Color Study Shawl #3

As soon as I had finished up the Robin Hood Shawl I cast on another crescent shaped shawl to use up the leftover yarn.  This is the third one of these shawls that I have done with leftover gradiance yarn sets that I have now decided to dub my Color Study series, this shawl will get a name at some point.  The first was Tart Berries and Honey and the second was Rose Bud.  I like these shawls because they really showcase the colors of these gradiance sets.  I love working with the gradiance colors, but in a lace shawl they can be overshadowed by the stitch work.  These simple crescent shawls let you really see the interplay of colors, and the contrast border kicks things up a notch.  Plus it is a great way to use up leftovers.  I hate having leftover yarn.  And, as an added bonus, if you need another one, the shawls are great to wear.  They stay in place and are warm.  I am currently wearing Rose Bud.  I usually wear Tart Berries and Honey, but decided to give it a little rest.  At this point I have used up all of skein 1 and am about half way through skein 2.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Well, this is a little embarrasing...

When I pinned out my Robin Hood shawl yesterday morning I did not pin my points out correctly.  They are not symmetric, a situation immediately made apparent by the fact that the beads do not line up correctly.  I really should have noticed it and fixed it, and I am a little chagrined that I did not.  I can only plead reduced mental capacity due to a migraine.  When I unpinned it this morning the error was glaringly obvious and I knew that it would bother me unless I fixed it, but I really didn't want to reblock the entire shawl.  I decided to try just reblocking the points.

I spritzed just the points that needed fixing with my handy dandy spray bottle and pinned them out.  You can see that I did get one point right (top right hand side).  We'll see if it works.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Tagua Nut Sea Horses

Shortly after I started going to Bead & Button I discovered Tagua Nut beads.  These come from palms that grow in South America, and they are often called "living ivory".  I have an iguana and a humming bird, but the shape that I really latched on to were the Sea Horses, buying one each year.  Unfortunately, the vendor stopped coming to the show so I haven't been able to get any for a while.  I still have a couple in my stash that I haven't turned in to necklaces yet.  These are the first two Sea Horses that I bought.  I used patterns from a book on Russian netting that was focused on bead designs inspired by Coral.  Quite appropriate.

Observant readers may have noticed that I have added two pages to my blog.  The first one Beadwork Gallery, is currently a catch all for my bead work, the second one is devoted solely to pieces that I have made with Larry Scott beads.

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Done!

I finished up the knitting and wove in the ends last night, but put off blocking until this morning.  When blocking fingering weight I don't get as aggressive as I do with lace weight.  I noticed with this pattern that the ribbing in the last couple of clues tended to pull the shawl in more than the first couple of clues did, so I knew that the width would be set by the ends rather than the middle.  As I laid out the wet shawl I gently pulled it into shape being careful to not stretch it so much that the pins along the edges caused a scalloping effect.  I like to keep the edges as straight as possible.  Once all the edges were pinned out I pinned out the ends.  Here is a close up of one of the ends so you can see the beads.

Pattern:  Robin Hood Stole by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent, I used 174 grams of a 300 gram set
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 6 Done!

The final clue came out yesterday, so last night I knit to the skein change on one side (left hand side in the photo) and then went back and finished up clue 6 on the other side (right hand side in the photo).  Now I will go back and finish up the shawl.  The next Unique Sheep Mystery knit along has already been announced, an octagonal shawl inspired by Treasure Island.  I've already been browsing colors.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Frosted Rose Cardigan

After I finished the Honey Wheat pullover I cast on this cardigan, and ripped and cast on and ripped and cast on several more times until I finally got it right.  The instructions call for slipping the first and last stitches of the wrong side rows, but they did not specify whether the yarn should be in the front or the back.  I also had to figure out how I wanted to distinguish between the right and wrong sides.  Ordinarily this really wouldn't have perplexed me so thoroughly, but by Christmas evening I was so tired and my brain was so fried I'm amazed that I could even remember how to cast on and count (at the same time).  Between sleeping in a strange bed (the hotel) and visiting all day with family my introvert light was flashing like crazy.  I was done.  I may play an extrovert at work, but I am a hard core introvert and need my quiet time.  The only thing that gets me through these visits is my knitting.  I can handle anything as long as I have my knitting.

Fortunately by Wednesday morning my brain was functioning a bit better, mostly because I knew we were heading home, so I cast on one more time and figured out that I needed to slip with the yarn in front, and that I could use different colors of stitch markers to clue me into which side I was working.  Soon we were on the road and I settled in for hours of knitting.  I hadn't bothered with a swatch for this project as I had recently finished another project using this yarn and had a good idea of my gauge, but when I finished the collar and started on the body I felt the fabric loosening up and knew that my gauge was off.  When I thought about it, it made sense as I was knitting back and forth and the other project had been done in the round, and I always knit a little tighter when I knit in the round.  Fortunately I was knitting with my Addi clicks, so I simply switched out my needles for a set one size smaller and continued on my merry way.

Pattern:  Vodka Lemonade by Thea Colman (Baby Cocktails)
Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Serenity DK in Frosted Rose
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

Christmas Presents

Bruce's family has a really nice Christmas tradition.  We don't do a lot of presents, there aren't that many of us that gather together, his Mom, his son and daughter, one of his brother's and his brother's wife, me, of course, and this time his son's fiancee.  We all sit in chairs in a circle and the kids distribute the presents to the appropriate person, and then we go around the circle taking turns opening presents.  Before opening the present we announce who it is from, and after opening the present it gets passed around the circle.  It slows things down considerably, but I find it very nice.  The ornament in the picture was made for me by Bruce's daughter Amy.  She is very creative and made several presents this year, including this cute catnip gingerbread man for my cat Jasmine.

I hung the ornament up in my studio, in the archway entrance.  Over the years I have received a few Godiva heart shaped boxes for Valentine's Day.  They were just sitting on a shelf.  I didn't want to throw them away and I hated that they were just sitting on a shelf, so I decided to attach them to the walls.  I used the cool 3M fasteners, so I can take them down if I ever need to.  And yes, that is the ship Serenity from the series Firefly as my computer wallpaper.

Honey Wheat Pullover - Finished!

I took this project with me on our annual trip to Florida to visit Bruce's Mom.  That is the reason I started it, I needed some good car knitting.  I knit most of the body on the trip down, knit one sleeve on Christmas Eve and the other on Christmas day.  I still need to block it. I did a couple of minor modifications to the pattern.  I did not do any decreases in the sleeves until I got to the detail patterning just above the cuff, then I did all of the decreases evenly spaced around the row.  I also replaced the k1, p1 ribbing with k2, p1 ribbing, which I prefer the look of.  On the sleeve cuffs the ribbing ended up lining up with the detail pattern quite nicely.

Pattern:  Bombay Sapphire by Thea Colman (Baby Cocktails)
Yarn:  Plucky Knitter Primo Worsted in Honey Wilkes
Needles:  US 6 (4 mm)

Honey Wheat Pullover

I started knitting the swatch for this pullover a couple of weeks ago, and last week I finally cast on the project.  It is Bombay Sapphire by Thea Colman from Baby Cocktails.  The yarn is Primo Worsted from the Plucky Knitter, the color is Honey Wilkes.  I needed a mindless project to work on, and I do love top down raglans.  Needle size is US 6 (4 mm).

This is my first time knitting one of Thea's patterns, and I have to say the pattern is very well written, and I like her design aesthetic.

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 5 Done!

It's been a quiet week here, mostly just wishing for the week to end and looking forward to some much needed time off.  I did start another knitting project this week, but haven't gotten any pictures of it yet.  This morning I put it aside and finished up Clue 5.  I didn't have much to do, knit Clue 6 on the right hand side until the skein change and then go back and finish up Clue 5 on the left hand side.  A lot of  folks are doing extra repeats of some of the motifs to make the shawl longer, but I am not.  I am looking forward to making another crescent shaped shawl with the left overs.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Emerald and Gold

The whole reason I started making the purple and gold chevron chain was because I wanted to make the Royal Chains Lariat by Kelly Wiese from the October/November 2009 issue of Beadwork Magazine.  The pattern calls for 3 mm crystal pearls, but I don't do crystals.  I do, however, happen to have some small gemstone beads.  Originally I was going to use my amethyst gemstone beads, but after working on the purple and gold chevron chain I realized that the amethyst gemstone beads were too large (they are about 5 mm in diameter), so I went back to my gemstone stash and came out with 3 possibilities: garnet, emerald or  sapphire gemstone beads.  I put some of each in my beading dish and went back to my seed bead stash to find matching seed beads.  It turned out that the emerald gemstone beads were the easiest to match.

Project:  Royal Chains Lariat by Kelly Wiese, October/November 2009 Beadwork Magazine
Materials:
Chevron chain:
size 12 seed beads (Beadcats stock # 2-11-480-01 topaz transparent irid)
size 14 seed beads (Beadcats stock # 2-14-577-01 medium green transparent irid)
Green KO Thread

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 4 Done!

I finished Clue 4 last night but wanted to wait until I could get a decent photo in natural light.  I got home from the airport about 1am Friday morning, got about 6 hours of sleep, went into work for a couple of hours and then took the afternoon off and curled up on my daybed with my kittie and watched Poirot on PBS and knitted.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Beads on Display

I received the clasps that I ordered from A Grain of Sand today so I was able to finish my Winged Isis (renamed from Isis II) necklace.  I wanted to get a shot of me wearing it to show how it fits, so I took this one in the downstairs bathroom.  I turned the camera to face me and looked at the reflection of the image on the back of the camera in the mirror.  It took a little getting used to, but I did manage to get a decent shot of the necklace.  Then I decided to break out the portable light box that I ordered a little bit ago and try it out.

Arabesque

Victorian Parfait

Winged Isis

I should probably have a marathon session and photograph all of my beadwork and create a gallery.  Maybe Friday.  I have to travel to Huntsville tomorrow for a meeting, and in typical fashion I am doing one of my Blitzkrieg trips, up at o-dark-thirty to make a 7:15 am flight, go to my meeting, and then home again the same day.  My return flight lands at 11:35, so I should make it home around 1am.  What fun.  But then a short day at work on Friday - just there long enough to do my time card and attend another meeting.

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 3 Done!

The colors are washed out because I had to use flash.  The top portion has been worked to the end of Clue 3 and the bottom portion has been worked until the skein change in Clue 4.  Once again I did not do any transition rows when switching skeins, I matched the colors of the two skeins, held both strands together for a bit and then dropped the old color, continuing on with the new.  I will probably finish up Clue 4 on that half of the shawl tonight, but I won't be able to work the top half until the next skein change.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 2 Done!

The top of the picture shows Clue 2, the bottom of the picture is Clue 2 and Clue 3 up to the point where I switched to the next skein.  So that is how the rest of the shawl will go.  I will knit the clues on one side until I switch to the next skein and then I will go back and knit the next clue on the other side.  It is a little bit of a pain, two needles, two balls of yarn, but so far it has been manageable.  Switching to the next skein is easy as I no longer do transition rows, I just match the colors of the two skeins and work with both strands together for a little while and then drop the old and continue on with the new.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Isis II - All I need now is a clasp

I already have a necklace that I named Isis, but this one really reminds me of Isis, with the amethyst drop fringe evocative of the feathers from the winged Isis figure.  I thought about naming it after Nefertiti, but it just didn't feel right, so I decided to go with Isis II.  I don't really have a good clasp for the necklace though, I don't have much in gold and I wanted something fairly substantial.  I ordered a couple from A Grain of Sand.

Materials:
Amethyst gemstone (12.44 carat) purchased from Unfinished Creations in Yellow Springs, OH
Amethyst drops purchased from Soft Flex
Gold seed beads (size 14 - no idea of the stock #)
Purple seed beads (size 11 and size 14 - Beadcats stock # 2-11-748-90 and 2-14-749-90 clear lined with cool purple)
Purple delicas (size 11 - Toho Aiko TB-328)
Gold and Purple thread (KO)

Amethyst and Gold - Half a necklace

I wanted to do something dangly under the chevron chain and I happened to have all of these amethyst drops in my gemstone stash so I started fiddling with them this past week.  As I played with different lengths and attachment points I noticed that the drops would not lay flat so I decided to just go with it.  I increased the number of beads on the loops and voila, they naturally twisted and now the fact that the drops won't lay flat is part of the design.  You really just have to go with the materials.  Now I just have to finish the other side, attach the clasp, and come up with a good name for the piece.

Materials:
Amethyst gemstone (12.44 carat) purchased from Unfinished Creations in Yellow Springs, OH
Amethyst drops purchased from Soft Flex
Gold seed beads (size 14 - no idea of the stock #)
Purple seed beads (size 11 and size 14 - Beadcats stock # 2-11-748-90 and 2-14-749-90 clear lined with cool purple)
Purple delicas (size 11 - Toho Aiko TB-328)
Gold and Purple thread (KO)

Transitions Shawl - Beauty Shots

Now that the weekend is here and I am actually home during daylight hours I was able to get some beauty shots of the Transitions shawl.  It is an ample shawl, and quite floaty and ethereal.

Now I just have to figure out what to wear it with.  I am sure it will be a big hit at Bead & Button next year.

Robin Hood Mystery Shawl - Clue 1 Done!

I am a little late to the party on this mystery shawl.  Clue 4 came out yesterday and I am just now finishing up Clue 1.  This is the latest Unique Sheep Mystery knit along, Robin Hood, once again designed by Janine le Cras.  This is a rectangular shawl that starts out with this central spine and is then knit outward from both sides.  The instructions call for winding each skein into two roughly equal balls so that you can work both sides at the same time.  I didn't want to split up my skeins, nor did I really want to work from both ends of the yarn balls so I waited until several clues had come out and at least one transition had been made (the second transition occurs in Clue 4) figuring that maybe I would work one side until I was done with that ball and then work the other side.  That way I would still be working on both sides more or less at the same time.  We'll see how it goes.

Pattern:  Robin Hood by Janine le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Ardent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Amethyst and Gold

Amethyst and Gold seem to be a recurring theme with me.  I started working on the gold and purple chevron chain this past weekend for a different project, but I soon realized that the bead choices that I had made were not going to work for that particular project (more on that later) but I really liked the chevron chain in those colors and wanted to do something with it.  My first thought was to use it as a foundation chain for a beaded collar, but I really didn't have any bugles that would go with those colors.  I let the chain sit on my beading table for a few days and pondered my bead and semi-precious stone stash.  Then yesterday I wore my Victorian Parfait necklace with my Japanese Maple pullover to work and as I was sitting at my desk fondling the focal bead it occurred to me that I really like those close-fitting necklaces where the focal bead rests in that little hollow at the base of your neck, and then I thought about an amethyst that I had bought while I was in Yellow Springs back in October and a design idea was born.

When I came home from work yesterday I pulled out the amethyst and went in search of delicas to bead a bezel around it.  As luck would have it I happened to have some Aiko delicas in the perfect purple that matched the stone exactly.  So last night I beaded a bezel around the amethyst.  It was a non-trivial task, considering the shape of the stone, but I started out with the modified right angle weave that Kate McKinnon has pioneered and am pleased with the results.  Now back to the chevron chain.

Materials:
Amethyst gemstone (12.44 carat) purchased from Unfinished Creations in Yellow Springs, OH
Gold seed beads (size 14 - no idea of the stock #)
Purple seed beads (size 11 - Beadcats stock # 2-11-748-90 clear lined with cool purple)
Purple delicas (size 11 - Toho Aiko TB-328)
Gold and Purple thread (KO)

Transitions Shawl - Finished!

Finished this morning.  I almost finished last night, but started to fall asleep while I was knitting.  It was hard to put down though with only 3 repeats of the border left so when I woke up a little early this morning I decided to finish it before going to work.  It always amazes me when I am working the knitted on borders because the first half seems to take so long, but the second half seems to go so fast.  I know this is all perception and the fact that the amount that you have knitted is greater then the amount that you have left to knit once you get past the half way point.  Those last 3 repeats took me an hour.  The other thing that amuses me about knit on borders is the designers who tout them as a way of avoiding binding off hundreds of stitches.  I don't mind the bind off.  I do a lace bind off with a crochet hook rather than a knitting needle, which makes it go a lot faster and is a lot less fiddly, and it certainly takes a lot less time to do the bind off than to do a knit on border.  I do like the look of knit on borders, however, so from a design perspective, they are a definite win.

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

Transitions Shawl - NEB Half-Way Done!

Finally a better picture of the shawl.  I am half way done with the Never Ending Border.  I have been plugging away at it steadily during the evenings after work.  I weighed my ball of yarn before I began and was concerned about having enough yarn as I only had 16 grams left.  I did 6 repeats of the border and weighed the ball again and my suspicions were confirmed so I ripped back and did some stash diving.  Fortunately I had another skein of the same yarn in Cantaloupe so I decided to do a contrasting border.  The Cantaloupe skein was originally purchased for a Goddess Knits mystery knit along (Mystery Shawl 19, according to my notes), but obviously I never knit that shawl.

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