Joy to the World - Cindy - Finished!

I finished this shawl up on this past Sunday (October 27) and got it on the blocking mats that morning.  The border went very quickly and I just love how it came out.  The colors are so beautiful, and bright, and they make me happy.

With the completion of this shawl, I have used up all of the Grinch Advent Set.  Yay!  Another Advent set knitted up (I have so many!).

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Joy to the World - Grinch - Finished!

I actually finished this shawl back on October 12, but when I was laying it out to block I received a nasty shock.  An insect had gotten at it between the time I had finished the body (June 18) and when I started working the edging (September 28).

I was dismayed and horrified.  What was I to do?  I used up all of the yarn, so there were no scraps for darning.  After it was dry I carefully folded it up and put it in a zip lock plastic bag while I thought about possible ways to fix it.  Given that this is superwash, how would I secure my fix?  Even if I found a yarn to use.  In the end I decided to get some silk mohair in a similar color.  Of course picking a color from the web is always a challenge, so I erred on the dark side.  Here is the fix.

You can still see the ends that I haven’t secured.  Fortunately the whole was not too big and I was able to duplicate stitch and fill in what was missing.  The mohair makes the yarn sticky so I’m not too worried about it working out, and the silk makes it strong, plus it is lace weight so it doesn’t add bulk to the repair.  This will now be my go to method if something like this happens again.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Joy to the World - Cindy - Body Done and Border Started!

I finished up the body back on October 13 and started the edging not too long after.  I really love the colors of this one, it just make me smile.  I did actually run out of the miniskeins on the last row of the center triangle, so I just finished up with the blue, which made the three needle bind off convenient as the yarn was already attached.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Joy to the World - Grinch - Border One-Third Done!

This shawl has been waiting for its border for a while now - since June 18, to be exact - so a week or so ago I pulled it out and started working the border.  I am using one of my go-to borders, which I think looks a bit like the Eye of Horus.  It is pretty good TV knitting.  I have to pay some attention, but not a great deal of attention, to it.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25)

Lock, Shock and Barrel Shawl - Border Started!

I have been obsessing over the color for this border for months now.  I have tried and discarded several different colors and finally went with a skein of Sundara Yarn Extra Fine Fingering Merino in Saguaro Sunset.  It is hard to get a good sense of the colors in this photo, but I think it will work.  I’m using Hot Pink Lined beads, although they are hard to see in the photo.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Sundar Yarn Extra Fine Fingering Merino

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Joy to the World - Cindy - One Triangle Done!

While my Wallflowers has definitely been monopolizing my attention at home, my work bag project has been proceeded nicely.  I finished up the first triangle over a week ago, but just hadn’t gotten around to getting a photo.  I do love these colors.  It is just such a cheerful combination.  I’ve already started the second triangle.  Sometimes I do think I should be more clever and make sets like these into a garment, but I really haven’t figured out how I would do that, and what I would be happy with, so I go with a shawl.  Maybe after I retire I will have time to figure something out.  That happy date is fast approaching.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Joy to the World - Cindy - Cast On!

Having finished up the body of my Grinch version of this shawl, I had to pack another mindless project for my work bag so I caked up all the skeins for this shawl yesterday afternoon and cast on today.

I will be using the mini-skeins from right to left.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Joy to the World - Grinch - Body Done!

Yesterday I finished up the third triangle.  Because I was using up each mini-skein before starting the next I was able to do the entire third triangle in the mini-skeins.  I had about two yards left over.  Pretty good.  I’ve joined the triangles, this time working the three-needle bind-off on the wrong side, and I’ve also picked up stitches along the edge that is at the top in the picture, so I can’t spread it out completely.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Electric Oogie Boogie Shawl - Finished!

I had gotten very close to finishing the border (10 repeats left) when I got sucked into creating Popcorns for my Wallflowers, so this shawl went on the back burner for a bit, but with the progress that I’ve made on the Grinch shawl I knew that I needed to get this one off the needles.  So last week I focused on it and finished it up Saturday morning and blocked it.

I have one more shawl from this Advent set to finish up, the Lock, Shock & Barrel Shawl.  I have picked a border color and have two bead color options to decide between.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Joy to the World - Grinch - Two Triangles Done and Third Triangle Started!

I’ve been getting lots of knitting done at work, and finished up the second triangle and cast on the third.  The third is easy because I just use the colors in reverse order and use the rest of each mini-skein before joining the next.  I do love the colors and how they are working up.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Joy to the World - Grinch - One Triangle Done!

I had some good knitting time at work this past week and finished up the first triangle, as well as starting the second.  I do love the colors.

I think I have also settled on the main color skein for the other two sets of this Advent Calendar.

I tried several different full sized skeins, but this one has the most energy and really sings to me.  Although the numbering of the skeins goes from left to right, I am going to start with the lightest color and work the skeins in reverse order.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Lock, Shock and Barrel Shawl - Body Done!

This is the last of the mini-skeins from the Nightmare Before Christmas Advent set.  I have about ten repeats left on the border of the Electric Oogie Boogie Shawl and then I can start working on the border for this one.  I still have to decide on a border color.  I am pretty sure I want to go with a dark purple, I just need to find the right purple in my stash.  I will use light pink beads.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Joy to the World - Grinch - Cast On!

Once I was getting close to finishing the body of the last shawl from the Nightmare Before Christmas Advent set I knew that I needed to cake up and cast on another easy knit for my work bag, so I grabbed the next Advent set in my queue.  This one was inspired by The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.   This set was dyed up as two twelve-skein gradients, although they are labeled as four six-skein sets.

The four sets are, from left to right:  Grinch, Mount Crumpet, Cindy Loo Who, and Christmas Glow.  Because these work up as twelve-skein gradients I am going to do two of my variant of the Joy to the World shawl.  For the Grinch shawl I picked the lightest of my neutral trios - Strandline.

I thought about trying to do something clever and make a colorwork garment with the mini-skeins, but I’m not a fan of doing colorwork with superwash yarn, and I really wasn’t into working that hard to figure something out, so I went with easy.

Pattern:  Joy to the World by Louise Robert

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Kiri

Needle:  US 3 (3.25 mm)

Nightmare Before Christmas Sally Shawl - Finished!

I finished this shawl up on May 4, so two weeks ago.  I didn’t get any blogging done last weekend.  I am happy with how it came out.  At this point all of the mini-skeins from this Advent set have been knitted up into shawls and I just need to finish the borders on the other two.  Because of the way the mini-skeins were designed/dyed I ended up with four shawls - two of the garter stitch boomerang shawls, and two of the Over the Moon shawls.

Pattern:  Improvised Garter Stitch Boomerang Shawl

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)
 

Lock, Shock and Barrel Shawl - Cast On!

This is the last of the mini-skeins of the Nightmare Before Christmas Advent set, and it was setting up this project in Ravelry that clued me in to the stashing mistake I had made with this set and the Dragons set from 2018.  It took me a little bit to get it sorted, but it is sorted, at least on my project pages, even if it is still screwed up in my stash, which I’m just not going to worry about seeing as how when I complete these shawls all of the yarn will be used up.

Yesterday I started the second skein of the set while I was finishing up my latest read:  Dust Mites:  The Siege of Airlock Three by James A. Bacon Jr.  It was a wonderful read and I really want to see him finish the story.  So, if you like hard science fiction, with a realistic world (our own not too distant future) and characters and conflicts that make sense, I highly recommend it.

This is the set that is being used for this shawl.  I may change out the border color, but I will decide when I get there.

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Nightmare Before Christmas Sally Shawl - Border Started!

I finally received the yarn for this border last week.  It took a bit of time to get here.  It was mailed from Loveland Colorado back on April 6, went from Loveland to Denver on April 7, left Denver on April 9, arrived in Richmond Virginia on April 16, and was delivered to me on April 17.  Usually my packages from The Loopy Ewe get here quicker than that.  But in any event, it did make it here safely.  I really like the color, it is Black Pearl, and it does have a sort of pearly quality to it.  It is quite interesting.

Pattern:  Improvised Garter Stitch Boomerang Shawl

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Electric Oogie Boogie Shawl - Making Progress on the Border

It is always nice to get a project like this to the point where you feel confident that you made the right color choices.  I really like the way that this is working up.  I’m about one-third of the way done with the border.  This shawl and the Speckles Shawl represent half of the mini-skeins in the Nightmare Before Christmas Advent Set, except that I realized when I was casting on the last project using this Advent set that I had totally screwed up cataloging it in my stash.  This mini-skein set ended up getting stashed with the Advent 2018 set that was really the Dragons set (which I just knit up).

Pattern:  Over the Moon by Vicki Mikulak

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering and Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Nightmare Before Christmas Speckles Shawl - Finished!

I finished this up back on April 3.  I really like the red border.

It provides a nice dramatic finish.  I do think that adding a border to shawls like this helps bring the pieces together to make a more coherent whole.  The yarn for the edging is another of the Sundara Yarn skeins that I purchased as part of a temperature blanket kit that I never knit.  This color was for temperatures 91-100.

Pattern:   Improvised Garter Stitch Boomerang Shawl

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering & Sundara Yarn Extra Fine Fingering Merino

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Nightmare Before Christmas Sally Shawl - Body Done!

I finished up the body last weekend.  Now I have to decide on the border color.  I have a color that matches the last mini-skein fairly well, but I’m worried that it won’t be close enough  and will look wrong, so I looked for other options.

I have also been thinking about just working a black border, so I went to the Simply Socks Yarn Company web site to get some, and they don’t carry that color in their simply sock yarn any more.  So I went to The Loopy Ewe web site and found a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere.  It isn’t solid black, but I think it will work.  The colorway is called Black Pearl.

Pattern:  Improvised Garter Stitch Boomerang Shawl

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Nightmare Before Christmas Sally Shawl - Two Skeins Done

I have also been making progress on my latest mindless project that I knit on at work, completing the first two skeins of the mini set and starting the third.  I like the color block thing that is going on here.

Pattern:  Improvised Garter Stitch Boomerang Shawl

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep 4 Ply SW Merino Fingering & Kiri

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)