stitch a lot and think I might make a regular scarf in a rectangle to show it off.  It’s got an interesting slip stitch pass over that makes the horizontal bars; it reminds me a little of Tunisian because of the square shape.  In a worsted weight yarn, I think the texture would show up even more.