Category Archives: yarn

Garland Shawl and Knit Along

Posted on May 14, 2013 | 17 comments

Presenting my newest design, the Garland Shawl!

Garland is a crescent shaped shawl, knit from side to side. The lacy border is knit at the same time as the garter stitch body, which increases from one end to the center and then decreases to the other end. Optional beading along the leaves’ center veins adds sparkle and weight for drape. This shawl can be knit as a wide, shallow crescent, or a deeper, more traditionally shaped crescent. Knitter’s choice!

The wider shawl is like a big hug. This one is knit in Spring Green, a special order color for the upcoming KAL.

The narrower shawl sits comfortably on the shoulders when centered, and looks good at a jaunty angle, too. This one is knit in Golden Delicious, and was test knit by Rachel Nichols. Thank you, Rachel!

The shawls are knit with fingering weight yarn. I used Knitted Wit‘s Cashy Lite, a wonderfully squishy blend of 80% merino/10% cashmere/10% nylon, 495 yards/115g/4 oz. Charts and line by line instructions for the lace edging are included.

To celebrate Garland’s release, Lorajean (Knitted Wit) and I are having a knitalong. Place yarn orders with Knitted Wit by June 1st; orders will ship June 5th in time for the June 10th cast on. You’ll receive one skein of Cashy Lite, 80/10/10 Merino/Cashmere/Nylon, 495 yards, and a coupon code for $2 off the pattern on Ravelry. Visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/knittedwit/sets/72157633152678746/ to see all the yarn colors available, write in the color name when checking out. If you want the same color I used for the wider shawl, ask for Spring Green. It’s not in the flickr set; it’s special for this project because I love it so much, I’ve convinced LJ that we should do it. It’s a great color, fresh and lively, and not too neon or acid. Think happy new growth green!

If you’d like to participate in the KAL with your own yarn, use the code GarlandKAL and you’ll receive $1 off your pattern purchase, now through June 10, 2013. Note: In order to use a coupon code, you need to go directly to the Garland Shawl pattern page on Ravelry to make your purchase.

Let’s knit! Leave a comment and let me know you’re in!

17 Comments

Posted in KAL, Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged Garland shawl, kal

Same song, second verse…

Posted on May 9, 2013 | 4 comments

I was hanging out with Lorajean the other day, labeling Knitted Wit yarn and fiber, because that’s how we roll. She was looking for something to feature at TNNA’s Sample It in June. I offered to re-work my Filigree scarf into a shawl, using her Shine merino/tencel yarn. Game on! This is a nice way for me to be present at TNNA since I can’t go this time, and a pretty way to highlight Shine.

I’m knitting this in Knitted Wit Shine, colorway Silver Lining, which feels very appropriate for Filigree. In this picture from yesterday I’m 2/3 done with the lacy border, but in real life I’m way past that. I’m halfway done with the short row (no wraps!) crescent shaping. I should be finished tomorrow, and then I can block and measure, and update the pattern.

Right now the pattern for Webfoot and Filigree Scarves includes both lace edgings. It’s a little confusing for linking on Ravelry. I’m planning to separate this pattern into two patterns, one for each edging. Each pattern will have instructions for shaping a long shallow scarf and a deeper, more traditionally shaped crescent shawl. If you’ve already purchased this pattern through Ravelry by the time I issue the update next week, you’ll get both the Webfoot and Filigree pattern updates as two separate patterns.

What else? More flowers are blooming in the garden. The clematis on the trellis on the front of my house is very happy this year.

The first iris opened two days ago. The purple ones bloom first, and the yellow ones will bloom soon after that.

This columbine self-sowed itself into the bed of irises. I don’t mind.

By the way, this thing?

It’s an alligator scute.

Scutes are bony plates (osteoderms) inside an alligator’s skin. Inside, not under. They make the skin hard to penetrate, and they may also be involved in the alligator’s temperature regulation system. All that basking in the sun to warm up…

OK, back to knitting! I want to finish this Filigree Shawl, and I also want to swatch a couple things to take to Amy Singer’s class on Saturday. Did you know Amy Singer of Knitty fame is coming to Portland? She’s doing three classes for Twisted on Saturday: Random Cables, Making the next Monkey (what makes a great pattern), and All About Knitty. There’s still space if you’d like to come. Call Twisted to register.

Happy spring!

4 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, travel, yarn

Tagged alligator, gardening, Sample It, scute, TNNA

Dreaming of Paris in May…

Posted on May 3, 2013 | 3 comments

My latest design is out! It’s the May 2013 offering of the Twisted Shawlette Club.

This is the Ooh La Lace Shawlette. You know I love Paris! A life-long love affair with all things French was the inspiration for this lacy edged shawlette. The knitting begins at the lower edge with waves of lace like a can-can dancer’s frilly petticoat, and continues with a row of iconic Eiffel Towers. This crescent shawlette is shaped with simple short rows, and finished with a garter stitch eyelet border at the upper edge. Ooh la la!

I am thrilled to be this month’s designer for Twisted. Shannon and Emily are so lovely to work with, and they are always coming up with great club ideas. This month’s yarn was dyed by Raya over at Blissful Knits; this is her BFL Silk Sock in Platinum.

After knitting the prototype, I realized there was a lot of yarn leftover, so I knit a larger version in Knitted Wit’s Shine in Brown Sugar.

I love them both. Twisted Shawlette Club members get the pattern and Raya’s lovely yarn together as an exclusive. We’re trying a new thing with this club. The pattern is available separately from Twisted so you can knit one for yourself, right now. (Don’t we all love instant gratification?) You can pick it up in hard copy form at the shop, or use this link to the Ravelry pattern page to purchase it online. Knit one now and dream of Paris with me!

3 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged ooh la lace shawlette, paris, twisted shawlette club

Feedly’s a winner! and 5 years of PDXKnitterati means you could be, too

Posted on April 1, 2013 | 42 comments

I’ve posted about my angst over Google’s impending shutdown of Reader. I’ve tried several alternatives, and really just wanted something as quick as Google Reader’s titles view for skimming through blogs. Feedly was pretty good, but only offered a titles view in a browser, and I do most of my reading on an iPad. They asked for feedback from Reader refugees, and it sounds a lot of us were looking for this option.

As of this morning, Feedly’s iPhone and iPad apps now have a Title Only view. Talk about responsive! It’s not an April Fool’s joke. I’ve updated my apps and I. Love. It. I’ve played around with it, and it does what I want. I think it may be even better than Reader; I haven’t figured out all the shortcuts yet. You may have issues with Feedly on a computer, because it requires an extension on your browser, but the extension issue doesn’t bother me. Feedly is working on cloning Google Reader’s API, and says that the transition will be seamless when Reader shuts down on July 1. Sounds good to me. Done!

Hmmm, knitting content. I can’t show you what I’m knitting right now. Sometimes design work means nothing to show, for months and months! But it’s spring, I have a new blog reader, and I just realized that I’ve been blogging for five years as of March 17. That went by in a flash! To celebrate, I’d like to share some yarn with you, because that’s what knitters do.

This is Knitted Wit Silky ‘n’ Single, worsted weight, 60% Merino/40% Silk, 220 yards, 100g. I don’t know if this color has a name, I got it from Lorajean’s Community Supported Yarn club last year. It hasn’t told me what it wants to be, but maybe it will tell you!

And this is Three Fates Yarn Eponymous Sock, 2 ply 100% superwash merino, 400 yards, 100g, color Mulch. I chose this rich brown yarn at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival last fall because I had a brown project in mind, but I ended up using a different yarn. I can’t show you that project, either, until later this year, but it turned out just right. But I digress.

Hmmm. Tell me what you think each yarn wants to be, and I’ll do two random drawings to choose the lucky winners. I’ll take comments through next week Monday, April 8. Good luck!

42 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Knit, yarn

Tagged blogs, feedly, giveaway, google reader, yarn

Things I’ve learned about lace knitting

Posted on March 24, 2013 | 9 comments

(Swatches for 4 shawls I want to knit. Right now.)

Swatching lace patterns is fun and addicting, and I like fussing with them to get the effect I want. Combine, alter, chart, swatch, refine, repeat.

Swatching in practice yarn is way better than repeatedly frogging and reknitting your “real” yarn. I switched to some light worsted yarn I had on hand. (White swatches in the picture.)

Swatching lace with heavier yarn will tell you a lot, but not everything. Swatching with leftover sock yarn is better, if fingering weight yarn is your goal. I wised up and bought a 50g skein of Louet Gems for swatching, because I needed a light color for a design submission. It’s the green ball in the picture, and it’s lovely to work with. I may have to get some more, to knit for reals.

Beads add lovely weight, drape, and bling to lace. I’m hooked (hah!) on the crochet hook method of adding beads.

Blocking is magic. (We already knew that, but it’s been reaffirmed, and can’t be said enough.)

An old black velvet dress makes a great background for a pale lace swatch photo. (No pic, it’s for a design submission.)

This elastic bind off is way better than the usual chain bind off, for lace that is going to be blocked: K2, * slip left needle into fronts of the 2 worked stitches on right needle and knit them off together through the back loop (like an ssk), K1, repeat from *.

And last of all: I’m a little obsessive.

PS: I blame Sivia Harding for this trip down the lace rabbit hole. I took her workshop last Sunday, and can’t stop playing with ideas. You can take her class at Twisted next Saturday, March 30. It’s from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. But don’t say I didn’t warn you about possible obsession!

9 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Tagged Knit, lace, sivia harding, swatching

High on yarn fumes from Rose City Yarn Crawl

Posted on March 4, 2013 | 20 comments

That pretty much sums it up! The Crawl was well attended; I saw lots of very happy yarnophiles. I started the crawl at Twisted, where I had a trunk show on Thursday afternoon, sharing space with Chrissy Gardiner. She brought all the socks from her new book, Indie Socks! (She’s got legs, I’ve got heads, we’ve both got torsos…)

Even though it was the first day of the crawl, Valerie had already visited nine of the 18 shops.

I went crawling on Saturday. Cathy and I decided to visit some shops on the west side that we hadn’t seen before or in a while. We visited four. Luckily, I’m local, so I can visit the rest of the shops at any time.

There should be five buttons (including Twisted) on my bag; I forgot to get a button at one of the shops. I was a little distracted by yarn!

Aren’t the logo colors pretty? They may have influenced my color choice at For Yarn’s Sake. This is Cascade 220 Superwash, 100g/ball.

I bought 3 skeins of each of these colors, thinking that I would knit a log cabin baby blanket for an soon-to-be-born cousin. But I must have been high on yarn fumes; there’s no way I can get that much knitting done soon, while still working on my design projects! So some of this will have to go back. I think one ball of pink will become In Threes, a sweet little cardigan.

Our next stop was at the Knitting Bee, which was new to both me and Cathy. This sweet piece was on the wall, which made me remember that I hadn’t taken any pix at For Yarn’s Sake. High on yarn fumes, I tell ya. The shop was cute! And owner Jami’s pattern for the Vintage Fremont Shawl is lovely. It has an interesting construction and applied lace edging, which is something that I’ve been wanting to try. Winner!

From there we let the car navigation guide us to Northwest Wools. I used to shop there all the time, before there were many yarn shops in town. It’s still a lovely place, organized by yarn weight/fiber and then by color. I couldn’t resist this lovely yarn’s perfect chinaberry red. It’s Cascade Cloud, 70% merino, 30% alpaca.

Look at the construction of it! It’s cabled, or chain plyed. I love it. It will probably be a squooshy seed stitch cowl, which would really show off the yarn’s structure.

From there we went to Pearl Fiber Arts, new to Cathy but not to me. There was a lot of pretty yarn! Not being much of a stasher, I settled for the latest Interweave Knits magazine since I had already bought yarn. Cindy had some seriously big yarn, and the needles to match!

We ended at Twisted, just because it’s home base. And now I’m back to knitting away at my Honey Cardigan. So far, so good!

Did you participate in the yarn crawl? What was your favorite thing? If you’re not local here, you should come visit for the crawl next year. I think it’s going to be February 27-March 2, 2014. Knit on!

20 Comments

Posted in Knit, yarn

Tagged rose city yarn crawl

Git ‘er done

Posted on February 22, 2013 | 2 comments

Crafty Moms Weekend was great; it’s always nice to hang out with friends. Our kids have grown up so we’re no longer hanging out at soccer games and school concerts together. That means we were overdue to have the chance to catch up with each other. And I got a lot of knitting done, even if I had to rip out 7452 stitches. That project is finished and blocked, and the pattern is nearly done. But it won’t be a self-published pattern, so it will be a while before I can show it to you. I loved knitting it, and hope you will too, eventually. It was great Downton Abbey knitting! Fairly simple, with just enough going on to keep it interesting.

I started a sweater for me. This is the beginning of the Honey cardigan by Veera Välimäki. The pattern is pretty straightforward and nicely written. I just haven’t decided if I like the yarn yet. It’s 45⁰ North Worsted in Pinot Noir, 100% Superwash Merino specially dyed for Twisted, but discontinued. I bought it on sale last week, knowing that I wanted a worsted weight cardigan. The yarn is nice, but different. It’s a tightly twisted 3-ply, and it almost feels like knitting with cotton rather than wool. I will knit a little further and see what I think. I am happily cabling along without a cable needle. Do you use a cable needle? For these 2×2 cables, I don’t really need one. Check out the tutorials on the sidebar if you want to know how you can ditch your cable needle, too.

One more sunset!

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel, yarn

Tagged crafty moms, honey cardigan

CSY Goodness

Posted on February 13, 2013 | 5 comments

I caught up with Lorajean of Knitted Wit this week. The last time I saw her, we were in a mad dash to get our Rose City Yarn Crawl project done for the prize baskets. (Don’t forget to get your free copy of my Daffy Taffy Twists pattern!) After we got that done, I went to Hawaii and she went to TNNA. We’re both back now, so I took the opportunity to catch up with her, and I also picked up *two* months worth of CSY:Fingering Edition yarn. Here’s the January skein:

This variegated makes me think of chocolate and berries. I’ll be looking for a stellar stitch pattern that does it justice. The yarn is Corriedale Socked, 75% super wash Corriedale and 25% nylon, 4 ounces/445 yards. Corriedale is a new breed fiber for me; I’m looking forward to knitting with it. Not sure it will be socks, although the yarn feels like it would make a sturdy but soft and long lasting pair.

This blue-green is Cashy Light, a 80/10/10 blend of superwash merino, cashmere,and nylon. It has tons of yardage, 496 yards in 4 ounces. I think it would make a generous one skein shawl. The color reminds me of the ocean, way out in the depths.

I have a lot of knitting lined up for this weekend. I need to finish a design, start a new one, and I still want to knit myself a sweater. Remember that January was supposed to be selfish knitting month? I never got it done, too much work knitting. But last week I bought some clearance yarn at Twisted, worsted in pinot noir, enough for a sweater. I’m thinking it will be Veera Välimäki’s Honey Cardigan. Click the link and tell me what you think! I like that the neckline is less relaxed than on the Tea Leaves Cardigan. I want something top-down so I don’t have to commit to the length until the bitter end. And I decided that I didn’t want the big borders on Serra or Rocky Coast right now.

What are you going to knit this weekend?

5 Comments

Posted in Knit, yarn

Tagged csy, honey cardigan, knitted wit

OFFF 2012

Posted on September 29, 2012 | 8 comments

DH and I went globe trotting to celebrate our 30th(!) anniversary: Amsterdam, Bruges, Paris. I’m finally starting to catch up with myself after jet lag plus a busy week at home. We arrived home on Friday night at 11, and I went to Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival the next day at noon. I didn’t want to miss my favorite fiber festival of the year, and I couldn’t go on Sunday. The weather was gorgeous: sunny and warm.

This is the first year since I started going to OFFF that I didn’t help Lorajean (Knitted Wit) set up her booth. Looks like she managed to get it done without me; set-up day was my travel day.

It was Brooke’s (Sincere Sheep) first OFFF; she came with a beautiful rainbow of yarn and fiber. She and Lorajean are launching more Among Friends fun; check it out here.

I took my half pi shawl to Abstract Fiber to show Susan what I had made with her lovely laceweight Hepburn yarn. This was the shawl I made for my birthday, but really it was for our anniversary dinner in Paris. Dinner and the shawl were both lovely.

Yvonne (Lavender Sheep) and her new little one were there. Yvonne is a dyer, and also the organizer of the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival, coming in April.

Chrissy Gardiner was at the Lavender Sheep booth signing copies of her new book, Indie Socks. This book is full of Chrissy’s beautiful and clever patterns for socks using yarn from indie dyers.

I caught up with Jen from Andersen Fiber Works. (Love her sweater!)

And my friend Sarah, who is the fastest knitter I know. And very accomplished, too; her knitting knowledge is encyclopedic. (Do I look a little dazed? Not bad for 4 hours of sleep, after being up 24 hours traveling. Oy!)

Nadine showed me her handspun sweater project. I last saw it in our steek class last spring. Yes, she cut her handspun knitting! I had a nice chat with her friend Midge, too.

I didn’t make it to the animal barns. I came home with just a little yarn. I wanted some browns, which I’ve never worn before. I’m branching out!

Lovely warm browns in this Eponymous Sock yarn, color Mulch, from Three Fates Yarn.

And this cool brown Shine from Knitted Wit.

This plummy Icicle Creek yarn from Rain City Fiber Arts. I fell for the color, and the golden sparkle of the stellina.

Did you go to OFFF? What have you been up to while I was gone?

I’ll tell you about my travels in another post. This one is long enough already!

8 Comments

Posted in Knit, yarn

Tagged OFFF

I bought yarn I didn’t need

Posted on September 14, 2012 | 21 comments

But wait, I can explain! I did it for the experience. Yes, the experience!

I went to La Droguerie, in Paris. I had read about them online, and it’s a very different experience than visiting a US shop.

This shop is located at 9 and 11 Rue du Jour, just off Rue Rambuteau, right next to Les Halles. It’s a 15 minute walk from our apartment in le Marais. Pictures are not allowed inside, but here’s a view from across the street.

You can see that the yarn hangs in hanks along the walls, but these are just samples of the yarn by type and color. I decided I wanted linen, which they carry in about DK weight, in a deep purple (violet, but I think of it as eggplant). I asked for it in French, 200 grams. The clerk went to the back wall, climbed a ladder, brought down a cone, and wound off the required amount.

It’s really not this blue; I can’t get the camera to capture the eggplant-iness of it.

The rest of the store is lovely, too. There’s a wall of buttons, and if you want some, they get them out of wooden boxes and drawers for you. There are jars of beads, and you have to ask for them; they’ll get those out for you, too. Definitely not US do-it-yourself, but a fun experience. And now I have some lovely French linen to play with!

21 Comments

Posted in travel, yarn