Category Archives: KAL

Minerva Entrelac KAL: Casting on

Posted on March 25, 2020 | 8 comments

Ready to cast on? Almost! Are you planning to knit a cowl, or a scarf? It’s good to plan your ending before beginning.

Photo by test knitter Paula Sadler

If you’re planning to knit a scarf, you can just begin with a long tail cast on. The first row after that is a purl row, because when you turn to knit back after casting on, you’re looking at the bumpy purl side of your cast on. We’re knitting stockinette based entrelac, so we want all those purl bumps on the back! By purling the setup row, we’re getting ready to work from the public side, the right side, the knit side.

If you’re planning to seam your Minerva into a loop cowl, I’d recommend beginning with a provisional cast on. When you’re finished knitting, you can pick up the live stitches from the provisional cast on, and use these with 3 needle bind off to join the beginning to the end. I did this with my Noro Minerva; I’d always rather knit than sew!

The crochet chain provisional cast on is my favorite provisional cast on. I made this tutorial back in 2012; it’s not as pretty as more recent tutorials, but it still works! You can use whatever provisional cast on you choose, though.

And if you just use a long tail cast on because you thought you were knitting a scarf, and somewhere along the way you change your mind? You can also pick up stitches along the cast on edge, and join those to the end with a 3 needle bind off. It’s a little bit tighter, though, so I didn’t love doing that (on the 2 Chroma cowls). I used an elastic bind off, in combination with the 3 needle bind off, to make the seam more flexible. But that’s for later!

OK, let’s go! Cast on, and purl your setup row. We’ll go from there.

You can find the Minerva pattern here on Ravelry.

Edited to add:
All Minerva KAL 2020 posts:
Introducing Minerva Entrelac Cowl/Scarf and KAL
Minerva KAL: Choosing your yarn
Minerva KAL: Casting On
Minerva KAL: Base Triangles
Minerva KAL: Tier 2
Minerva KAL: Finishing Tier 2

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Lovenote Sweater update

Posted on March 23, 2020 | 11 comments

While you’re busy choosing yarn for the MinervaKAL2020, I thought I’d show you where I am with my Love Note sweater. I had put it on hold while I finished my Noro Minerva sample, but now I have time to get back to it.

I love the better lace definition on US 9 needles, and I’ve gone back to US 10 for the body because I like the floaty quality of the stockinette that way. Yes, I did knit stockinette on the 9 for an inch or so, and didn’t like the way it felt, so there was a little more frogging.

I still don’t really know what my gauge is, but I put it on 2 circulars and tried it on, and it is a much better size than the first one! I know, do as I say, not as I do as far as gauge swatching for sweaters goes. As long as you’re willing to live with the consequences, you can do whatever you want! You could say that my first two attempts at this sweater were giant gauge swatches, themselves.

The first time I tried to get an update picture, Calvin wanted to help. There’s not enough contrast between rug and sweater, but I love this picture anyway. It was his one year anniversary with us, and he has been very charming since day one.

It’s a rainy day here, after a stretch of glorious sunshine. Today’s to do list:

  • Learn how to use Instagram Stories (don’t laugh; I’ve been resisting
  • Learn how to use Zoom on my laptop (for singing and knitting?)
  • Try sewing some masks using this tutorial (haven’t used my sewing machine in a long time, hope it’s in good form!)

What are you doing during this time of social distancing? Let’s flatten that curve!

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Posted in cat, KAL, Knit

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Minerva KAL: Choosing your yarn

Posted on March 22, 2020 | 10 comments

Let’s talk about yarn. For the Minerva samples shown here, we’ve used worsted weight yarns with a long slow color change. The colors are constantly shifting, but not as quickly as in a variegated yarn. The show color shift makes each block look like a separate color. But the yarn has done all the work; you don’t have a million ends to sew in. (Side note: Today is Calvin’s Gotcha Day anniversary; he’s been part of our family for one year. He’s a love bug!)

These two cowls are knit with Knit Picks Chroma Worsted. Chroma is a mirrored gradient, so the color change in one direction, and then back, around a central color.

This cowl is knit with Noro Silk Garden, a worsted to Aran weight yarn. Noro yarns have delightful color changes. Other options are Berroco Millefiori, Cascade Melilla, and Plymouth Gina.

If you don’t mind sewing in more ends, you could choose two or more colors, and knit each tier in stripes of color. You could even knit an entrelac rainbow! But you’d have a lot of ends to sew in.

For the KAL, I’m planning to knit with a slightly lighter weight yarn, Huckleberry Knits American Dream DK in the Practical Tactical Brilliance colorway. This is the same colorway I used for my Aspen scarf, and I love how it transitions in a continuous rainbow. I won’t get individually colored squares, but I’m hoping for a shimmering rainbow progression. We shall see! The DK yarn will give me a slightly narrower cowl (my worsted version is 8” wide) but I’ll be perfectly happy with that.

What yarn are you choosing for your Minerva? Cowl or scarf? See pattern for yardage information. You can find the Minerva pattern here on Ravelry.

Next up: cast ons!

Edited to add:
All Minerva KAL 2020 posts:
Introducing Minerva Entrelac Cowl/Scarf and KAL
Minerva KAL: Choosing your yarn
Minerva KAL: Casting On
Minerva KAL: Base Triangles
Minerva KAL: Tier 2
Minerva KAL: Finishing Tier 2

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Introducing: Minerva Entrelac Cowl/Scarf and KAL

Posted on March 20, 2020 | 16 comments

Minerva is an entrelac cowl or scarf, knit flat. She’s a twist on my Athena Cowl, which is knit in the round. You can choose your pricing; see below.

Why knit a round cowl flat? To learn all the elements you need to know for any entrelac project, and to avoid a huge game of yarn chicken on a long scarf or loop cowl knit lengthwise! Entrelac looks like it’s woven, but it’s just a lot of squares and triangles, knit one at a time. You’ll want to knit just one more square…

Knit to the length you like! Samples shown in worsted weight yarn, but I’ll be knitting one in Huckleberry Knits American Dream DK for a KAL.

Short cowls, steam or wet blocked

100g/200 yards will give you a short cowl.

Noro Silk Garden, 115 g (2.3 balls)

I used 115g of Noro Silk Garden for the longer cowl. 200g/400 yards of Noro will give you a 60″ scarf or cowl.

Test knitter Paula Sadler’s Minerva Scarf, 4 balls of Noro Silk Garden

I’m planning a KAL during this time of social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Come knit with me at a distance! I’ll be posting the updates here on my blog. I’ll also be posting pictures on social media; I’m @pdxknitterati on Instagram, and PDXKnitterati on Facebook. Use #minervakal2020 and #pdxknitterati on Instagram. I’ll help you through the tricky spots!

The Minerva pattern is available through Ravelry Minerva Entrelac Cowl or Scarf (Ravelry link).

Let me know if you’d like to learn entrelac with me. I’ll post soon about choosing yarn and getting started.

Thanks to tech editor Meaghan Schmaltz, and test knitters Kristine Alcade, Ann Berg, Anne Fields, and Paula Sadler.

Edited to add:

All Minerva KAL 2020 posts:
Introducing Minerva Entrelac Cowl/Scarf and KAL
Minerva KAL: Choosing your yarn
Minerva KAL: Casting On
Minerva KAL: Base Triangles
Minerva KAL: Tier 2
Minerva KAL: Finishing Tier 2

16 Comments

Posted in KAL, Knit, pattern design

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Minerva and KAL coming soon!

Posted on March 19, 2020 | 3 comments

I’ve decided that this version of my upcoming Minerva Cowl is as long as I want it to be! I like my cowls to be about 34” long; they fall well on me there. Right now this is 35”, but I couldn’t resist that last color I was knitting. I’m ready to give it a little steam block, and then seam it with a 3 needle bind off. I started with a provisional cast on, so that will be easy.

I know there’s not enough yarn to get to 56”, which is what I’d want for a double loop cowl, so I’m stopping now!

I’ll be releasing this pattern soon, with free and paid options, and having a virtual KAL via social media. Would you like to learn entrelac? It’s really fun, and looks really clever. Stay tuned for more info!

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Posted in KAL, Knit, pattern design, yarn

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Introducing Oregon Sky

Posted on February 28, 2019 | 5 comments

I’m delighted to introduce my new shawl design, Oregon Sky. It’s a collaboration with local dyer Lorajean Kelley of Knitted Wit.

And a cast of thousands. Or at least 10.

From Lorajean:

What do you get when you put a brand-spanking-new Knitted Wit rainbow and ten uber-talented designers in a room? Glow Up Knitted Wit! The ten-pattern collection, along with five gorgeous colorway combos, drops on Friday, March 1st, 2019. You can get the whole pattern collection for $33 through April 1, 2019, and all patterns will also be available from the individual designers, as well as through Ravelry In-Store pattern sales for our LYS partners.

You can get the yarn on the Knitted Wit website. The hardest part will be choosing which complementary full skein you want!

We came up with a transcendent new rainbow, which we called Glow Up, and paired a Gumball Sixlet of it with a smattering of full skeins of Fingering. We reached out to some of our favorite designers, and asked them to make some magic, and oooh, wow, did they ever! Check out the amazingness created by ​Makenzie Alvarez, Michele Lee Bernstein, Kira Delaney, Marie Greene, Stephanie Lotven, Lisa Ross, Joshua Ryks-Robinsky, Shannon Squire, Debbi Stone, and Angela Tong! Each designer chose a contrasting skein and created a rainbowriffic masterpiece.

You can purchase the whole Glow Up Knitted Wit collection as an ebook, or you can purchase patterns individually. The collection is a great deal, $33 for 10 patterns. If you only want Oregon Sky, I’m offering a 10% discount on Ravelry through March 10, no coupon code needed. Newsletter subscribers will have a discount code for 20%. Not a subscriber? Subscribe here!

There will be KALs and CALs over on Instagram. More on that later. For now, dream of rainbows!

I’ll have Oregon Sky at our multi-peeps trunk show during the Rose City Yarn Crawl, at For Yarn’s Sake this Thursday, March 7, 10 am to 5 pm. I’ll be with Knitted Wit’s Lorajean Kelley, and designers Shannon Squire and Debbie Stone, who also have designs in the Glow Up Knitted Wit collection. Come say hi if you’re local!

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Posted in KAL, Knit, pattern design, yarn

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Cold feet! and Indie Design GAL

Posted on November 20, 2018 | 3 comments

Remember these?

My Concentric Slipper Socks. So beautiful in this lovely panoramic gradient from Knit Circus. But they’re an expensive slipper because they’re double-stranded with four 50g balls of beautiful gradient yarn. You could knit these with any worsted weight yarn and be very happy. The gradient just makes them extra lovely.

So this happened.

I frogged the slippers, which I loved, because I want to make single-stranded bed socks. Those four balls should make two pairs of bed socks, if I use a contrasting yarn for heels and toes.

GAME ON.

You’ll note that I’m using some very interesting needles. These are Skacel’s FlexiFlips, which come in a set of 3. (I reviewed them before, here.) It’s a hybrid of dpns and magic loop or two circulars; there’s a bit of cable between the two tips. Divide your work in half, and the third needle is the working needle. I like having fewer transitions than when using dpns, and no fiddling with sliding stitches on cables.

I had started these socks with magic loop on 32” cables which felt too long, and moved to 24” cables which felt too short. The FlexiFlips are just right. They each have a pointy end and a blunter end, so you can choose which suits your knitting style. And I find I don’t need to re-tension the yarn in my throwing hand when I switch needles, which is saving me time.

(Edited to add: More thoughts on the Flexi-Flips here. They were too short, once I picked up the gusset stitches! Back to magic loop.)

I’ll let you know how the bed socks turn out…soon! Worsted weight yarn means quick socks!

What else is going on? The Indie Design Gift-A-Long starts on Friday!

What’s a Gift-A-Long? It’s a multi-designer event through Ravelry to help you kick-start your holiday gift-making. It begins with a pattern sale, and then the fun and games begin on Ravelry, with KAL/CAL activity and prizes. Your project with any paid pattern by a participating designer is eligible for prizes, not just the patterns in the sale. Here are a few of my patterns that are included in the coupon sale portion of the GAL; you can see the rest in the GAL bundle on my Ravelry designer page.

The pattern sale runs from Friday, November 23 at 8:00 pm US EST – Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 11:59 pm US EST. The coupon code is giftalong2018 and it’s good for 25% off any of the participating patterns from all the designers. The KAL/CALs will run from Friday, November 23 at 8pm (US-EST) through the New Years Eve party December 31 at midnight (US-EST). Check out the Ravelry group for all the details.

And! Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it! I hope you get a lot of knitting time in over the holiday weekend. What else would you do while the turkey is cooking? I was planning to knit these bed socks, but then this happened:

The car door and I had a difference of opinion. Click. I went for an x-ray (my hands are very important to me!) and found that my knuckle is just bruised and swollen, nothing broken. It will just slow me down for a few days. I’ll be knitting…gingerly!

I’m very thankful it’s not broken. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

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Posted in events, KAL, Knit, pattern design, ravelry, yarn

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At loose ends seeking new project, and a book winner

Posted on February 3, 2018 | 5 comments

First of all: Drumroll! The winner of the Japanese Shetland Lace Knitting book is…carrotmusic, aka Karen. Congratulations!

I just bound off my last (for now) brioche project. It’s the cowl I started before I took the deep dive into the brioche hats. (Hats are currently being test knit, and the pictures coming in are lovely.)

I’m looking forward to wearing this cowl. Although Biscuit thinks that it belongs to her.

There *is* precedent for cats and cowls! (Mookie in my Sakura cowl, 2016.)

My needles are currently empty, and I’m not sure what to knit next. I need to get back to my beaded 2 color version of my Nymphaea shawl (shown here in a lovely purple gradient from June Pryce Fiber Arts, available from Bead Biz.)

I’m knitting it in green and blue, the same colors as in my Tumbling Leaves, but with Atlantic as the main color and Hellebore as the contrast color. Yes, I loved these colors in Bumblebirch’s Heartwood so much that I’m using them again! But I don’t need this shawl until Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in September when the pattern returns to me, so it’s not urgent.

I was hoping to do a Snowy Woods Log Cabin blanket for the #fringeandfriendslogalong, but that was derailed by my brioche obsession. It’s late in the logalong game, but I’m tempted to knit a pair of Karen Templer’s Log Cabin Mitts (free pattern, just published on her Fringe Association site). After knitting the log cabin blocks, there’s a mitered square thumb, which looks cool. I haven’t done a log cabin block with a mitered square in it yet, so that would be exciting. I just looked in my stash, and this may be do-able. Either 3 shades of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, or a single color shifting skein of Noro Taiyo (which isn’t very soft…).

Or should I be restrained and just knit some log cabin washcloths from the Mason-Dixon Knitting Field Guide #4? They’ve elaborated on their pick up method a little bit since the blankets in their original book, which is where I learned to log cabin. I need to see if I like the new way better. Only one way to find out!

What’s on your needles? Inspire me!

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Posted in cat, KAL, Knit

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Indie Design Gift-A-Long 2017

Posted on November 21, 2017 | Comments Off on Indie Design Gift-A-Long 2017

The fifth annual Indie Design Gift-A-long is live on Ravelry!

What is Gift-A-Long? It’s a multi-designer promotion through Ravelry to help you kick-start your holiday gift-making. It begins with a pattern sale, and then the fun and games begin on Ravelry, with KAL/CAL activity and prizes. You don’t have to belong to Ravelry to buy patterns, but you do have to join if you want to participate in the KAL/CAL games and prizes. Your project with any paid pattern by a participating designer is eligible for prizes, not just the patterns in the sale.

The pattern sale runs from Tuesday, November 21nd at 8:00 pm US EST – Tuesday, November 28, 2017 at 11:59 pm US EST. The KAL/CALs will run from Tuesday, November 21 at 8pm (US-EST) through the New Years Eve party December 31 at midnight (US-EST). The sale discount is 25%; use the code giftalong2017 at checkout. Check out the Ravelry group for all the details.

These are just a few of the 20 designs I’m including in the sale portion of the event. You can find all 20 designs here; scroll down to the Gift-A-Long 2017 bundle and click.

Here’s the list of all 311 participating independent designers. I’m pleased to be in such a creative group!

New this year: We’re having an Instagram Challenge. Here are the prompts, and I can’t wait to see the pictures! Use the hashtags #giftalong2017 and #gal2017 to share your pictures, and to search to see what everyone else is up to. I’m pdxknitterati on Instagram; what’s your IG name?

Are you knitting gifts for the holidays? My little secret, which is not really a secret: I don’t like deadline pressure, so I knit all year and then “shop” out of my knits for gifts. You can do that, too, starting this week. Grab some patterns, participate in the KAL, and just have fun!

Ready, set, KNIT! (or crochet…)

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Go Tell the Bees KAL: That’s a Wrap!

Posted on July 20, 2017 | 3 comments

And lovely wraps they are…

The Go Tell the Bees KAL has wrapped up. We had a lot of fun in the Ravelry group! Here are some of the newer FOs.

Clockwise from top left: Shawls by Cassiopia, nibbleknitter, chaos1, sciencegal, and knitacat (two!).

PNWBookGirl is currently knitting her fifth (!) Go Tell the Bees, so I think she deserves a collage of her own.

She test knit both sizes for me, knit two during the KAL, and just started one more. She’s knitting one for each of the ladies in her SCA house, the House of the Golden Bees. Very fitting!

Terriko’s rainbow is stunningly beautiful.

I finished mine, too. Thanks to Ella for modeling!

Winners have been chosen, and prizes have been sent. I still see bees everywhere…

Thanks to all who knit Go Tell the Bees with me!

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