Celebrating

     Next month (April) we'll be celebrating two years of the Mawelucky Love group over at Ravelry.  As a thank you to all the wonderful people I met over there I've created (well...am creating) a new design which will be done as a KAL.
     The Birthday Pi is my gift to all the amazing folks who took a chance on me and were adventurous enough to try my patterns.

I'm back on the internet horse

So the cup is over and I'm back to show you what I was up to during the time I'm calling my Internet vacation.
First, I'll state the obvious and say it's amazing how much more time I had when I wasn't glued to a computer screen.
I had planned on spinning the whole time the cup was on, but there were some boring games and my fingers got sore, so I also did some knitting and sewing (something I haven't done in maybe a decade).
Here is the evidence:

Yet another pair of Harald socks (from the book Viking Patterns for knitting).  I hope these will be my last.  Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely design, but I'm tired of doing them.  I used two different handspuns of my own, since one strand only wouldn't work for Joel's feet.  One is a green superwash I've spun a long time ago and the other is a punta/mohair mix.  They are both n-ply.

With any luck, he won't felt these (after he felted his silk/merino socks he begins asking about fiber content before anything I do for him is finished).

I had a little accident during the knitting and am glad I have more than one pair of needles in this size. 
The broken needle you see below is entirely my fault.  Tight cable knitting shouldn't be done with acrylic needles.  They (the needles) are great and I'll continue to buy them.  Of course, I'll be more careful about what kind of knitting I decide to do with them.


Around the same time I spun the yarn I got from Gnomespun (the one I wrote about on my last post).  At first I thought about doing a two ply, but my division of the roving wasn't very accurate and in the end, I decided to chain ply it:
A few days before doing this one I found some brown roving I had for more than a year and decided to spin it too.  It's also navajo ply.  Both yarns are somewhere between heavy laceweight and light fingering:


By the time I finished the second yarn my fingers were too sore to keep on spinning so I turned back to knitting.  There are (as always) a few ideas brewing up in my head and for the Nth time, I started again a stole design - maybe this time I'll get it done:
When I got to the end of the central element I made a mistake I had done before and got upset with it, so I put it aside and went in a hunt for some other project.  Sometimes, when I'm doing mistakes over and over again, I stop and begin to organize things around me - it helps me to focus again.  This time, I decided to organize my stash and found two attempts that got me going again.
The first one was a star alignment kind of thing.  I had just bought the Module Magic book and one day was watching a quilting show and saw an amazing quilt that I thought I could translate into knitting.  I was knitting the Curve of Pursuit at the time and began putting techniques together to see what I could come up with.  I knit a few modules, put it aside for some reason (like another shinier thing) and never thought about it again - until I found it while "organizing" my yarns.  I picked it up, frogged what I had, started over again and have a fair sized swatch right now:
I'm knitting (in my head) a different triangle - if it does work in real life, I'll release the pattern.
The second treasure I found tossed in one of my bins was a swatch of a stitch I'm pretty sure is in one of the Barbara Walker books.  It's a pretty cool looking net and when I first saw it I wanted to knit it, just because.  I knit a good size swatch, realized I'd made a mistake and put it away.
When I found it, I knew I wanted to use that stitch again, but for the life of me, couldn't find the pattern for it anywhere, so I carefully tinked my swatch and managed to figure the stitch out (me thinks).  Now, the question was what to do with it.  I had an initial idea for a stole (that might eventually be created), but didn't want to commit to something like that at the time, so I settled for a purse:

Let's see...what else?  Oh yeah!  Sewing.  I learnt to sew when I was ten or eleven - just after I learnt to crochet.  I eventually graduated to a sewing machine and during my adolescence I sew a lot of my own clothes.  I hadn't sewn in probably 10 years and when I convinced Joel to throw away his old (very heavy and very ugly) pillow, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to make him a new one.
I had forgot how fast (and pleasant) sewing can be.  I managed to do the pillow in one afternoon.  It's quite simple and no, I didn't do the quilting:

The other day I got another custom order for the yarn I used for Dianna.  As I was dyeing the roving for it, I decided to dye another one in a different color to see how one of my dyes would break down:

The first one is already being spun and will become an Arco Iris yarn.  As for the second one (merino), I'm not sure what to do with it...

I've also dyed and am (was) spinning some silk in different shades of green.  I need to find a better technique for dyeing silk, though.  The way I'm doing it now leaves some undyed spaces which dilute the color on the finished yarn.  When I started spinning this roving I was going with "let's see how thin I can make it" approach. After a few hours and cramps on my fingers, it hit me: what will I do with this sewing thread...so I began spinning a thicker singles.

Finally, 4 days ago I decided to try my hands at Skew.  The construction for these socks is simply amazing.  I did the first sock in two days, just because I wanted to see it done.  Since I was using different needles and yarn from the ones recommended in the pattern, I wasn't sure it was going to fit, but it turned out OK.  I'm almost done with the second sock and might re-do the first one - because I went down one needle size for the second. 

Give them a try, trust the pattern and just knit.  They are a very fast and pleasant knit.

Luiza in 20/2

As I said in my previous post, I'm working on another Luiza, this time using 20/2 yarn, so I could answer questions coming from people knitting it in lace weight



The yarn I'm using is Jaeggerspun and it comes waxed, in a cone. It will bloom a bit after soaking.
This wasn't as intensive a blocking as I'd normally do with a FO, but it gives me an idea of how many repeats I'll need to do. On the pic above, I'm starting a new repeat (8 flowers).

Since the yarn comes in a cone, I don't have to worry about running out of yarn, and I'll keep on knitting until I have a good sized shawl (I'm hoping for somewhere around a 5 foot wingspan).

I don't know how much yarn I used so far, because I forgot to weight the yarn and needles before I began :P

People who know me, know I get bored easily and seldom knit the same design twice. This will be my third time with this one and I'm thinking about creating a different edging for it, so I don't poke my eyes out. If it works, I'll make it available as an addendum to the pattern.

Agressive Ideas

I've been having an awful time falling asleep for the last two nights. I get to bed and keep on flipping around, with images of shawls and stitch patterns floating around my head.

This morning it dawned on me. Those images are ghosts of ideas knocking on my skull, demanding to get out.
They might turn out to be wrong, not work out or be ugly, but they need to be knit...or I'll go crazy(ier).

There are a few things I need to do/finish before I can sit down and work on them. I have a few UFOs that have been sitting in their bags for so long, I'm beginning to wonder if they'll run away. I also need to knit another Luiza. You see, Fleegle is selling kits for this shawl - you can find them here.
Both times I knit it, it was done with sock yarn and her kit has a 20/2 yarn. With the kit you have the option to make a very big shawl (she is generous like that) using a single strand of yarn or you can use two strands and get more of a gradation of color (knit with one color,then with the two colors and end with two strands of the second color).

As luck has it, I happen to have a similar yarn in one of my many yarn bins and will knit Luiza again so I can post the specs for that weight.

Got to go weight some yarn to put in my shop.

Challenges

So, I joined the fun over on Ravelry and joined the Ravelympics and 10 shawls in 2010. Here is what I've done so far.
A second Gail - because I needed to review the pattern. The challenges here were to use a yarn that was stashed for a long time (more than 2 years for this one) and finish it in less than 48 hours (life got in the way...sigh).
This one was entered in both Ravelympics and 10 shawls in 2010.















The second one is a baby jacket, done, again, with "what was I thinking" yarn which I tried to make into something before with no success:

It used less than one skein of yarn and was done in less than 24 hours.

This jacket, along with a few other items I knit just because and have no use for will be donated later on.

If you look to your left <-- you'll see that I finally have something up on my Etsy shop. It is a commission and won't stay up for long. I have one skein of sock yarn drying in the closet right now (the only downside to winter, IMO - I like to put stuff outside to dry) and if it turns out ok, I'll put it up in my shop too. Let's see what else...One of the reasons I slowed down when knitting a second Gail was because new ideas kept on popping up in my head. I cast on for another project yesterday - twice, so far - and will probably fog and cast on again today using a different yarn/needle combo. If this new design works out, it will be flexible enough so that a pletora of shapes can be done - from scarves to blankets :).

Luiza

I've been working on this pattern for the last two months and I have (finally) published it.

This is an advanced pattern. The shawl is knit from the neck down and can be done with any yarn from cobweb to fingering.

The one on the picture was done with sock yarn. If you have access to Ravelry, you can see another one knit with handspun lace weight - here.

You can find a link to purchase the pattern on the side bar.

SSS

This is the Summer Stonington Shawl which I designed sometime around May/June of last year.

I was asked to review my Summer Leaves design. Problem was, I don't usually care for knitting the same pattern more than once. I began knitting it and then I decided I'd just keep on doing it and try some new (to me) ideas while knitting it.

I will, eventually, gather all my notes and posts about this shawl and publish it as one file. For now, if you want to knit it and have access to Ravelry, I created a series of posts, with charts, schematics and answered a few questions here.

Now, those are old news and you might be wondering why I'm talking about it now. Well, this shawl was made from my handspun. I bought some merino/silk roving, dyed it and then spun.
I spun short draw, so the yarn is a true worsted one (not as in worsted weight), yet, by the time I was knitting the border I began to see piling. I wasn't happy with my discovery, but was getting closer to finishing and had people waiting for it, so I kept on going.
The second disappointment with the shawl came a few weeks after the knitting was done. I took it with me in a week long trip and when we came back, the blocking job was all but gone.
I give away almost 99% of everything I knit, this shawl is one of the few exceptions. I kept it because it's too small for almost anyone else, there are huge design flaws in it and I wasn't really pleased with the dye job, how the colors came out, how the yarn behaved...What can I say? I'm a perfectionist.

Anyway, I kept the shawl and even though I love to block (yeah, I'm crazy), never bother to try it again on this one, because I thought it wouldn't hold the blocking - maybe because merino fibers have too much crimp.
The other day I was really bored and looking for something to do so I wouldn't have to do the things I needed to do ;). I finally picked up the SSS, washed it and blocked it again.
I usually block something and let it sit pinned down from one day to the next. This time, though, I kept it on the blocking board for almost a week. I just took the pins out and have a feeling this time the blocking will hold. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.