Transitions Shawl - Clue 4 Done!

And another not so great picture taken with flash and pretty scrunched up (I'm only using a 40" needle), but you get the idea.  It is pretty hard to get good photos this time of the year.  By the time I get home from work it is too dark.  Sometimes I manage to snap one before I go in, but the light isn't really the best until late morning, and I really want to get started on the border tomorrow, so I couldn't wait.  It has been a pretty solid 4 days of lace knitting, which I haven't done in a while.  I seem to do this when I have to be around people a lot (have visitors, or go visiting), not that I'm antisocial or anything, but I do find lace knitting to be very meditative.  I have an increase row to do and then I get to start on the Never-Ending-Border (or NEB).  I had totally forgotten about the NEB, hadn't even printed it out.  The kids are gone and the house is quiet once more.  You know what really amazes me when they visit?  How much trash they produce.  We barely produce a bag of trash a week (13 gallon kitchen trash can size), but in the few days they were here we produced two.

Pattern:  Transitions Shawl by Ruth Greenwald
Yarn:  PennyRose Yarns Carrie
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Transitions Shawl - Clue 3 Done!

Sorry for the not so great photo, but it is dark here and I had to use flash.  I spent the day knitting Clue 3, working rows in between basting the turkey.  We did our dinner today, rather than yesterday because the kids were perambulating, visiting relatives, and didn't get here until late last night.  I actually like doing Thanksgiving this way.  I made the stuffing yesterday and only had to do the turkey, mashed potatoes and the cranberry sauce today.  It actually made for a much less stressful holiday.  Last year I was cooking the whole day and poor Bruce was constantly washing pots for me.  I think we have just established a new tradition.  Every one has gone back to bed except for me, so I am sitting here on my daybed, with my kitty, knitting and watching X-Files on Netflix.

Pattern:  Transitions Shawl by Ruth Greenwald
Yarn:  PennyRose Yarns Carrie
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Transitions Shawl - Clue 2 Done!

Last night I picked this shawl back up again.  I had actually started knitting on Clue 2 a month or so ago and had gotten over half of it done when I lost steam.  But last night when I came home from work I decided that it was a good weekend to work on lace and that I would see how much of this shawl I could get done in between cooking and cleaning.  I usually don't spend a whole lot of time cleaning (I would much rather craft), and with it being just the two of us we don't actually make much mess just some clutter, but the kids are coming home for Thanksgiving and the boy is bringing his fiancee, so I have to do at least a little cleaning, and herd some of my unfinished projects into a semblance of order, or at least get them out of the way.  Not that I am going to go all Martha Stewart or anything, but I thought I could at least change the sheet on the day bed (cat fur) and clear it off so that someone else could sit on it besides me.

Pattern:   Transitions Shawl by Ruth Greenwald
Yarn:  PennyRose Yarns Carrie
Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Draped Vest - take 2 - Finished!

I finished the knitting on this last week, but didn't finish the assembly until last night.  I had to ravel some of the collar before I could attach it to the back.  The pattern called for 5.25 inches of the collar, but that was over an inch too long.  When I was attaching the collar I marked the center of the back neck, then sewed one side of the collar down, ripped back 11 rows until I was at the center and put those stitches back on a needle.  Then I ripped the other collar back the same amount and grafted the collars together.  After grafting I continued sewing the collar down.  This is an interesting construction because of the way the fronts are sewn to the back.

The stitch pattern ends up at right angles to each other between the front and the back.  When I was knitting the fronts I always attached new balls of yarn in the middle of a row rather than at the edge because the edge needed to look neat and finished.

I'm not sure that I like the view from the back, but the drape is good.  There is one other thing that I really like about the Karabella Aurora 8 yarn, it is always easy to find the start of the ball.  I had to practically turn the Naturally Vienna balls inside out to find the start, and I was not working from the center of the ball.  It was very frustrating.

Pattern:  Naturally Vienna Draped Vest - FC 56
Yarn:  Karabella Aurora 8
Needles:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Arabesque

I recently received a copy of Japanese Beadwork with Sonoko Nozue published by Lark Crafts.  I actually have met Sonoko because of my sister (co-owner of Beadcats) and like the Japanese aesthetic.  The book had been sitting in my stack waiting to be shelved, and when I was sorting the stack the other day I accidentally put it in the pile of knitting books.  When I spotted it later I pulled it out and flipped through it and decided to do some beading.  This necklace is my take on the first project in the book.  The project is titled Cheerful Midafternoon and is more muted in the color choices.  Here are the beads called for:

Size 11 triangle beads
Size 11 3-cut beads
Czech lily beads (5 or 6 mm)
Size 15 beads
Bicones (5 mm)

The project called for 3-cut beads, and I have plenty in my stash, most acquired when I was first getting into beading some 30 years ago now and was attracted to the glitter, but I wanted something different so I pulled a bag of iridescent beads out of my stash.  I am pretty sure that they are size 11, and they are probably Czech.  They have no stock number on them, but they are dark purple with glints of peach, teal, green and gold.  For the triangle beads I selected lavender transparent with teal luster finish.  I have a fairly decent selection of bicones and I pulled out both teal and peach, and ended up going with the teal.  The only beads that I did not have in my stash were the Czech lilies.  The ones that Beadcats offers are a bit bigger than the ones used in the pattern.  I ordered both peach and lavender.  They came yesterday so this morning when I got up I started on the necklace.

The necklace is built up in layers.  First the lavender lilies, then the peach lilies.  Here is an in progress shot.  you can see my work table.  It is a folding TV dinner table.  We use them in the booth at Bead & Button and one year I forgot them so I had to buy more, which meant that I now have extras which have found their way into the house and into use.  I have my little folding Ott light and my watercolor trays for my beads.  After you finish with the second layer of lilies the instructions call for you to add the picots and join them, finishing up with the bicones.  I decided to work my way up through the layers and did the bicones next.  It really stabilized the piece and I think it made adding the picots easier.

After finishing up the bicones I added the picots.  When it came time to join the picots the pattern actually varies the number of beads between each picot.  I decided to use the same number of beads (I settled on 7 based upon a quick calculation of finished length) and I also decided to string them on Soft Flex instead of beading thread and used one of the clasps that I picked up at Bead & Button from A Grain of Sand.

Materials:
Size 11 purple iridescent Czech seed beads (< 20 g)
Size 11 triangle beads (34 beads), Beadcats stock #1-11-597-02 (lavender transparent with teal luster finish)
Size 14 seed beads to go with the Czech lilies, Beadcats stock #s 2-14-130-01 (blush pink transparent irid) and 2-14-773-01 (lt lavender transparent irid)
Czech lilies - pressed glass - Beadcats stock #s N-F7-114-00 (darker peach transparent, 66 beads) and N-F7-776-00 (lavender transparent, 33 beads)
Bicones - pressed glass - Beadcats stock # P-R1-594-00 (medium blue-green transparent, 33 beads)
KO thread in purple
Soft Flex 925 Sterling Silver Extreme Flex Metallic Flex Wire (Fine)
Box clasp

Beyonce Structured Tee - 2 Corsets Done

Both corsets are done and blocking.  Unfortunately that means I am at a standstill on this project until they dry as the next step is picking up stitches for the bodices.  I actually had to reknit the first corset because I had messed up on the central spine.  It is one stitch over - if you look at the previous post you may be able to spot the asymmetry, despite the poor quality of the photo (taken at night with flash).  I raveled that piece and the yarn is currently drying so I can reuse it if I need to.

Project:  Beyonce Structured Tee from S. Charles Collezione
Yarn:  Nepal from S. Charles Collezione
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Beyonce Structured Tee - 1 Corset Done

Having finished the knitting on my Draped Vest (I'll finish assembly tonight) and knowing that I had a long telecon today I knew that I needed to find another easy knitting project to cast on, and quickly.  A while ago I actually organized and cataloged my stash, but of course, my stash kept growing, and my storage bins did not so the overflow has been accumulating in random piles, mostly localized, but with some distributed around the house.  Of course, one can only carry on this way for a finite time because yarn is not infinitely compressible and I am not yet allowed to take over the other bedrooms upstairs (kids in college but they do visit from time to time - okay, I did take over the spare bedroom for blocking and storing finished projects in, but it wasn't as if we had actually turned it into a spare bedroom) so in addition to finishing up my unfinished projects I have also resolved to work through the random piles of yarn. This project happened to be very near at hand, and looked to be pretty quick and easy, so I grabbed a ball of the yarn and some needles and started knitting a gauge swatch.  I finished my first gauge swatch, knit on US 5 (3.75 mm) needles and knit a second one on US 4 (3.5 mm) needles on my way uptown for a meeting yesterday (no, I was not driving).  I blocked the swatches after I got home and last night I started on the first piece.

This is a sleeveless top that is knit in 5 pieces, front and back corset waists, front and back bodices and a peplum.  The pattern is from S. Charles Collezione and is knit in S. Charles Collezione Nepal a 100% cotton yarn.  I bought the yarn from elann.com on sale and got the pattern for free with the yarn.  When I buy yarn I do try to only buy it if I have a project in mind, and then I try to put the pattern with the yarn, or a note with the name of the pattern with the yarn so I don't forget what I was going to knit with it.  For a while this yarn was in a bag without the pattern and I couldn't remember what I was going to knit with it, but when I was going through one of my pattern notebooks doing some organizing I spotted the pattern, which I had printed out and put in a page protector, so I took it out of the notebook and slid it into the bag with the yarn.  Ever since then the yarn has been quietly whispering my name.  Maybe it is the hot pink color, or the fun construction, or the fact that it has been sitting in a project bag literally at my feet for months, who knows, and frankly, who cares.

Project:  Beyonce Structured Tee from S. Charles Collezione
Yarn:  Nepal from S. Charles Collezione
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Draped Vest - take 2 - Right Front Done

Getting the left front of this vest done inspired me to finish up the right front.  When I blocked this piece I did not let it soak for very long, so it didn't stretch out much.  After I pinned it out I laid the left front on top to make sure they matched.  I've already sewn the left front to the back, except for the neck band.

Before I blocked the right front I wanted to take this picture to show the effect that the blocking had on the piece.  Besides growing a little, you can hopefully see that after blocking the fabric drapes better, and seeing as how this pattern is called "Draped Vest" I thought that better drape was important.

Pattern:  Naturally Vienna Draped Vest - FC 56
Yarn:  Karabella Aurora 8
Needles:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Knitterati Mystery 5 - Done!

I finished this up last night while watching the Firefly marathon on the Science channel.  I knew that it was going to be a bit of a challenge to block, so I took some progress pictures to show how I did it.  Here is the shawl after I cast off.

You can see how ruffled the edges are.  After I soaked it I laid it out and spread out the center stockinette stitch section and pinned the top edge.  I followed the natural curve of the knitting and stretched gently, pulling the shawl out.  Then, starting at the bottom center and working up each side, I pulled out the center spines and pinned them.

The next step was the tricky one.  I had to decide what to do with the other leaves.  I played with a section a little bit trying to understand what the shawl wanted to do.  I ended up pulling out the panels and pinning them, adjusting the spacing on the central spines if necessary to allow room for the two smaller leaves.  This left a fold of fabric that I opened up with my fingers and folded over.

The whole thing took less time than I thought it would (between 30 and 45 minutes).  When blocking shawls I always try to listen to the knitting and determine what it naturally wants to do.

Pattern:  Knitterati Mystery 5 by Janel Laidman
Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Squooshy in Horne Creek Fall (September 2012 Art Walk Club)
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Victorian Parfait

The focal bead is another one of the Larry Scott beads that I have bought at Bead & Button.  This one always reminded me of an ice cream parfait and originally I thought I would do something very colorful and maybe a bit silly with it, but then last weekend I was rummaging in my semi-precious stones and decided that I really needed to use some of those garnets that I have been hoarding.  I knew that I wanted to do some embellishment to the strand so I used a size 8 bead in a matching color to space the garnets, knowing that after stringing the garnets on the Soft Flex I would not be able to get a needle through them.  I then used the same size 8 beads and some transparent gold drops to make the netting.  I thought about using some smaller garnets, but they didn't match in color or in reflectivity.  I was going to do another set of netting interlaced with the first set but after trying it I decided that it cluttered up the design too much.  Less is more.

Materials:
Garnets
Size 8 seed beads - Beadcats stock # 2-08-280-91 dark red transparent lined with black, irid
Small drops (4 mm x 6 mm) - Beadcats stock # D-T2-840-00 amber transparent
KO thread in gold
Soft Flex 24k Gold Extreme flex wire (medium)
Gold clasp purchased from the Soft Flex site

Draped Vest - take 2 - Left Front Done

I managed to get a fair bit of knitting done this week during telecons.  I probably would have finished this last night, but this past Tuesday I pulled out this project only to discover that I had not put in another ball of yarn and I was almost finished with the one that I was working with.  Calamity!  I ended up doodling jewelry designs instead, which actually wasn't a good idea as it requires far more brain cells than this kind of knitting.  On the other hand I do have some jewelry designs to explore this weekend.

When I was working on this last night (while watching Fistful of Dollars on TCM) I realized that I had made a mistake when I was knitting the first version of the left front.  For some reason I had only done the armhole decreases on right side rows, instead of both right and wrong side rows, resulting in 14 more rows than I should have had.  This got me thinking about my first attempt at this vest and wondering if I would have enough yarn to finish if I went back and fixed that mistake (I didn't frog the project, just bundled it in a bag).  So this morning I pulled out that first attemp, but after working with the Karabella Aurora 8 I just couldn't bring myself to work with the Naturally Vienna yarn.  It is scratchy, and the variegation hides the patterning of the stitches and the cable work, so I bundled it back into its bag and will toss it back onto a high shelf in my studio.The Karabella Aurora 8 is a wonderful yarn to work with, and comes in so many beautiful colors.  The picture is actually far more blue than it should be, the color is actually a deep purple.

I have been using my blocking mats for so long that I had sort of forgotten that I had another blocking board that was gridded, so I pulled it out this morning when I went to block this to make it easier to get the dimensions (the ones that I knew, anyway) correct.  This yarn is interesting.  It knits up into a denser fabric, cushy and textured, but when you wet block it the yarn really relaxes (I haven't tried steam blocking it yet, but I have another project waiting in the wings that will probably require that method).  Most of the effort of blocking is smooshing it back from a stretched out shape with the palm of my hand, and I noticed after I took the photo (photos are great for spotting imperfections in your blocking) that I had missed some spots, which I went back and fixed.

Pattern:  Naturally Vienna Draped Vest - FC 56
Yarn:  Karabella Aurora 8
Needles:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Knitterati Mystery 5 - Clue 2 Done!

It has been a while since I knit any lace, not since I finished the Triffid shawl (October 20), and I haven't touched this project since I whipped out Clue 1 (October 16).  Mostly it is because my knitting mojo has been a bit low lately, but I gotta say, it was nice to be knitting lace again, and it is always great to be knitting with Zen Yarn Garden yarn.  I am actually really looking forward to next year's club because it will be pattern only, and all shawls knit in fingering weight yarn.  It will be the perfect opportunity to use up my Art Walk Sock Yarn Club shipments.  I am definitely cutting back on my clubs next year, and going for the pattern only option on those that I do join - I really need to use up some of my stash.  My only exceptions will be Zen Yarn Garden Mystery Knit Alongs, and just about anything from The Unique Sheep.  There are a few of The Unique Sheep Clubs that I don't sign up for, but not many.  I have even been contemplating weaving with a gradience set.

Pattern:  Knitterati Mystery 5 by Janel Laidman
Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Squooshy in Horne Creek Fall (September 2012 Art Walk Club)
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Rose Bolero

I finished up the basic body of the bolero last night.  I used my Knitting Math Wizard program for figuring out the increase spacing for the increase rows and then marked the last increase stitch with a split ring marker and incremented a counter.  I did my increases on rows 5, 7 and 9 because I needed a row that was entirely double crochet.  I stopped after row 11.  That makes this section only 11 centimeters deep - the pattern calls for 12 centimeters - but the pattern also says to adjust so that you stop after a double crochet row.  I have enough yarn to add two more rows, if I want to.  I'll wait and see how the dimensions work out when I get the blocks done.  And speaking of blocks, here is the first one finished and blocked.

I will probably crochet the blocks together rather than sewing them, and also crochet them to the body of the bolero.  And here is a shot of the front of the bolero.

Project:  DROPS 126-8 by DROPS Design
Yarn:  Fiesta Yarns La Luz Multi in Rose (June Flower of the Month colorway)
Hook:  D (3.25 mm)

Twills in Silk

I did a fair bit of weaving during our days off due to Sandy.  I am in a long section of twill where the pattern calls for weaving 36 inches with the red silk.  I needed a good way to keep track of how much I had woven and the method that I have used on my floor loom of simply measuring whenever I changed a bobbin wasn't really working for this loom or this piece.  Fortunately I had picked up some of those paper tape measures that the Ikea store gives away.  I picked them up because I thought they were cool, even though I had no need for them at the time.  So, I tucked the paper tape measure under the weaving as it was wrapping itself around the cloth beam and taped the tape to the beam to keep it from slipping out.  Then I continued weaving.  The tape gets taken up on the cloth beam with the cloth, and it is easy to hold it against the weaving and see how far I have gone (almost 18 inches at this point).

Project:  Twills in Silk
Sett:  15 ends per inch
Materials:  1 - 3.5 ounce skein Gemstone 2/12 silk in #103 red, 1 mini-cone Gemstone 2/12 silk each #116 rose, #105 Copenhagen, #106 gold
Source:  Yarn Barn of Kansas kit
Loom:  24  harness Margaret from Woolhouse Tools

Rose Bolero

My Rose Bolero is actually starting to look like...a bolero.  I finished up the back and forth rows of the main section of the back and am now going round and round, extending the back and also working the front.  The pooling is...interesting, and the red and yellow really dominate in this picture.  Working in the round is affecting the pooling, in a good way, breaking up the red and yellow a bit so they aren't quite so prominent and letting some of the other colors come out more.  I am almost half way done with this section and then I get to make a bunch of squares.

Project:  DROPS 126-8 by DROPS Design
Yarn:  Fiesta Yarns La Luz Multi in Rose (June Flower of the Month colorway)
Hook:  D (3.25 mm)