Not-so Neon January 2022 Knitalong - Part 2

As I mentioned in the other post, I also finished up Part 2 of the Triangle version and have Part 3 already set up in my knitCompanion app.  I love this app, it makes knitting so easy, especially if, like me, you like to have multiple projects going at once.  This one has such a different feel to it because the colors are so much more subdued.

Pattern:  Neon January 2022 Knitalong by Iris Schreier

Yarn:  Art Yarns Merino Cloud

Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Neon January 2022 Knitalong - One side Done!

I finished up Part 2 on January 19, and received Part 3, the final part quickly.  I have been mostly focusing on finishing up this one, although I did take time to finish up Part 2 on the Triangle version as well.

Yesterday I finished up the first half.  When it came time to put the stitches on hold I used a new tool that I just received - The Knitting Barber Cord.  I bought mine from Dreamweaver.  I have to say it worked very well.  I followed the directions and those stitches slipped right off and onto the cord.  Once I had freed up my needles I cast on for the other side.  I know that the two halves are not going to match from a color perspective, but I am embracing the differences and the colors.

I do love these sort of short row patterns where you have a very colorful yarn with a solid contrast.  They are just so much fun to knit and the results are so beautiful.

Pattern:  Neon January 2022 Knitalong by Iris Schreier 

Yarn:  Art Yarns Merino Cloud

Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Arrowhead Shawl - Finished!

I finished this shawl up on January 24.  I am very pleased with how it came out.  I used up all of the yarn and really like the design element.  Once I finished the lace chart, I picked up stitches along the cast on edge and started working with the remaining yarn, working decreases at the beginning and end of the right side rows and increases on either side of the purl column.  I did a combination of knit rows and purl rows, just making it up as I went along, and also did two rows of eyelets, just for some variety.  Blocking was a little bit of challenge, mostly just making sure (as much as possible) that lines were straight.

Pattern:  Arrowhead Shawl by ChiWei Ranck 

Yarn:  Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light + Tweed

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Birthday Bliss - Finished!

I finished this up on 17 January, but haven’t really figured out how to get a good photo of it.  It is long.  Blocking it was a little bit of a challenge - mostly just finding a long enough stretch of floor space that was out of the way (so not in a hallway).  I did use up pretty much all of my yarn.  I had a few scraps left over, but nothing worth saving.  Here are the colors and the charts that I knit with them.  I made the shawl symmetric from a chart perspective.

Color 1:  Day 3 - Fathom - Chart 1

Color 2:  Day 4 - Charcoal - Chart 2

Color 3:  Day 6 - Medieval - Chart 3

Color 4:  Day 7 - Tart - Chart 4

Color 5:  Day 8 - Nocturne - Chart 5

Color 6:  Day 10 - Liquid Gold - Chart 6

Color 7:  Day 12 - Dirty Panther - Chart 7

Color 8:  Day 13 - Yucca - Chart 6

Color 9:  Day 15 - Phantasm - Chart 5

Color 10:  Day 16 - Ceremony - Chart 4

Color 11:  Day 18 - Esoteric - Chart 4

Color 12:  Day 19 - Madonna - Chart 5

Color 13:  Day 21 - Leopard - Chart 6

Color 14:  Day 22 - Wino Forever - Chart 7

Color 15:  Day 24 - Gilded - Chart 6

Color 16:  Day 25 - Cousteau - Chart 5

Color 17:  Day 26 - Beautiful Liar - Chart 4

Color 18:  Day 28 - Snake - Chart 3

Color 19:  Day 29 - Aura - Chart 2

Color 20:  Day 30 - The Feels - Chart 1

Pattern:  Birthday Bliss by Amy Gunderson

Yarns:  madelinetosh Euro Sock

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Not-so Neon January 2022 Knitalong - Part 1

I was enjoying this knit so much that I didn’t want to have to choose between the rectangle and the triangle, so I did a little stash surfing and fished up another pair of Art Yarn Merino Cloud, also bought at Earthfaire.

The colorway is Rainbow Mountain, and this one will be the triangle.

Pattern:  Neon January 2022 Knitalong by Iris Schreier 

Yarn:  Art Yarns Merino Cloud

Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Neon January 2022 Knitalong - Part 1

I have a bit of a thing for Art Yarns yarn.  They have such great colors.  I usually buy them from Earthfaire and they usually come with free patterns but I have yet to knit anything up with them, until now.  Iris Schreier is hosting a knitalong for the latest special colorway - Carmel by the Sea.  I bought the recommended solid to go with it.

There are two shawl shapes that you can work from this beginning - rectangle or triangle.  This one will be the rectangle.

Pattern:  Neon January 2022 Knitalong by Iris Schreier

Yarn:  Art Yarns Merino Cloud

Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

 

Arrowhead Shawl - September, October, November & December Done!

It has been a while since I posted about this shawl, but I have been working on it, using it as filler, so to speak.  Last night I finished up with the December color, but I decided not to stop there.  I had been thinking about modifying the shawl for a while as I wanted more length and I wasn’t super crazy about the two points on the one side.  So, last night, after finishing the last row instead of binding off I cast on more stitches, the same number of stitches that I already had on my needle, plus two, and then I joined to knit in the round.  I will have a diamond with purl stitch spines on the quarters, which will give me another point on this end to mirror the point of the cast on end.  I found a nice lace pattern in Melissa Leapman’s Knitting Modular book and charted it up in Stitchmastery.  I will work the diamond using up my yarn in reverse order and, assuming I still have leftover yarn when I get done with the diamond, I will pick up stitches on my knitted cast on and knit some more rows to use up what ever is left.

January - Modern fair isle

February- Tiny House

March - Manatee

April - Birkenstick 

May - Coffee Grounds

June - Cold Drip

July - Rye Bourbon 

August - Brick Dust

September - Copper Pink

October - Filtered Day Dreams

November - Antique Lace

December - Paper

Pattern:  Arrowhead Shawl by ChiWei Ranck

Yarn:  Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light + Tweed

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

My Hat - Cast on and Finished!

As soon as I cast off Bruce’s hat I immediately cast on one for myself in the other skein of yarn that came in that club shipment.  This time I did the decreases as directed in the pattern.  I think I like the way I did them on Bruce’s hat a little bit better, but this works for me and the size of my head.  I knit this one on Sunday January 9 as well.  We have since worn them for our walks.

Pattern:  Mistake Rib Stitch Hat by Vanessa Ewing

Yarn:  Mountain Meadow Wool Sundance in Barn Dance

Needle:  US 10 (6 mm)

Bruce’s Hat - Cast on and Finished!

Of course the Every Love Hat is not a manly hat, and Bruce needed one for our walks.  I had two skeins of  Mountain Meadow Wool Sundance yarn in my recent stash acquisition pile so I looked for a pattern on Ravelry that I could use with them.  The yarn came in a cool legacy yarn club that they have.  I learned about them from the Fiber Nation Podcast.  Anyway, I wasn’t keen on the pattern that came with, but found one that would work - the Mistake Rib Stitch Hat.  It is basically a broken rib pattern and a super quick and easy knit, although I am not used to working with bulky wool and large needles.  In fact I couldn’t use the needle called for in the pattern because I didn’t have that size (US 11).  But I did have US 10 (6 mm) needles.  I knit this up in a single day (Sunday, January 9).  I adjusted the final decreases to make them more gradual (working a non decrease row between the decrease rows).

Pattern:  Mistake Rib Stitch Hat by Vanessa Ewing

Yarn:  Mountain Meadow Wool Sundance in Spring Song

Needle:  US 10 (6 mm)

Every Love Hat 2 - Cast on!

So these hats are kind of addictive to knit.  They are fun, not too hard, and I enjoy the Brioche stitch.  Plus what else can I do with a single crazy variegated skein of DK weight yarn.  After finishing up my classy pink one I cast on this one (this past Sunday 9 January).  Same yarn, different color set.

Pattern:  Every Love Hat by Dolly Laishram

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Dewy DK in Exploration

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

Every Love Hat - Finished!

I finished this hat up almost a week ago.  The assembly was a bit of a topological challenge.  You have to first attach the bound off end of the long piece to the bound off stitches of the cap.  I did this with regular mattress stitch.  But you have to make sure that you have the orientation correct.  There are pictures in the pattern to help with that.  After pondering the pictures I figured it out.  But then I had to figure out the back and the attachment of the long piece to the cap.

For the back, which is the cast on edge, I gathered it with a running stitch and then just stitched it together to join from the wrong side with a whip stitch.  Then I figured out where the half way point was on the long piece and flipped things so that the right side of the long piece and the right side of the cap were facing each other.  Then I just did a running stitch though the slipped edge stitches to join, pulling things snug and then easing them out again a little before I tied everything off and wove in the ends.  I started the join at the center back and worked towards the front on both sides, stopping when it seemed the right spot to stop to allow the front to do what the front needs to do.

Pattern:  Every Love Hat by Dolly Laishram

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Dewy DK in Adventure

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

 

First Snowstorm of the Year, and the Winter

If you have been watching the news/weather at all this past week you might be aware that we had a bit of a snowstorm this past Monday.  This is our pair of Beech Nut Trees in the front yard.  We had about 10 inches of heavy wet snow.  Thankfully we did not lose power (buried power lines), but we did lose some branches out of some trees.  Not as many as we might have as we had a bunch of tree trimming done a month or two ago.  It was really beautiful, but thankfully melted fairly quickly.  We only missed one day of walking.  We walked on Tuesday, but I wore my snow boots and it took a bit longer than typical, partly because we stopped and chatted with folks out checking the damage or trying to clear it.

Every Love Hat - Cast On!

My husband and I walk almost every day in our neighborhood, and it has been a little cold lately so I decided I needed a hat to keep my ears warm.  I have been wearing a cowl on some days, and yesterday my husband wore one of the cowls that I have knit to keep his ears warm - I had on a hooded coat that went down to my knees.  Anyway, yesterday afternoon I searched my pattern library for hat patterns and spotted this one.  I then checked my stash and decided that I had the perfect yarn for it, so I cast it on while listening to a meeting.  The yarn is from Expression Fiber Arts and was just one of those random stash acquisitions (it is only one skein!).  Well, actually it has a companion skein that is speckled/variegated that I will probably use to make another hat, as this pattern is quite fun and a bit addictive.  It uses a cool Brioche stitch and knits up very quickly (at least so far).  There are increases and decreases to shape the hat.  Some assembly is required.

Pattern:  Every Love Hat by Dolly Laishram

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Dewy DK in Adventure

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

Birthday Bliss - Day 25, Color 16

Once I finished up Joy to the World I focused on Birthday Bliss.  When I last set it down I was on Day 16 Color 10.  I have done 6 more colors, well almost.  I have a few more rows of Color 10 to work.  It has felt like a bit of a slog at times, but that is partly my own fault as I am working 10 more rows than the pattern calls for in order to use up as much of the yarn as possible.  The two sections at the very bottom of the photo that are worked in the same pattern are the midpoint.  I am working the charts to make the lace pattern symmetric about the middle.  I have four more colors to go.

Color 1:  Day 3 - Fathom - Chart 1

Color 2:  Day 4 - Charcoal - Chart 2

Color 3:  Day 6 - Medieval - Chart 3

Color 4:  Day 7 - Tart - Chart 4

Color 5:  Day 8 - Nocturne - Chart 5

Color 6:  Day 10 - Liquid Gold - Chart 6

Color 7:  Day 12 - Dirty Panther - Chart 7

Color 8:  Day 13 - Yucca - Chart 6

Color 9:  Day 15 - Phantasm - Chart 5

Color 10:  Day 16 - Ceremony - Chart 4

Color 11:  Day 18 - Esoteric - Chart 4

Color 12:  Day 19 - Madonna - Chart 5

Color 13:  Day 21 - Leopard - Chart 6

Color 14:  Day 22 - Wino Forever - Chart 7

Color 15:  Day 24 - Gilded - Chart 6

Color 16:  Day 25 - Cousteau - Chart 5

Pattern:  Birthday Bliss by Amy Gunderson

Yarn:  madelinetosh Euro Sock

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Joy to the World - Finished!

I actually finished this shawl back on December 26, 2021 and then didn’t get around to posting about it.  I did my currently favorite knit on edging to finish it off.  I did not work the I-Cord edging along the top edge.  As you can tell it is a generous size.  It was a bit more of a challenge to block than I expected.

I ended up using blocking wires along the top edge, then did my best to make sure the yarn over spines and garter ridges were straight.  The lace edging I pinned out point by point.  Because I used a 3-needle bind off to join the triangles the top edge isn’t quite straight across, but that is okay.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  Biscotte Yarns Bis-Sock & The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)