PDXKnitterati

The siren song…

Posted on June 17, 2013 | 22 comments

…of yarn! I’m usually a monogamous knitter. At most, I’ll have two projects, if one takes more brain power than can be managed at knit nite. You should always have some simple knitting for social occasions.

I’m knitting away on my Garland shawl for the KAL. I have six repeats done, and am expecting there to be 17 total. Don’t hold me to that number; my scale will help me figure it out when I get closer to the center. (And the color is much more vibrant than this in real life.)

I have the pattern memorized, but I don’t know that I’ll be knitting this away from home. It’s about the beads. Having a little dish of beads next to me is just an opportunity to spill! I could probably manage it at knit nite, but not in a car or on the go. So I need a knit nite type of project to take with me.

This is the beginning of a Filigree shawl for me. It’s Knitted Wit Shine in Silver Lining. I knit a smaller version of this when I designed it for Lorajean to take to TNNA, but I really want a bigger one for me. I have the 20 stitch lace edging repeat mostly memorized, and the pattern PDF lives in my phone, too, so it’s pretty easy to take with me. Once I get to the short row shaping, it’s super simple. Perfect take-along knitting.

But wait, there’s more. I have an idea for another shawl design. I’ve gotten as far as charting out the lace I want. And this Knitted Wit Bling is begging to be cast on, at least for swatching. (Look at the sparkles!) What’s a knitter to do?

My drawer of fingering weight yarn is overflowing. Casting on would be the responsible thing to do, in order to reduce the stress on the yarn in the drawer. Right? Right? Hello?

How many projects do you have on your needles?

22 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, yarn

Yarn and laughter hangover

Posted on June 12, 2013 | 2 comments

Monday’s Garland KAL cast on party at Twisted? Fun!

I made party favor stitch markers:

And Sarah, maker of Bead Aids, made me these beautiful earrings. Aren’t they stunning? She is very talented!

They go perfectly with my shawl to be. (Better than the picture below would suggest; the color is much richer in person)

And yes, there was a giant cookie, as promised!

There’s still 2/3 of the cookie left…it was huge.

Also, I had this message from Sherecie on the PDXKnitterati Ravelry forum last week. It made me laugh out loud.

…so, I’m a really bad knit-a-long-er.
I couldn’t wait to cast on & thought I would get started last weekend. It was among other WIPs, so I thought I would knit on it a little, here & there, until the official cast on date & then work on it exclusively…

pdxknitterati, I think you need to add a warning message on this pattern… something like “This thing is hugely addictive” and “Let your other projects know you’re starting this & tell them you won’t be back to them until it’s done.”

I’m finished.
It’s blocking outside.
I’m in love with it.
I’m sorry I didn’t knit-along with all of you, but I will be watching and squeeing at all the pictures as you go!!

I did tell her she could knit another one with us. What’s your summer knit?

2 Comments

Posted in KAL, Knit

Tagged Garland KAL

Garland Shawl KAL cast on day

Posted on June 9, 2013 | 3 comments

It’s cast on day for the Garland KAL. I’m meeting with local knitters this evening at Twisted, 5-7 p.m. I’ll bring some appetizers, party favors, and a giant cookie tray that I picked up yesterday.

Gee, should I bring a pizza cutter for it? But it seemed appropriate for a summer KAL.

Here are a couple tips for Garland, just to get started. First of all, the special bind off. It’s really stretchy, and makes it possible to block the leafy edging to its full glory. You can use a regular bind off, but it’s much easier to pin out with the stretchy bind off described in the pattern. (If you’ve already cast on, you can change mid-project. No one will look close enough to see that they’re not the same.)

Second tip: I like to put a marker between stitches 13 and 14 on the edging. That way I don’t have to count to know where to start the next leaf after the bind off row. It starts right at the marker.

Remember, there’s Garland KAL chatter in the PDXKnitterati group on Ravelry, so pop over there and join the party!

It’s Rose Festival here in Portland, and the weather has been uncommonly nice. Usually it rains for Rose Festival, but it’s been spectacular here. Remember this rose planting with the Royal Rosarians in 2010?

Here’s the rose today:

It’s really happy in its space!

And I snapped this picture in my back yard last night at dinner. I think it’s St. John’s Wort; there’s a ton of it growing under my bamboo.

I didn’t even realize the tips of the stamens were pink until I looked at the picture. Sweet!

Is it summer for you yet?

3 Comments

Posted in KAL, Knit

Tagged Garland KAL

Shortcake, and yarn

Posted on June 6, 2013 | 5 comments

I’m still between projects, trying to decide if I’m going to start something before the Garland KAL cast on Monday. I want to have the right needles free when it’s time to start!

The yarn is definitely ready. There was a drive-by yarning here Wednesday.

My Peacock and Janet’s Moody Blues. And the beads I bought at Shipwreck?

They look to be a perfect match. I have way more than enough. There are about 150 beads per strand, and I have 6 strands. I don’t know if you can tell, but the beads are clear, with a peacock lining.

There is still time to join the KAL; we don’t cast on until Monday. The coupon code for the discount on the Garland Shawl pattern is GarlandKAL. Join us! And if you’re local in Portland, join us at Twisted this Monday evening from 5-7 for a cast on party.

What else is occupying my thoughts?

Strawberry shortcake. (Please excuse the lighting; it was late at night.) Local strawberries are just coming into season, but I haven’t had any yet. I’ve been making do with California berries. Let’s just say I’m practicing for the real thing. Here’s my current shortcake recipe. They’re like my scones, only more butter, and no egg. Crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside, especially when they’re still warm from the oven. They also reheat well in the toaster oven.

Strawberry Shortcake
serves 8

2 pounds fresh strawberries, rinsed, hulled, and sliced
2 tablespoons sugar (or more, to taste)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or both

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a medium bowl, stir together the strawberries and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and 3 T sugar. Cut the butter into pieces and then blend them into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Combine milk and vanilla and add to flour mixture; stir until just combined.

Using your hands, gently divide mixture into 8 equal size balls, and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 12 – 15 minutes at 425 degrees. Cool on a rack, just a bit. To serve, split a warm shortcake in two, and serve with ice cream, whipped cream, or both.

What’s your favorite summer dessert?

5 Comments

Posted in foodies!, KAL, Knit, recipe, yarn

Tagged Garland KAL, kal, shortcake

Filigree and Webfoot Shawls pattern release sale

Posted on June 6, 2013 | 2 comments

They’re here! New shawl versions of Filigree and Webfoot are now live.

The small version of the Filigree Shawl

And the larger version.

The larger version is two repeats wider than the smaller version, but about the same depth.

These are knit with Knitted Wit’s Shine (merino/tencel blend). It’s great to work with, and has a beautiful sheen. It takes well to blocking, too. This pattern and yarn combination will be featured by Knitted Wit at TNNA’s Sample It later this month.

This is the Webfoot Shawl in Hazel Knits Entice, an MCN blend. It is lovely to work with, and so squishy soft.

I only knit the larger shawl for this design, but you can always go smaller if you want to. I wouldn’t, because this is so nice to wrap around yourself.

Both new patterns have instructions for the original crescent shaped scarf, as well as two shawl sizes. It was a lot of fun to play with the shaping and get a different accessory personality from it. I think the shawls are more useful to me, but your mileage may vary.

Remember, if you’ve purchased the previous Webfoot and Filigree Scarves pattern, you’ll receive both the Webfoot and Filigree shawl/scarf patterns as updates. You should be receiving an update email from Ravelry with instructions on how to get both patterns. That’s two patterns for your original $6 purchase. Please update by June 30, 2013.

If you didn’t purchase the previous pattern, I have a special offer for you, too. To celebrate the launch of these two patterns, they’re each $1.50 off through June 15. Use the coupon code TwoNew to receive your discount on the Filigree page or Webfoot page. You have to purchase them separately, though; the system can only give one discount at a time.

And now I have absolutely nothing on my needles. What an odd feeling. But I have a new design idea, two gifts to knit, and the Garland KAL starts on Monday. No idle hands for long!

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged crescent shawls, filigree, Knit, Webfoot

Garland Shawl cast on options

Posted on June 3, 2013 | 4 comments

I’m planning my cast on for the Garland KAL. My prototype shawl is very wide and shallow. I’d like to make my next one deeper, like test knitter Rachel’s, but also as wide as it can be with the amount of yarn I have. I was conservative with Rachel’s test knit to make sure the deeper shawl would be wide enough with about 400 yards of yarn, even though the Cashy Lite was 495 yards.

How do you know if you should make the wider, shallower shawl, or the narrower, deeper shawl? Part of it depends on how you like to wear your shawl.

If you have about 400 yards of yarn, your deeper shawl will probably be most comfortable worn centered on your back. The ends don’t provide a lot of overlap for wearing this like a scarf. Rachel’s shawl took 390 yards at 6 st/inch.

If you use those 400 yards to make a shallower shawl, you’ll get more overlap at the ends.

If you have 450 yards or more, the shallower shawl will be super wide like my prototype. This one took 455 yards at 5 st/inch. (I’m planning to aim for 5.5 or 6 st/inch next time, for a slightly firmer fabric.)

It’s luxuriously wrappable, but I don’t know that I’d wear it centered on my back. Maybe if I were taller…

I’m planning to split the difference this time and go deep *and* wide. How?

The pattern instructions tell you how many repeats wide to make your shawl, but you can easily customize this for the amount of yarn you have. This is because the shawl is knit from side to side. You start at the right end, increase towards the center back, and then decrease to the left end. With a little math, you can easily adjust the size of your shawl without fear of running out of yarn.

You’ll need a kitchen scale, one of my favorite knitting tools. Weigh your yarn before you begin. Half of this yarn will go to the increase section of your shawl, and half will go to the decrease section. Weigh your yarn after every 24 row repeat. (Weigh your yarn in grams, because it’s a more precise measure on the scale.) This will show you how much yarn each repeat takes. The amount increases gradually with each repeat, because you’re increasing the number of stitches with each repeat. You’ll need to figure in enough yarn for the center repeat, which has no increases or decreases, but the center repeat will weigh about as much as the repeat before and after it. When you are halfway through that center repeat, you need to have at least half your yarn left for the decreases! (You don’t really need to start weighing your yarn until the 7th repeat, but it doesn’t hurt to know the numbers.)

If you don’t want to do any figuring or customizing, go ahead and knit according to the pattern directions.

So, deep or shallow? What’s your Garland going to be? Beads? No beads? I’m going for beads! I like the bling, and the little bit of extra heft and drape they give the fabric.

I’m looking forward to getting my yarn, Knitted Wit’s Cashy Lite in Peacock. She’s dyeing today! Did you order yarn from Knitted Wit, or are you using your own? If you ordered from Lorajean, I’m tucking in a little goodie for you with your yarn.

Looking forward to casting on, June 10!

4 Comments

Posted in beading, KAL, Knit, yarn

Tagged Garland KAL, Garland shawl, stitch markers

Cast On Party June 10, and Bead Aid Winner

Posted on May 31, 2013 | 1 comment

I am so looking forward to casting on for the Garland Shawl KAL. And I’m pleased to announce that we’re having a cast on party on June 10, from 5-7 p.m. (PDT) at Twisted in Portland. I’ll bring some wine and some munchies. Hope you can make it!

And if you’re not local, it’s a virtual cast on party, too. I’ll bring my iPad and see if we can use the chat function in the PDXKnitterati Ravelry group. I haven’t tried it yet, so it’s a whole new adventure.

Locals, let me know if you can make it. And everyone, please join us on Ravelry for ongoing conversation and let us know who you are, and what yarn you’re planning to cast on.

I’m using Knitted Wit’s Cashy Lite in Peacock. :swoon:

Don’t forget there’s a discount code for the KAL. If you don’t have a pattern yet, check the Garland pattern page for details. If you order just the pattern from me, there’s a $1 discount code through cast on day, June 10. If you order yarn through Knitted Wit by June 1, there’s a $2 discount code for the pattern. Only one more day to order from Knitted Wit! Due date is June 1, so she can get yarn dyed up for you in time for the June 10 cast on.

And! Drum roll please: The winner of the Bead Aids is Melinda, who said, “A BeadAid could make me enjoy the process which at the moment I don’t.” Melinda, I’m hoping this does the trick for you! It really helped me. Send me your snail mail addy and I’ll get it right out to you.

If you’re not Melinda, but you still want to try the Bead Aids, you can order them from Sarah, the maker, at her website. I know they’re also at Pearl Fiber Arts in Portland.

I’m not quite done with my Webfoot Shawl. But a blog post isn’t a blog post without a picture, so here’s one I found in my camera. I forgot to download it after my Orlando trip last month. I knew this view would be coming up, so I was at the ready with my camera!

Mount Hood, on a slightly hazy day. Yes, I turned the camera on for 30 seconds, even though it was suppposed to be off. I’m such a rebel.

Back to my knitting!

1 Comment

Posted in KAL, Knit

Tagged bead aid, cast on party, Garland KAL

What’s your knitting style?

Posted on May 30, 2013 | 18 comments

I’m not asking the picker versus thrower question. This is about what kind of knitting you like to do. Do you like crazy complicated patterns that require you to keep track on a chart?

Or is all garter stitch more your style?

Do you like working intarsia with several colors?

Or the rhythm of stranded knitting, just a couple colors at a time?

One color, with a memorizable repeat, and restful purling every other row?

The thing that got me thinking about this was a good old closet sorting! I found my Enchanted Forest Aran cardigan hiding in the back. I loved making this, and loved wearing it, too. But I can’t imagine being glued to a chart like this again.

Although sometimes there is allure in a little bit of fussiness.

Most of my knitting these days is design work, and the things I like designing most are the things I like knitting most. Simple accessories, intuitive stitch patterns, things you can knit during knit night or while reading a book or watching a movie. I like multi-tasking!

What do you like?

18 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged Enchanted Aran Forest, grumpy cat sweater, knitting style

From scarf to shawl: Filigree and Webfoot

Posted on May 27, 2013 | 4 comments

I’ve been knitting, knitting, knitting. I re-figured the crescent shaping for Filigree so it can be a shawl in addition to the original scarf. It’s sweet.

I had 22 grams (80 yards) of yarn left after this, and I wanted to see if I could tweak the design to use a little more of the yarn. There was enough to make it two repeats wider, but that same crescent shaping brought me perilously close to using the entire skein of yarn. I don’t want to be that close, because we all knit differently, and I don’t want you to run out of yarn just before finishing. Do-over! I ripped out the crescent shaping and changed the rate of decrease to make the curve just a little shallower. Both shawls are about the same depth at the center back. I finished with 18 grams (64 yards) of yarn left after this wider shawl. That’s the biggest I can get without making it shallower than I want.

ETA: Just cleaned out my knitting basket, and found a second bit of yarn left from the smaller shawl. It was really 32 grams (116 yards) of yarn leftover, which was why I wanted to make a larger version. I remembered it as being about 30 g left, but I didn’t see that extra bit when I went to weigh my leftovers to write this post. Carry on.

The new Filigree pattern will have instructions for the scarf, the narrower shawl, and the wider shawl.

Now I’m knitting a shawl version of Webfoot. I’m knitting the wider shawl for this pattern. Since the narrow and wide shawls are about the same depth and take close to the same amount of yarn, you may as well make it wider for better wrapping around yourself! But here’s my question: If you were purchasing the pattern, would you want the instructions for both shawls, even if there were no picture for the smaller shawl, in case you have a more limited amount of yarn? I really don’t want to knit a smaller one, but I’ll already have the numbers for it since it’s the same shaping as Filigree. Is it better to have more options, even when they’re not pictured?

I should be finished with both patterns next week. A few more photographs, and the patterns will be ready to roll. Remember, if you’ve purchased the previous Webfoot and Filigree Scarves pattern, you’ll receive both the Webfoot and Filigree shawl/scarf patterns as updates when I re-publish these as separate patterns.

And then we’re on to the cast on for the Garland KAL on June 10! How many of you KAL participants are local? Maybe we could have a knit together moment…

Don’t forget to leave a comment on this previous post if you want a chance to win a set of Bead Aids.

Just knitting over this holiday weekend. It’s rainy and cool. How about you?

4 Comments

Posted in KAL, pattern design

Tagged crescent shawl, filigree, Garland, kal, Webfoot

Silk, dye, salt: magic!

Posted on May 19, 2013 | 11 comments

I’ve been playing around with painting/dyeing silk scarves. I learned the basic technique at a workshop last year, and we’ve been using it for banners at church. The basic ingredients are liquid fabric paint/dye (Dye-Na-Flow from Dharma Trading), silk scarves, and coarse salt. You can use table salt, but it’s messier and is harder to get off the scarf at the end of the process.

This one was done with the basic technique. You’ll want to cover your table with plastic to protect it. Wet the scarf, squeeze it out, crumple it into a ball and drop dye on it. You can use an eyedropper or a straw. The more you handle it, the more the colors will blend, which may or may not be what you want. Spread the scarf out on your protected table, and sprinkle it with salt.

The salt draws the dye, and makes very cool patterns in the color. After the silk is completely dry, brush off the salt and iron the scarf to set the dye.

We tried a different method to create these Advent candle banners last December. We wet the silk and laid it out on the table, then used sponge brushes to create candles before salting the “painted” scarves.

Here’s a closeup of the salted dye.

I was really happy with how my candle flames turned out!

We explored color at our Women’s Retreat last month. Twenty women participated, so there wasn’t a lot of table space. We had to use the crumpled ball method. I have a hard time with the randomness of the outcome with these. I wish I had handled it less, so that the colors were more distinct from each other. (Me, a control freak? Go figure. I’m sure there are life lessons in there somewhere.)

Everyone got to make their own scarf.

A little inspiration?

And then we dyed some banners for Pentecost. We wanted flames, but these turned out a bit more pastel than we anticipated. That color blending thing again!

We made a few more last week. I really like how these turned out. I laid out the damp silk and dripped dye on it with a straw. No handling, so no blending. Coarse salt as usual. I could see using this technique for a scarf to wear. They were a little subtle against the big glass screen. You can see these on the far left of the two bottom rows in the next picture.