Pattern: Daybreak by Stephen West
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in African Violet and Tiziano Red
Recipient: My mom

My mom loves the color red, so I knew I had to use this color to make something for her. I picked Daybreak because she isn’t really a lace shawl person, and I liked the shallow, more scarf-like shape.

She really seemed to like it!

This was a really fun and fast project (it only took eight days for the medium size). The slip stitch detail spices up an otherwise simple stripe pattern to make something much more interesting.

And as I said, I really like the shape. It works as a shawlette, but I think my mom would use it more as a scarf.

Malabrigo Sock is my favorite yarn of 2009. It’s so soft and comes in such wonderful colors.

Happy dance!

Seraphim is done!

Pattern:  Seraphim by Miriam Felton
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock, Tiziano Red, approx 1.5 skeins

I love how it turned out!

Not that I’m any good at wearing shawls.

It’s the largest shawl I’ve ever made at just a touch over 80 inches across the top.

My love of Malabrigo Sock as a lace yarn continues unabated. I love how crisp the stitches look, and how the shawls turn out warm yet light.

I chose this color because the YOs before the feathers start remind me of sparks drifting up from a campfire, so I had intended this to be my Fire entry for project spectrum. I missed the deadline, but oh well.

I don’t usually wear this color, I’m more drawn to cool colors. Also, this is my mom’s favorite color, so stuff this color feels like it should be hers rather than mine. It looks good on me too though, I think. And as a bonus, I have a skein and a half of this color left over so I can make something for her!

Thank you to Miriam Felton for a beautiful and well-written pattern!

I LOVE it.

Pattern: Ishbelby Isolda Teague
Yarn: Tosh Sock, in Clematis, 1.5 skeins
Size: I made an extra-large version. The stockinette portion in the large size has 48 stitches more than the small version, so I did mine with 48 stitches more than the large version. I worked the lace charts as follows: A, B, A, B, A, B, A, C, D, E.

As I was knitting it, I was concerned that the color variation would obscure the lace pattern, but I don’t think it did at all.

It’s such a wonderful purple color, I think it will look dynamite as a scarf with my black winter coat.  I hereby declare this project to be a success.

So hey, want to see a cute kitty picture?

I thought so.

Much to my own surprise, I finished the yellow Ishbel in time to give it to my friend Jennifer at her graduation party yesterday. I chose the color yellow for my own reasons, but it doesn’t hurt that it fits with Project Spectrum too!

I’m really pleased with how it turned out, and happy that I could get it done so fast. I went to Sit-n-knit in Wethersfield on Wednesday on a mission to find the perfect yellow yarn. The ever-enthusiastic and helpful woman there helped me find all the yellow fingering and lace weight so I could choose the shade I liked best. Online yarn sources are great, but I was really glad I had an LYS nearby so I could talk to a live human.

Malabrigo sock (in Ochre) really was the perfect yellow yarn. There was enough variegation to make the stockinette portion interesting, but it didn’t detract from the lace portion at all. It also has great yardage – I was able to make the large size (turned out to be 61 inches across the top) and have 8 grams left over.

The yarn is also super soft and it blocked into the lace pattern nicely.

Speaking of blocking. What do you do when you cast off for a lace project less than two hours before you need to get in the car to go give it to the recipient?

I’m sure speed-blocking wouldn’t work for every project, but it worked for this one, anyway.

I’m really happy with how it turned out. No wonder it is such a popular pattern!

Exams are approaching fast, so I’ve felt very scattered and unsettled lately.  I’m very close to finishing both Serrano and Cathode, and despite my best efforts to finish projects I found the lure of new projects to be irresistible.  I couldn’t help but notice that they share a common color scheme with Cathode. 

While my love of the color green is well-documented in these pages, blue is my real favorite and I really appreciate a good purple.  I’m not sure I’ll wear Cathode much (more on that in the upcoming FO post) but the colors have worked their way into my brain, and I just want to look at blue and purple all day.

That and my anniversary is coming up, so maybe I’m just especially drawn to blue because of the time of year.

I started Ishbel in that wonderful tosh sock I mentioned the other day.  This is perfect project for soothing myself with mindless knitting.  I’ll run out of the stockinette portion soon enough though.

I also started Wisteria in Cascade Sierra. I wasn’t sure what I would do with this yarn, but it’s such a nice Wisteria-like color! I’m also pleased with the definition of the cables so far. This is the perfect project for when I want to focus on something other than law. Soon enough I’ll be done with the cabled yoke, and it will be zombie knitting, so it can take Ishbel’s place in that regard once I get to the lace portion of Ishbel.

I also have some dark blue cotton fine for Orangina, but I haven’t cast on for that yet. I probably won’t be able to help myself though.

The blog may be be rather quiet for the next month or so, but I have the feeling I’ll have plenty to show for it on the other side of all this.

I got so caught up in year-end and new finished object posts that I almost forgot to show you my last finished object of 2008: Shetland Triangle.

Pattern: Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersockin a mill end that I got from my knittyboard secret pall way back in March 2007(thank you fiberfool!)
Made for: Myself
Worked on: July 12, 2008 – December 31, 2008

I started this project way back in July, right after I finished knitting the DPP sample. I cast off on December 31, and took a picture of the unblocked lace in the last rays of sunlight in 2008.

Blocking works magic. Bonnie at Blue Peninsula did a great post on blocking lately.

I am very pleased with the way the Supersock holds lace patterns. Check out the crisp little points. I will certainly use Supersock for lace in the future.

In all, I am very happy with how it turned out. It was a very boring knit (which can be good) because I made it at a much smaller gauge than called for. I chose this pattern for this yarn because I thought fir cone lace would be perfect for this fir colored yarn.

I haven’t exactly mastered the artful draping that shawl-wearing seems to require, but I’m working on it.

I need my #4 needles, so I’ve been trying to finish Shetland Triangle.  It’s brutal.  I decided to make it at a finer gauge, so I added a bunch of repeats.  The last row had just shy of 400 stitches.  Oof.  The worst part is that there aren’t even any good WIP photos, as it looks almost exactly the way it did more than a month ago.

I am starting to get concerned about the whole blocking process.  The yarn has been staining my hands, so I am concerned that the color will fade once I get it wet.  For context, this is how I hold yarn:

(um, yes, those are my pajama pants, why do you ask?)

As you can see, I have the yarn wrapped tightly around my little finger for tension, and “throw” with the yarn wrapped around my middle finger.

Here are the stains it’s been leaving:

What do you think I should do? Just try to rinse out the extra color or try to set it somehow?

Let’s get back in the swing of things with a WIP post, shall we?

Way back in July I started Shetland Triangle. It seems that most people follow the instructions and do eight repeats of the body chart. Since I’m using sock yarn my gauge is smaller, and I am currently on my 15th repeat of the body chart.

So, basically, it is taking FOREVER. I knew that there were more stitches every row (obviously) but it really is dramatic how much longer each repeat of the body chart takes than the repeat before. So while I’m a little embarrassed that it is taking me so long to do Shetland Triangle, I hope you all understand.

I just recently started Exchequered in Filatura Di Crosa 501 that I got at WEBS a couple of years ago.  The colors are perfect for my sister Caroline (in fact, I used the lighter pink to make Elijah for her) so it will probably end up belonging to her.

I’m not using the chart on knitty because I didn’t feel like printing it out, I’m just adding squares when I feel like it. As a result, the two ends of the scarf won’t match, but I think I’ll like it better that way. I chose the pattern because I had never done double-knitting before, and I had to start it three times before I could get my gauge to be reasonably even. At the beginning I totally hated the double-knitting process, but now I am getting the hang of it. I really like the way it’s turining out!

(doesn’t my sister have pretty hair?)
 
My bat shawl pattern is available in the new AntiCraft.

I knit this last summer. It was one of the secret projects I worked on on my road trip. While I knit it over the summer, I didn’t finish writing the pattern until about a month ago, at that’s the pattern I was referring to in my post at the beginning of this year.

It all started with the swatch of the bat motif in the Walker Treasury Project. As you can see, the first comment was mine, and the idea came to me pretty much immediately.

This pattern probably won’t be as widely used as Foliage, but I am still psyched to get it published.  The Anticraft is obviously the only suitable home, and I’m really glad that they liked it!

I have finally finished my very own Clapotis. 

I love it. I used Lorna’s Laces Lion and Lamb in Tahoe. The colors are wonderful – blue, teal, and purple. I used about 3.5 skeins, and alternated between two skeins every other row. I think that added to the richness of the coloring of the finished item and gave it a more even look. For instance, the very light blue patches only appeared in one of the skeins, so I’m glad they stretched thorough the middle portion of the item rather than being confined to only 1/4 of it.

I made it a bit longer than called for, mostly out of habit. I’m taller than most so I routinely lengthen items.

I realize that my outfit doesn’t really go with it, but it was in the 80s today, cut me some slack

It looks rather thin in the above photo, but it’s wide enough to cover a good part of my back when wrapped around.

The wonderful thing about this pattern is the way it changes shape. It is great as a shawl, but it also works as a scarf.

This is my third Clapotis. I made one about a year ago for my friend Elizabeth and one as a Christmas present for my mother-in-law. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever make another, as great a pattern as it is. Three is plenty.

This project was a long time in the making.  I bought this yarn more than a year ago and I finished the increase sections by the middle of January.  The straight section killed me. It was so boring.  I only worked on it when I was too tired to work on anything more complicated, so I didn’t make much progress.  The last few weeks of my job were really intense though, so I indulged in several days of zombie knitting to clear my head in preparation for law school. 

I love the way it turned out. I’m sure I’ll use it a lot.