The Lady of the Lake - One Side Done!

I finished up chart 7 Tuesday evening and jumped right into the knit on border without getting a picture first.  I switched to the fourth skein for the border because I had to string the dagger beads.  I finished up the border on Thursday evening and joined skein 2 to start working the first side again, starting where I had left off - row 10 of chart 4.  I've been working steadily to finish up the first side and am about half-way through chart 6.

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)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 5 Side 2 Done

I'm focusing pretty exclusively on this pattern right now, because I want to get it finished.  I know if I start another lace project I'll get distracted.  I've spotted a couple of things that I would change if I knit this again, which I might.  I have a solid skein of Velvet Teal in Eos in my stash that I had bought for this pattern before The Unique Sheep came out with their Sea Silk.  I have two more body charts and then the border to finish this side.

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)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 4 Side 2 Done

When I first started working this I was working on both sides in alternation.  It didn't take me long to get tired of juggling two cakes of yarn so I knit to the end of one of the cakes (row 9 of chart 4), which became my side one, and then put the project down for a while.  When I picked it back up I continued working on what I had labeled side 2, finishing up chart 3 (my last post) and then continuing with chart 4 (this post).  I've started the second skein of the set, but I wound it into two (almost) equal cakes.  I will continue working this side until I am done with it and then I will return to side one and finish it.

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)

The Lady of the Lake - Chart 3 Done

I put this project down after finishing up one side through the end of the skein (which was 9 rows in to Chart 4) and getting the other side about 3/4 of the way through Chart 3.  Before I even did that work I redid my charts to get a stronger diagonal line from my ssks and k2togs.  When I was knitting Chart 3 I discovered that if you want a strong line of decreases put the yarn over after the k2togs and before the ssks.  I had them the other way around and that accentuates the yarn overs and breaks up the diagonal line of the decreases.

In the interim I've completed two projects that I started before this one (Hurricane Watch Myndie and my Charivari Shrug) and cast on and completed 14 other projects (Turkey Trot Kallara, Arctic Flow Capelet, JB Craftvent 2017, Tea Party Celadon, Nature's Gem Celadon, Adventurous Wrap, Wizard of Oz, Compassion Celadon, Xanthe, Saltwater Taffy Myndie, Violet Valentine, Bright & Bold, Mrs. Watson, and Wonder Woman Wrap).  Wow, I guess I've been pretty productive.  But now I think it is time to go back to this one and get it finished.

In the time between the start of this shawl and today a completely new version of knitCompanion was released.  I have the new version (dubbed NextGen) downloaded and have started working with it, and am actually using it to knit this shawl.  It is very different from what they are now calling Legacy and I wasn't sure I was going to like it - the interface is completely different and not as intuitive to me (and I suspect folks of my generation), but I'm getting used to it.  I have had to resort to the user's guide (thank goodness they have one!).  Cropping charts is definitely better, and I have more screen real estate for displaying my charts, so that is also a win.

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)

Wonder Woman Wrap - Finished!

After finishing up my Mrs. Watson I returned to my Wonder Woman Wrap and quickly finished it up.  Having a snow day definitely helped, but this was actually a pretty quick knit.  The pattern is extremely well-written and I was delighted to discover that my stitch counts matched at every check point.  I watched the series with Lynda Carter when I was growing up and have always liked the character.  The recent revelations about her origins and the content of the comic books has been eye-opening, but I never actually read the comics, so I missed all of that subtext.  The new Wonder Woman movie was fun and I liked Gal Gadot in the role.  There was also a fun one years ago with Cathy Lee Crosby and Ricardo Montalban. I still remember his final line after he has been thwarted by Wonder Woman: "Beauty and brains.  Never trust a woman that has both."  I probably should be offended by that line, but I think it only applies if you are a bad guy and you're worried about getting thwarted by a smart and beautiful woman.

Project:  Wonder Woman Wrap by Carissa Browning
Yarn:  Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Mrs. Watson - Finished!

I finished up this shawl on Sunday - knit the whole thing in 4 days.  It was a lot of fun and I love the colors.  I did screw up though when I was putting together my spreadsheet.  I missed a repeat of the Body Pattern 2 / Leaf Pattern 4 and didn't realize it until I was on Leaf Pattern 8 and the short row instructions did not make sense, so I looked back at the pattern and my spreadsheet and realized what I had done.  I improvised a little to get to the end, and used up every bit of yarn that I had to get there.  In fact I ran out of skein 7 of the pink and had to finish the last row of that Body Pattern section with a little bit of skein 6, and I ran out of the green a few stitches from the end of the bind off and finished the bind off with the remnants of a pink skein.

Despite the odd shape, the shawl is surprisingly wearable, at least it is with the extra repeats that I did.  I'm not sure how good it would be without that extra length.  I wear it in the orientation you see in the photo, with the furthest edge at my neck.  I do think the shape is very cool.  I like these organic leaf shapes.

Pattern:  Mrs. Watson by Martina Behm
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep kit in a heavy sport weight
Needle:  US 6 (4 mm)

Violet Valentine - Finished!

I actually finished this shawl on March 6, but I've been struggling to get a good photo of it.  I still haven't succeeded in getting a photo that really shows the beauty of the yarn.  It was a fun and easy knit, but you can probably say that about a lot of Ambah's patterns.  Garter stitch is really in right now and I've done a number of garter stitch shawls lately.

Pattern:  Zarya by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Mrs. Watson - Cast On

I took a break from my Wonder Woman Wrap and cast on Mrs. Watson.  This is a kit that I bought from The Unique Sheep.  The pattern is reasonably well-written, but I had a hard time seeing what the final shape.  I knew that one my fellow Unique Sheep test knitters had test knit the pattern, so I looked through the finished projects until I found hers.  She had yarn usage figures as well as her needle size (the pattern called for a US 5, but this is a heavyish sport weight yarn).  I put together a spreadsheet for the pattern and caked up and weighed all of my skeins.  I've been keeping track of my yarn usage at each color switch and determined that I could add some repeats to make the shawl larger and use up as much of my yarn as possible.

I did 4 repeats of a modified Body Pattern 1 / Leaf Pattern 3 combination.  My modification was to keep the stitch count constant, so I only worked increases on the right side rows to compensate for the CDD.

Here is the yarn.  The colorway is Persian Shield.  I have worked through the first 4 skeins and will be starting skein 5 during the next Body Pattern section.  I work each of the mini skeins until I cannot work a complete row and then start the next skein.

Pattern:  Mrs. Watson by Martina Behm
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep kit in a heavy sport weight
Needle:  US 6 (4 mm)

Bright & Bold - Finished!

I finished up my Bright & Bold shawl yesterday morning.  There is some cool color pooling going on in one of the skeins.  It shows up better in the blocking picture, although the colors are washed out because I had to use the flash.

The yarn is a light fingering, so it came out super drapy when knit on US 5 needles.  It gives the shawl an airy feel.

It is a nice size and will brighten up any outfit I wear it with.

As others have noted, it is a happy shawl.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Bright & Bold Advent Calendar 2017
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Wonder Woman Wrap - Cast On

I finished up my Violet Valentine and my Bright & Bold shawl last week, so I figured it was okay to cast on a new project.  I have had this one in my library since the holiday season and had a spreadsheet already set up for it so all I had to do was wind the skeins.  The pattern is very well written and it was easy to expand out into my spreadsheet.  You have to use markers in this one, and I stuck a split marker on the right side so I wouldn't get confused.  You can see the W forming already.  I'm about to start with the yellow.

The yarn I picked for this project is Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk in Sunflower and Christmas Red, which I purchased at the Loopy Ewe last year.  It is a light fingering (437 yards/100 grams) and is 85% Merino Superwash Wool / 15% Mulberry Silk.  It is wonderful to work with.

Project:  Wonder Woman Wrap by Carissa Browning
Yarn:  Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Violet Valentine - Decreases Started

After a week of clouds and some rain we got hit by a crazy Nor'easter that brought a lot of wind - approaching hurricane strength - but no rain or snow.  Our power went out yesterday around 6:30 in the morning, while I was downstairs exercising.  Our local authority sent out an email alert warning of downed trees and power lines and to stay off the roads if at all possible - a request I was happy to comply with.  I live off of a tree-line two-lane road and there are only a few ways in or out, so I wasn't going to risk it.  Our power was out all day, finally coming back on just before 6:30 pm, right after we had eaten our cold supper and I had just lit a couple of candles to augment the LED lantern we were using.  I worked on this shawl most of the day, despite the fact that I really need my knitCompanion app on my iPad to stay on track, and my battery was getting low.  I also had a print out of the pattern, so I could refer to that as needed, and just use the app for keeping track of my progress and checking my stitch counts.  I had screwed up my stitch counts when I started the second eyelet section of the dark purple and had to tink back an entire repeat to fix it.  I used my Beam N Read task light when I needed the extra light - it hangs around my neck and has a yellow lens over the LEDs so they aren't quite as harsh.  We spent a fair bit of the day upstairs in our bedroom, which is a corner room with good light.  Thanks to the sun it also received some solar warming, so it was more comfortable than our living room.

Pattern:  Zarya by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Zen Yarn Garden Superfine Fingering
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Bright & Bold - Knit On Border Progress

I believe that I am approaching the half-way point of my knit-on border.  I worked mostly on this last week.  The colors are just so happy.  I like being able to finally show off the colors of the shawl itself.  It has been scrunched up on my needles since Christmas.  Kelly did a great job matching the light green color in the sixth skein with the border skein.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Bright & Bold Advent Calendar 2017
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Saltwater Taffy Myndie - Finished!

I finished this up Tuesday.  I did a little improvising at the end.  My initial estimate of when to start working the mini-skeins was off, so I really started them too early.  It also turns out that my copy and paste was a little more enthusiastic than thoughtful, so I had to do some rejiggering at the end.  Instead of working Decrease Section 2 18 times I had to work it 21 times.  In this version I think I actually knit it 20 times.  The fact that I always switched colors at the end of a repeat meant that I had some leftovers of five of the six colors (the Saltwater Huckleberries came out almost perfectly).  I wanted to use those leftovers, and I had a pretty big stretch of gray at the end, so I updated my spreadsheet and used my updated yarn usage calculations to determine yarn usage for each repeat.  I weighed all of my leftovers and figured out where I could use each of my leftovers, which is how I got those stripes at the end.  I had the least amount of the Bananas and Key Lime so I used them at the very tip.  I hadn't quite worked all the kinks out of my spreadsheet when I did those last two repeats, so the decrease rate is a little too quick for the Key Lime, but I would have run out of yarn if I had done it per the pattern.

 
Pattern:  Myndie / Kallara mashup
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Bright & Bold Advent Calendar
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)