Terra two (and one)

Last December, for reasons I won’t get into here, I was (for most of the holiday season) all alone with nothing but a Terra (which I never ended up blogging), tea and HBO On Demand to keep me busy.

This year, even though nearly everything was different (the whole family was together, there was much more coffee than tea, and I didn’t really have time to watch anything since I was making some very complicated dinners for Xmas Eve and Xmas Day) I found myself back in December, making a second Terra.

The first Terra, was made from two skeins of Noro Sock and some leftover Organic Wool.

All the yarn had been slated for other projects, but they somehow came together harmoniously to make an extremely cozy and thick shawl that is probably best suited as a lap blanket than anything else.

There was a very small amount of yarn left. Pretty awesome ending if you ask me.

But, that’s not actually the end, since this is only the first Terra. The second started back in… June 2011 when a very dear friend announced his engagement to a very lovely girl. I consulted with him about what to make her, and came up with the following suggestions

1. Nothing too fancy/lacy

2. PURPLE

Done and done. I found some Madeline Tosh Light Merino (my current obsession) in a pink/purple color called Flashdance and set to finding a pattern. My first choice was Gale, but it was scrapped after several dozen rows. I wasn’t really happy with the way the yarn and pattern were working out together.

Next up was the Shieffelin Point Shawl, also scrapped soon after it was started. I don’t really think that the fingering weight was suited to a DK weight pattern. I probably should have known better, but sometimes substitutions like that work out fine.

Take three was Herbivore. Once again, there was probably a pattern/yarn problem… I honestly don’t remember anymore. All I know is that for take 4 I decided to go with Terra again. It had the things I wanted (a textured but plain body and some not-too-fancy edge bits), plus I had made it before so I knew it would work out fine.

Deja vu all over again.

I finished this shawl less than 24 hours before heading to Boston for a visit. (It would have been less of a crunch if I hadn’t made an annoying mess during the bind off that made me put the shawl on hold for a few days while I calmed down.) I boarded a bus on a Saturday afternoon with a still slightly damp shawl and delivered it to a very happy soon to be married lady that same evening.

Once again I was left with a minimal amount of yarn (no photo of that).

Is this the last we’ll see of the Terras? Probably not. While I doubt I’d make another for myself, Terra is a great pattern and I may need to whip up a shawl for someone in the future. There may in fact be a Terra three before you know it.

Rock Island, part 2

I left you last (several weeks ago now) with a shawl teaser.

I think I pretty much said all the needed to be said about the making of this shawl, all that was left was some project photos and the story of how they came to be.

Well, back at the end of June I found myself killing some time before a tattoo appointment in a park on the lower East Side of NYC. The weather was gorgeous and my Mr. and I were enjoying people watching on a Sunday morning, when I suddenly realized that I had a shawl with me that had yet to be photographed. I put my Mr. to work right away on fixing that.

By his own admission, he’s not very good with a camera, but with a bit of direction he managed to get some nice shots.

It was far too hot to wear the shawl for real that day. Just wearing it for this mini photo shoot made me pretty sweaty. I’m looking forward to the change of seasons so I can get a bit more use out of it.

I have several more skeins of this yarn in various shades and I loved this project and the finished product so much that I may just make it again. I also recently discovered another (free) pattern that is very, very similar to Rock Island called My Heaven which I might also try.

Rock Island, part 1

Back in April, when Rock Island was first released, I knew immediately that I wanted to knit it. You might be surprised to hear that I’m not all that inspired by lacy shawl patterns, but there’s usually a really great modern edge to most Brooklyn Tweed patterns that stomps all over those “how will I wear this frilly thing?” thoughts.

On my trip to NYC later that same month I was in the market for laceweight, but ended up with some luscious Madeline Tosh Light Merino, which is more of a fingering weight. In fact my friends and I ALL bought skeins of this stuff. Luscious doesn’t even begin to describe it, and knitting with it is divine. I never wanted it to end.

I chose the colorway Ink, since the original version was knit with something similar. The pattern starts with this endless edging, which I remember being really boring to knit. I couldn’t imagine how 800,000 feet of edging would ever make a normal sized shawl, but it did and the rest of it was a dream to knit, since it was a lot of squishy garter stitch that got heavier and heavier, hence more and more satisfying.

I know I mentioned several posts ago that I was in the midst of a project that was staining my needles blue. Well, this was it. My bamboo needles ended up a weird shade of purply-blue the more I knit on this shawl. I really thought that when I went to block it the water would be dark blue too, but the dye only bled a little.

And then it took about a month and a half, and another trip to NYC for me to photograph it properly. That’s why this is only part 1…

Echo Flower Shawl

Don’t you hate when you’re trying to blog regularly and then everything in your life turns upside down, including your computer, and you don’t even know how to begin to get back to where you were? Well, that kind of happened over here.

However, well before that I was knitting something. And well before that (let’s say, February of 2008) I bought myself this skein of Pigeonroof Siren for my birthday.

And then it sat untouched in my stash for about three years.

I picked it up again after seeing Sarah’s Echo Flower Shawl, which I tried to make first in handspun too, and then ripped out after realizing it wasn’t the best mix of yarn and pattern.

Ravelry says I knit up this Echo Flower Shawl between Feb 20th and March 7th. I guess that was pretty quick. From what I remember, it was a fun knit. I don’t mind purling nine together to make a nupp when I can cheat (usually by slipping 6 or so, purling the rest together and then passing the slipped stitches over). It makes for a neater nupp, too.

And since Sarah’s Echo Flower was a gift for someone else, mine ended up being a gift for her.

It seems that ever since I declared 2010 the year of the gift knit I’ve been having trouble holding on to my knits. I’ve gifted 4 out of 11 knits this year. It’s a trend I’d like to continue, since I already have so many hand knit things as it is, and I don’t forsee quitting the knit anytime soon.

rose leaf

About two weeks ago I realized that a friend’s birthday was coming up sooner than I thought. I had been thinking of making her a small lace shawl, ideally a triangle that would just go around the shoulders.

There was just one catch. The friend in question is not only allergic to wool and other animal fibers, but also cotton. This ruled out pretty much everything in my stash and I was forced to go yarn shopping. With a mere ten days until her birthday party, I found a 350 yard skein of 100% silk dk (and threw in a skein of silk/linen laceweight just in case my first plan didn’t work).

And then I waited. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I was a bit obsessed with some other lace knitting (a post about that project is coming up soon), and so I continued on that until I realized I had hit a wall in the pattern and also that I had about six days left before the party.

So I got to knitting, starting with this pattern, which was a huge disappointment. The cast on started with 2-3 stitches followed by two rows of increases, stretching the original stitches considerably and in my case, unevenly. After noticing this the first time, I started over, but came up with the same results. I don’t see the point in knitting with a “luxury” yarn if your lazy casting on is going to make the beginning really ugly. This kind of soured me on the whole pattern, and so I reached for the Evelyn A. Clark book Knitting Lace Triangles (possibly the most useful knitting book I’ve ever purchased and one I highly recommend for knitters who want to get into lace).

I went with a straight up leaf pattern, planning on adding some others somewhere in the middle, but the more I knit the more I thought leaves were the best idea. I knit all through Tuesday and Wednesday (Wednesday night’s knitting was done with the birthday girl sitting right next to me, in fact), Thursday and Friday, when I bound off and blocked the shawl immediately. I didn’t have any time to waste, after all.

Obviously, the shawl was ready for Sunday night’s party, and was received extremely well. It’s always nice to knit for people who fully appreciate handmade things.

“This must have taken you forever!” she exclaimed.

I couldn’t lie to a friend. “Four days.” I replied.

Ain’t I a stinker?

herbivore

Well, this post has been a long time coming. It often happens that off-season knits never get used properly. They come off the needles, maybe they get blocked soon after, but since they’re not going to be worn anytime soon they kind of get cast aside for a while. This was kind of the case with my Herbivore. Here’s the story.

Back in October I was getting ready to go to Italy, and I guess I needed something on the needles. I grabbed a pattern that looked simple, called for my favorite needles (addi turbos, if you please), and a skein of yarn that I was saving (because knitting with it is kind of better than wearing it).

I remember casting on during the long flight to London, and messing up, and starting over and getting bored of knitting on a plane. I also remember knitting for a bit in Florence, on a train (probably from Naples to Rome or Milan) and getting a whole lot done on the flight back from London to Montreal.

Then, on Halloween, I had a shawl. However, a flowy, silky shawl is not very useful during November in Montreal, so this piece has been waiting for its time. I only just got around to photographing it last week.

It may be perfect for spring though, which is right around the corner.

Pattern info

Yarn info

arroyo

Gosh, it’s March already. Well here’s something that looks like Spring. I was looking for something to knit about a month ago, because as you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, I have a knitting problem. I need to always have something going.

I picked up this handspun, (Mrs. Tiggywinkle, which has a long and sordid past) and cast on for Arroyo. It’s another of those lovely half-circle shawls (like Annis and Hawthorne) which I find more wearable than their square and triangular counterparts.

I was knitting along happily through the lace and on to the garter stitch short rows when I ran out of handspun. Before panicking though, I dug in my shoebox of handspun leftovers and found a bit of silk & mystery fiber 3-ply that was sent to me as part of a swap back in 2008. I had only used a bit in the past as some trim for mittens, but since it seemed to go with the pink in Mrs. Tiggywinkle, I continued with that for a while until I ran out of yarn again. I dug in the stash once more, and this time I found some leftover baby alpaca from this project. I had plenty of that yarn to finish things off with and add an i-cord bind off, which was not part of the pattern but something that I fully endorse.

The result is a sort of gradient effect. In the above photo, the handspun BFL ends just about where the garter stitch begins, and if you look closely you can see where the silk/mystery fiber changes to baby alpaca (where there’s a slight color change).

I haven’t worn this scarf out yet, but that’s because it’s still winter here. We even had a whole lot of snow yesterday as a reminder. As always though, I am in no rush. It will be great to wear non-waterproof shoes again someday, but the waiting makes everything that much more worthwhile, don’t you think?

beachy garter citron

Oh hey.

Look what I made for my mom.

She picked out this skein of Noro Kureyon the last time she was visiting and I told her it would become a shawl. After trying some other ideas I came up with this simple one. Using the cast on and increases of the Citron pattern as a guide, I knit the whole shawl in garter stitch, leaving out the ruffley stripes (which eat up a lot of yarn). The result is this really simple shawl that shows off the Noro stripes.

This was my one and only holiday knit this year. The colors remind me of a wintry beach.

I’ve made a small handful of things since then. I’ll be back to talk about them soon.

hawthorne, finished!

Hopefully, on this last stretch of days before the new year I’ll manage to post all of my backlogged finished knits. My photos from Italy are finally up and I’m now ready to show you this lovely knit from mid November.

Hawthorne only took me five days, and it was from some Cascade 220 I’ve had in my stash since August of 2007. I really like this color.

It made a nice big squishy scarf that I haven’t really worn since the weather got cold. I was wearing it with my fall jacket right after it came off the needles and it didn’t work at all, but my winter coat is stickier (wool on wool and all) and I know it’s a better match. It’s just been so super cold here that I’ve been opting for another new handknit… one whose photos have not yet been uploaded, but has been getting a lot of compliments in real life.

It’s just a little something for you to look forward to.

(Pattern here.)

hawthorne

No work has been done on the quilt since Friday because of this.

It’s Hawthorne, and I’m knitting it with some leftovers I had after finishing Babette forever ago. I’ve been saving my 2.5 skeins of this colorway because I love them so, but I gave up the dream of making them into a sweater. It’s getting cold here though and the idea of a heavy worsted weight shawl sounds lovely, especially since I’ve had to resort to rethinking my rule for switching to my winter coat. It used to be based on temperature, but I’m thinking of holding out until at least the last week of November or the first real snowfall, whichever comes first.