Tag Archives: Knit

Shetland Triangle Love

Posted on April 30, 2008 | 10 comments

The Shetland Triangle is done; it’s drying on blocking wires this very minute. I love how this turned out.

See the subtle sparkle in the yarn? Love that silver!

Blocking wires really help pull this into shape and show off the pattern of the lace. Here’s the shawl before blocking:

Cats don’t really help much with blocking; the wires are pretty tempting. But Mookie thinks she’s helping, and that’s what counts.

I’ll post a picture of the shawl in action after it gets off the wires.

Details:
Shetland Triangle by Evelyn A. Clark, from Interweave Knits’ Wrap Style.
Size 6 26″ Lantern Moon circular Ebony needle (love these!)
A bit more than one skein of Silver, Silk, and Superwash Merino Sock Yarn from Painted Skeins (skein is 100 grams, 420 yards). I added three extra repeats of the body section; if I had added only two (10 total), I could have done this with one skein of yarn.

I left off the last two rows of the edging to make the edge less pointy (thanks, BrooklynTweed) and I cast off knit-wise on the wrong side to counteract stockinette’s tendency to roll. I used a size 8 needle as the working needle to cast off.

I must really love it; I’m going to make another one starting tomorrow. This shawl is going to be a birthday present. I want one for me, too. There’s a Shetland Triangle KAL (knitalong) group on Ravelry, and the cast on date is May 1. I’m ready! I might use a size 7 needle and make it a little bit lacier.

And I’ve found a piano piece that’s pulling me back to the bench: It’s Beethoven’s Sonata in G Minor, Op. 49 No. 1. Just the first movement for now. Yummy.

Edited to add pix:

It’s really hard to take a picture of yourself!

10 Comments

Posted in Knit, piano, ravelry

Tagged blocking, Knit, lace, shawl, shetland triangle

Entrelac socks, redux

Posted on April 25, 2008 | 2 comments

I had tea with Anna on Monday. She’s cruising along on the entrelac socks. The first is done, and the second is halfway there. A completed first sock means that the pattern is readable and knittable, so the entrelac sock pattern is ready to be published. It’s now available on the sidebar.

Anna says that she only knits with dirt-colored yarn. I think it’s good looking dirt! Although we prefer to say, “earth tones.” We bought this yarn at Coastal Yarns in Cannon Beach, Oregon during Crafty Moms Weekend in February. I bought some in variegated blues. It’s Hacho hand-dyed merino wool, DK weight, from Mirasol Yarn, spun in Peru. Yum. I’m trying to finish the Shetland Triangle shawl before I jump into another pair of these socks, but the siren song is strong.

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, ravelry

Tagged entrelac, Knit, socks

Holey, holey, holey

Posted on April 22, 2008 | Comments Off

I’m working on Evelyn Clark’s Shetland Triangle from Interweave Knits’ book, Wrap Style. Wow, this lace knitting is really addictive! The pattern is easy to remember, except for the first few stitches of the odd numbered rows, but other than looking at those few stitches on the chart, it’s cruise control knitting.

I love how the knitting looks like a crumpled blob on the needles, but when I spread it out a little, I can begin to see what the fir cone pattern is going to look like. Blocking will really bring out the pattern after I finish knitting. Soon!

The yarn I’m using is Silver, Silk, and Superwash Merino Sock Yarn from Painted Skeins. It has a thread of real silver in it, which appeals to the magpie in me.

I worked on this a little last week on the Amtrak train from Seattle. I went up to see Perri Knize read from her new book, Grand Obsession, at a piano party at Classical Grands. The book is the story of her search for the perfect piano, falling in love with one, and the journey that begins when the piano, Marlene, arrives having lost her distinctive voice. Perri is a member of a piano forum that I frequent, and it was nice to meet her in person! The trip also gave me a chance to catch up with some other piano friends.

Knit on!

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Posted in Knit, piano

Tagged Knit, lace, piano

Mitered squares for all

Posted on April 11, 2008 | 4 comments

I’ve been playing with the Frog Tree Alpaca Sport, experimenting with garter stitch mitered squares. I like the idea of garter stitch, because it’s square instead of rectangular, and I want the squares to be square! More or less. It’s still a little diamond-y, but I think it will do. Blocking will help. Since this is a group project, I also want the square to be pretty simple. Here’s the square:

And here’s how I made it:

CO 72 sts with color A, knit one row (wrong side).

Row 1: K 34, SSK, place marker, K2tog, K34

Row 2 and all even rows: Knit

Row 3 and all odd rows: K until 2 sts before marker, SSK, slip marker, K2tog, K to end of row.

After first 6 rows, change to color B. There are 4 garter ridges on the right side. (Why not 3? Because the one row you knit on the wrong side before row 1 made a ridge on the right side, so there was one ridge before we even started the pattern. After this, it will take 8 rows to make 4 garter ridges.)

Continue in miter pattern, alternating between color A and color B every 8 rows (you’ll have four garter ridges on the right side). At the beginning of each right side row, bring the current color up under and behind the color not in use. This will carry the color not in use up the side of the block.

When you have 2 sts remaining (one on either side of the marker) after completing a right side row, K2 tog on the very next wrong side row. (Don’t change colors; I know there are 4 ridges, but we don’t want a little blip of color.) Cut yarn and pull through the last stitch. Cut the other yarn, too, leaving nice tails!

I’m using size 4 needles, but as usual, it’s all about gauge. Square measures 7 inches across the middles, and 10 inches point to point. Now we just need to make a lot of them! I’m guessing we’ll get three squares out of each set of two balls of yarn. Wish I had a digital kitchen scale…

The square I was experimenting with at Knit Nite was decidedly ugly (the corner looked like a wart), so we passed out the yarn and now I just need to send out this pattern.

ETA: Edited to add: There are many ways to go about this, but it works in garter stitch as long as you have two decreases, every other row. You could also do one decrease each row, always before the center marker. Or always after the center marker. You could also do a centered double decrease on every right side row, but then there’d be a lot of “moving the marker” activity. I wanted to make the square as simple to knit as possible. This is the way it turned out: easy!

4 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged afghan, Knit, mitered square

ZigZagZigZag

Posted on April 7, 2008 | 2 comments

I’ve been working on these pedicure socks for a friend’s birthday. I ran through three different design ideas before I came up with a stitch pattern that would let the yarn tell its story. This yummy yarn is Yarntini Variegated Sport, and the colorway is Mimosa. It just screams “orange creamsicle” at me. I love this yarn; it’s the same yarn that I used for my Entrelac Socks. It’s a little heavy for a sport weight yarn, but it has a wonderful springy texture.

ZigZag Lace Pedicure Socks

I hope she likes them! Pattern should be up in a few days. :edit: pattern is up!

I also put up the pattern for the log cabin baby blanket; I had already written instructions for knitting the squares for my knit group; it was just a matter of adding assembly and border instructions. Enjoy!

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged blanket, Knit, log cabin, pedi, socks, yarntini

Knit Nite Project

Posted on March 27, 2008 | 4 comments

Lorajean brought a bounty of Frog Tree Alpaca Sport to knit nite last night, with a proposal that we all make squares for a blanket, perhaps for Afghans for Afghans. This is beautiful yarn!

We kicked around ideas, and decided on ballband squares in alternating directions. But this morning I woke up and realized that ballband dishcloths are rectangular, not square. Back to square one, haha.

The other challenge on a project like this is to have everyone knitting to the same gauge. This is either easier or harder than it sounds, depending on how willing your knitters are to rip and re-do. I don’t mind it, but I know that some knitters are completely undone by the prospect.

Now I’m thinking that mitered squares might be the way to go. I’ll do a little more research, some swatching, and bring ideas to the next knit nite.

Last night I worked on my log cabin blanket. This is perfect knit nite knitting, completely mindless garter stitch that doesn’t go off track because of chat.

I have two more fun projects on the needles, but I can’t talk about them yet. They’re surprises!

4 Comments

Posted in Knit

Tagged afghan, Knit, log cabin

New socks = happy dance

Posted on March 23, 2008 | 1 comment

I love my entrelac socks so much that I want to make another pair. (Not that you can see much of the socks in this picture, but it was Crafty Mom Weekend, and I was wearing them!)

My LYS, Twisted, didn’t have more Yarntini Sport in a color I wanted, so I bought some LavenderSheep Superwash Sport. I finished most of one cuff and realized that this yarn didn’t want to be entrelac socks, or at least not the entrelac socks from my pattern. I’m never afraid to rip and start over, especially if yarn tells me that it wants to be something else. Apparently this yarn wanted to be plain old ribbed socks.

sox 2

sox 3

But they’re really not plain. The colors are wonderful; I love how the purple and blue spiral down the leg. And I added a baby cable to the 2×2 rib. It adds a little pizazz, and it makes it easy to count the number of rounds so the second sock can match.

I’ll find another yarn to make the entrelac socks. The hunt is on!

1 Comment

Posted in Knit

Tagged Knit, LavenderSheep, socks

Entrelac love

Posted on March 22, 2008 | 2 comments

The first time I fell in love with entrelac, I was looking at Kathryn Alexander’s amazing entrelac socks in Spin-Off’s Socks book (1994 Interweave Press). But it was about 10 years ago, and I was nowhere near ready to try something so ambitious. I was also afraid of skinny yarn at that point. Consider it an entrelac flirtation.

In 2006, I received a gift of handspun from BeeLady, a friend on a piano forum (and now Ravelry, too). We had both made baby gifts for another forumite, and BeeLady sent me some yarn she had spun and dyed. I found the perfect project for it, the Felted Entrelac Tote from knitpicks.com. There’s just enough entrelac in this project for a beginning entrelac knitter.

I was completely smitten. So smitten that I made three more as gifts, with yarn from knitpicks. That wasn’t quite enough to satisfy my burgeoning entrelac affair. I wanted to design a small project, something to take with me on a trip to San Antonio. This ear band pattern is the result:

But I still wanted a sock. I couldn’t find a pattern that matched the sock of my dreams, so I made my own. It’s not the many colors of fingering weight yarn wonder that first caught my eye, but it makes me really happy. Sport weight yarn, variegated so the yarn does the work and I don’t have a million ends to weave in.

My friend Anna is test knitting the pattern for me. Thanks, Anna!

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design

Tagged entrelac, Knit

The first one is the most exciting

Posted on March 19, 2008 | 5 comments

I sold my first pattern on Ravelry today. It’s my first pattern sale ever! I was especially pleased because it was confirmation that I set it up correctly. The pattern is for this bag:

I love the Mason-Dixon Knitting book, and after making a ballband washcloth, I just had to take it to the next level. I needed a project to donate to the church youth fundraiser (for their mission trip), and came up with this.

Unfortunately, I fell in love with the colors in this bag, and I just couldn’t give it away. That meant that I had to make two more! I went to the stash and came up with two other color combinations, and they did go to the auction last Sunday. The blue one is still my favorite, though.

orange tote

vineyard tote

Felting is a funny thing; I increased the number of rows in the new bags because I wanted to make them a little taller than the blue bag, but they came out shorter! Different washing machines, different agitation. But they’re all cute.

See the link for the Felted Slip Stitch Tote on the sidebar for purchase information.

5 Comments

Posted in Knit, pattern design, ravelry

Tagged ballband, felting, Knit

Knitting + WordPress = ?

Posted on March 17, 2008 | Comments Off

Where am I? Why am I here?

I’m curious about the blog world. My page at comcast is hard to manage, so I thought I’d try WordPress.

I’m currently in love with knitting. I’ve been knitting for about 30 years, but most seriously in the last 10. I have some free patterns out on the web; I’ll post them here, too, when I figure out how. I’m in a creative whirlwind (mania?) this spring, designing and writing some new patterns, and I’ll be selling them through Ravelry.com. It’s a big step, and I’m learning all sorts of techie non-knitting things along the way.