Arctic Flow Capelet - Two Skeins Done

I have just finished row 18 of my second repeat of the chart, and am almost done with skein 2 of the gradiance.  For the photo I have it on two 40" cables, connected, so I could spread it out.  So far, so good.

Pattern:  Ocean Blue Collar by Eline Oftedal, modified to be a capelet
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Super Wool Aran in Arctic Flow and Cinder
Needle:  US 9 (5.5 mm)

Arctic Flow Capelet - Take Two, One Skein Done

I had been working away on my Arctic Flow Capelet, getting towards the end of the second repeat of the chart when I could not longer deny the truth staring me in the face - it was going to be too big.  The number of stitches on my needle was verging upon the unmanageable.  I decided to confirm my conclusion by putting the stitches onto some waste yarn so I could lay it out and really assess the situation and determine a way forward.  I had barely gotten the stitches onto the waste yarn before I had decided that I was going to frog and start again.  Before I did that, however, I looked at the current size and determined how many repeats of the motif I really needed.  I settled on 6, which meant a cast on of 72 stitches, instead of the 108 called for in the original pattern.  I did take advantage of my previous work to calculate my yarn usage and put together a spreadsheet.  Based upon my yarn usage figures I could just do 3 repeats of the chart - the same as I did on my Raspberry Blaze Capelet - so long as I didn't want to cast on and bind off.  I went back to my stash and pulled out this skein of the same yarn base, figuring I could do a contrast I-cord cast on and bind off.

So now I've made it back through the first skein of the Arctic Flow gradiance and through the first repeat of the chart, with a little yarn to spare and I'm feeling much better about how this one is going to turn out.

Pattern:  Ocean Blue Collar by Eline Oftedal, modified to be a capelet
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Super Wool Aran in Arctic Flow and Cinder
Needle:  US 9 (5.5 mm)

Tea Party Celadon - Skein 1

After I finished up my Turkey Trot Kallara I started working on my Tea Party Celadon.  I had created a spreadsheet for Celadon and realized that I had enough yarn in the Tea Party set to make Celadon instead of Kallara.

Pattern:  Celadon by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep  Rare Breed and Sparkle
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)
 
I have several more Ambah projects lined up.  After I finish this Celadon I'll make another one using the 10th Anniversary set.

But before I get to that project I'll be using the neutral speckle skein as my Color 1 for Ambah's Adventurous Wrap.  I ordered an Advent kit from The Unique Sheep, but it only has 24 colors and the design calls for 25.  Well, actually there are two versions of the design, the B version uses 12 contrast skeins and 600 yards of the main color, which tempted me to try to figure out how to do two shawls with my 24 skeins.  But I resisted.  I will have enough going on next month as it is.  Here is the Advent Kit.

I also recently purchased three of the Autumn Trio sets and the Santa Rosa set, and three of the four sets are earmarked for Ambah patterns.

This first one I'm going to use to make another Liken by Sivia Harding.  I love that shawl, as I've modified it to be a cape.

This set will become Xanthe, by Ambah O'Brien.  I'll use the speckle and the red for the stripes and the green for the lace.

This set I will split up.  I'll use the green and purple skeins for Marinna by Ambah O'Brien.

The gold skein I'll use for the pop skein with the Santa Rosa trio in another Bambara Wrap, also by Ambah O'Brien.

Charivari Shrug - Side Two, Two Stripes Done

I'm halfway done with the second side of my Charivari Shrug.  These really don't take that long, if you keep at them.  I should have no trouble finishing this up this weekend.  Once this one is finished I'll cake up and weigh the skeins for the Gazania Shrug and get the next phase of that one going.

Pattern:  Traveling Zebra Shrug by Carolyn Blakelock
Yarn:  Biscotte & Cie Bis-sock
Needles:  US 2.5 (3 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

Watermelon Shrug - Cast On

Once I finished up the central panel of my Gazania Shrug I had to cast on the central panel for the next one.  I had this skein already caked up and ready to go so I tossed it in my work bag yesterday - not even bothering to take out the Gazania.  I had some training and some class homework to do (reading material) so I needed some knitting to keep my hands busy and my mind focused.  I made pretty good progress on my knitting and finished the training and the review of the class material.

Pattern:  Traveling Zebra Shrug by Carolyn Blakelock
Yarn:  Biscotte & Cie Bis-sock
Needles:  US 2.5 (3 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

Gazania Shrug - Central Panel Done

I finished up the central panel this past week - document review and telecons at work make for some productive knitting time.  I can't start knitting the body of this shrug until I finish my Charivari shrug, so I am focusing on that project this weekend.  Of course, finishing up this central panel meant that I had to cast on another one for my work bag.

Pattern:  Traveling Zebra Shrug by Carolyn Blakelock
Yarn:  Biscotte & Cie Bis-sock
Needles:  US 2.5 (3 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

Charivari Shrug - One Side Done

I finished up side one this afternoon.  I was about half-way through the white stripe when I last put this project down.  I need to finish this shrug up because I have other ones in progress that need to progress to the next stage.  I had finished up the light gray stripe and started on the white stripe not quite two weeks ago, but then I took a break from this project to knit Kallara.

Pattern:  Traveling Zebra Shrug by Carolyn Blakelock
Yarn:  Biscotte & Cie Bis-sock
Needles:  US 2.5 (3 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

Turkey Trot Kallara - Finished!

I finished this up on Sunday and blocked it before I went to bed. Funny thing, it really should be called Turkey Tail Kallara, as the name of the gradiance colorway is Turkey Tail.  Somehow when I created the project page I got it wrong and called it Turkey Trot.  Not sure how that happened.

Pattern:  Kallara by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Rare Breed in Turkey Tail gradiance and Cladonia
Needles:  US 5 ( 3.75 mm)

Turkey Trot Kallara - Skein 4 Done

I finished up skein 4 this morning.  This skein is darker, but also more subtle in its variegation - dark green and blue-gray.  The green matches the dark green in skein 3 and the blue-gray goes with skein 5, which I'm currently working.

Pattern:  Kallara by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Rare Breed in Turkey Trot gradiance and Cladonia
Needles:  US 5 ( 3.75 mm)

Turkey Trot Kallara - Skein 3 Done

These skeins knit up fast, and so does the pattern.  I finished up skein 3 yesterday.  This one brings the greens into play and I really like how it goes with the first 2 skeins.  Skein 4 is a more dramatic departure, being hardly variegated at all, and darker.  It matches the dark green in skein 3.  I'm liking how it is working up.  I have been checking out other Ambah O'Brien patterns and I've got a couple more projects waiting in the wings.

I'm going to make another Kallara with this set:

This is Tea Party, also by The Unique Sheep, and this time I'll be able to do the stripes as the pattern calls for.

And I'm going to make a Celadon out of this set:

This is the The Unique Sheep 10th anniversary set.

Pattern:  Kallara by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Rare Breed in Turkey Trot gradiance and Cladonia
Needles:  US 5 ( 3.75 mm)

Turkey Trot Kallara - Skein 2 Done

I finished up skein 2 last night.  I really like the color play with this gradiance set.  This pattern lets the yarn be the star.  Skein 3 is a more dramatic color shift.  The solid color is superwash Blue Faced Leicester.  The gradiance set is 85/15 superwash Blue Faced Leicester and Nylon Tweed, so it has some nice texture as well as the great colors.

Pattern:  Kallara by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Rare Breed in Turkey Trot gradiance and Cladonia
Needles:  US 5 ( 3.75 mm)

Turkey Trot Kallara - Skein 1 Done

This set was intended for the Of the Forest, but I decided to do something else with it.  My first thought was to make Kallara with it, using the solid color as the main color, and the gradiance skeins for the contrast color, but after creating a stitch count spreadsheet, and caking and weighing all the skeins I determined that I didn't have enough of the solid color.  I used my yarn usage figures from Myndie to make my estimate.  I thought about using one of the skeins from the gradiance to make up the difference, but even using the heaviest skein (skein 6) I was still short.  I did the math to try to use skein 6 and part of skein 5 to make up the difference and even started knitting it that way, but after about 20 rows I decided it would look better if I did it as a color block shawl instead of a striped shawl, so I ripped back and started over.  I went back to my spreadsheet and looked at how many stitches I should be able to work with the gradiance set, took the remainder and divided it in two.  I'll start and end the shawl with the solid skein, and work the gradiance in the middle.

Here is the first skein done.  Isn't it lovely?  One of the fun things about this design is that it is a basic shawl, which makes it a great canvas for playing with color.

Pattern:  Kallara by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Rare Breed in Turkey Trot gradiance and Cladonia
Needles:  US 5 ( 3.75 mm)

Hurricane Watch Myndie - Finished!

I finished up my Hurricane Watch Myndie this past Saturday morning, having finished up color 5 on Friday.

Blocking was pretty easy.  I didn't stretch the shawl too strenuously, but I did pull it out enough to open up the eyelet lace.

I like the bright colors, they are almost primary in the purity of their hue, and they make me smile.


Pattern:  Myndie by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Rare Breed by The Unique Sheep
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Hurricane Watch Myndie - Color 4 Done

I spent the afternoon reading and knitting and finished up color 4.  I'm on the decrease section, which is more mindless than the increase section, and easier to fudge.  I've learned to count my stitches before I work the eyelet row and if I'm short one I add it to the end of the previous row (work a kfb, k1 in the last 2 stitches).  I haven't had to do that very often.  Only two more colors to go.

Pattern:  Myndie by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Rare Breed by The Unique Sheep
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Hurrican Watch Myndie - Color 3 Done

I finished up color 3 this morning while watching The Court Jester, with Danny Kaye.   It is one of my favorite movies.  It is sunny here today, for the first time all week - the week has been rainy and miserable.  Perfect weather for staying home with knitting and hot chocolate and good movies, too bad I had to go to work instead.

Pattern:  Myndie by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Rare Breed by The Unique Sheep
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Arctic Flow Capelet - One Repeat Done

Sometimes I get a bee in my bonnet and decide that there is a yarn in my stash that I just have to make something with.  Last week it was this set of yarn from The Unique Sheep.

The colorway is Artic Flow, the yarn is Super Wool Aran.  As a rule I am not much of a fan of heavier weight yarns, preferring fingering weight and lace, but I wanted to try some of the heavier weight yarns that The Unique Sheep has to offer.  This particular set was the winter offering of The Unique Sheep's Four Seasons of Lace club.  The pattern really didn't appeal to me, but I did want to make something with the yarn, and I enjoy the challenge of finding the right pattern for a given yarn, when I only have a limited amount.

At first I though that I would make the Circle Vest pattern from the book Silk Knits, which I happen to have in my library.  I even cast on this past weekend and knit a few rounds.  The construction is intriguing, but I think the pattern needs some refining.  To determine where you place the slits for the arm holes you work until the radius is half the distance across your back, but the placement of the arm slits is such that the diameter is not the correct measurement.  The line between the slits is a chord of the circle formed by the knitting, not the diameter.  I also was not sure that the pattern would use as much of my yarn as I wanted.  So I frogged and decided to cast on another capelet.

I really like my Raspberry Blaze Capelet that I made as part of Camp Loopy 2016.  The color is amazing and the pattern was fun and easy.  I've been wanting to make more capelets because they are fun and easy to wear, so I decided to cast one one with this yarn.

Yesterday I decided to come home early from work - it was a miserable day, gray and rainy, and my brain really didn't want to work.  I finished up some fairly mindless detail work and left after a half day.  It made voting much easier, and I made us hot chocolate when we got back to the house and I knitted while we watched a movie.  I made it through the first repeat and part of the second.  I should have enough yarn to do two repeats, with enough left over for the bind off without playing yarn chicken.

Pattern:  Ocean Blue Collar by Eline Oftedal, modified to be a capelet
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Super Wool Aran in Arctic Flow
Needle:  US 9 (5.5 mm)

Hurrican Watch Myndie - Color 2 Done

I have also finished up the second color on my Hurricane Watch Myndie.  The knitting is not quite mindless enough, and you have to watch out for the increases and decreases.  It is easy to get distracted and forget one and then your count gets off.  I've had to tink back a couple of times to fix that.

Pattern:  Myndie by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Rare Breed by The Unique Sheep
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Charivari Shrug - Two Stripes Done

I decided to spend a quiet day reading and knitting so I knit another stripe on my Charivari Shrug.  I should probably get this done fairly soon, as I've made a fair bit of progress on the center strip for my Gazania Shrug.


Pattern:  Traveling Zebra Shrug by Carolyn Blakelock
Yarn:  Biscotte & Cie Bis-sock
Needles:  US 2.5 (3 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 2 Done

I spent some time yesterday afternoon working chart 2 in both directions.  I am taking my time with this one, and not working on it when I'm tired or distracted.  I also use my Ott work light, to make sure I don't missing any stitch loops, especially when working those k3 together through the back loop stitches.  I really like working with the Sea Silk.  It seems to have a softer hand than the Marici Lace or the Ling.  Just handling the piece to take this picture makes me want to work on it, it feels so good.  The next chart is 38 rows, and on my knitCompanion screen it just seems to be nothing but k3tog tbls.  Yikes!  This one was only 18 rows.

Pattern:  The Lady of the Lake by Carolyn Blakelock, a modification of The Once and Future King by Janine Le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Sea Silk
Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Kimba - Finished!

I finally finished up my Kimba shawl on Halloween.  I was really hoping to get some better beauty shots, but it has been overcast this weekend.  Blocking was an interesting challenge.

The blocking photos in the pattern show the top portion going straight across and the wing tips curving up, but I couldn't do that without stretching the shawl very aggressively, and I am just not an aggressive blocker.  I did mush the top part down - garter stitch can really stretch out when you block it.  This has got to be the oddest shaped shawl I've made yet, but I love the colors that I used and it is fun to wear.  I gather the fabric at the top into a shawl collar.

Pattern:  Kimba by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Serenity 20
Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 1 Done

Back in the summer of 2015, The Unique Sheep Mystery Knit Along shawl was The Once and Future King, by Janine Le Cras, of course.  That shawl was worked from the ends to the center in two pieces that were then grafted together.  It was my first time grafting lace, and there were several comments on the forum threads about reversing the charts and knitting from the center out.  Of course I had to have a go at that.  Being one of the test knitters I had access to all of the charts and I sat down over the course of a few weeks and reversed them all, and then tweaked them a bit to make the pattern more visually distinct.  I am an inveterate pattern tweaker.  I even ordered some yarn to make the shawl in, a skein of Eos in Velvet Teal, and picked up some clear iridescent beads from my sister at the Bead and Button show, but I never cast on.

Then, this past summer, The Unique Sheep offered Sea Silk as a yarn base for this past summer's Mystery Knit Along and I picked some up in the Goddess colorway.  Can you see a woman's arm, in glistening chain mail rising up from the waters of the lake holding Excaliber?

And so, having finally finished my Goldwing and Kimba shawls I have at last cast on, over two years later.  I did a magic figure 8 cast on using two 24" US 3 needles.  After caking the first skein I weighed it and then wound off half to another cake, but I did not cut the yarn.  The original pattern only had a single row of the rosettes, but I decided to do two.  It just makes it easy to work each chart twice.

Pattern:  The Lady of the Lake by Carolyn Blakelock, a modification of The Once and Future King by Janine Le Cras
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Sea Silk
Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Hurricane Watch Myndie - Color 1 Done

I finished up the first color and started the second color this week.  Because I had created a spreadsheet it was easy to get stitch counts for the shawl and determine when I should transition to use my colors evenly.  I did the math for 6 colors, which leaves the white skein out, as well as for all 7 colors, but my first transition was actually after the predicted point for using just 6 colors, so that is what I'll do.  I am using up each color before switching to the next, with one caveat, I am switching at the very beginning of a right side row, to make the color changes clean, so I have about 3 feet of color 1 left over.

Pattern:  Myndie by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Rare Breed by The Unique Sheep
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)