Lato - Almost half way done

This past week I put aside my other projects and focused on this one as the crochet along ends May 1.  I have made a lot of progress, but it doesn’t look like I can finish it by the end of the month (without more effort than I want to expend, and being way more monogamous with my crafting than I typically am), so I will relax and finish it in my own time.  I do have the two main patterns memorized at this point, and I make sure that I count the stitches regularly to make sure that I haven’t lost any.  During the double crochet V section I don’t tend to count as often as the pattern is straightforward and harder to mess up.  I do visually check each double crochet row to make sure that I haven’t forgotten to work a double crochet or a chain stitch, and I count stitches before I start the transition section.  On the wave section I count after completing the single crochet row after the wave row to make sure that I still have 133 stitches.  In the first wave section I screwed up a couple of times and lost a stitch or had too many and didn’t discover it until working the next wave row when things weren’t lining up properly with the previous wave row.  I also visually check the wave row before working the single crochet row to make sure I haven’t missed anything there as well.  Of course once I started the extra checks I haven’t messed up, but I know that as soon as I get over-confident and don’t do an extra check I will make a mistake and have to rip back to fix it.

Pattern:  Lato by Johanna Huck

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Blossom Fingering in Passion, Inflorescence, Budding and Cultivar

Hook:  3.5 mm (E)

 

Lato - One Section Done

Although I haven’t made any progress on this project lately, having become a little obsessed with colorwork, I had made some good progress on it before I set it aside.  You can tell it has been sitting in a project bag - it is all wrinkled.  All four of my colors are now in the piece and I like them.  I just need to get back to this in time to finish it before May 1.

Pattern:  Lato by Johanna Huck

Hook:  3.5 mm (E)

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Blossom Fingering in Passion, Inflorescence, Budding, and Cultivar

 

Lato - Loop on

Expression Fiber Arts is also hosting a Winter Crochet Along for the Lato Shawl, which I decided to participate in.  I am not using the recommended yarn, which is Vellum Fingering - a blend of baby alpaca, silk and yak - as sometimes alpaca bothers my hands.  Instead I am using Blossom Fingering, which is a blend of Bamboo, Merino and Tencel.  I had bought a number of skeins last year when they were hosting a crochet along and a knit along of two boomerang shaped shawls.  I dropped out of those as they were just too boring, and required lots of counting to make sure the stitch counts remained correct.  I got off on both of them and just didn’t feel like figuring it out and making it right, so they both went off to the frog pond.  

The two colors I am using so far are Passion and Inflorescence.  I’m not sure what my other two colors are going to be yet.  I will decide when I get there.  The start was a bit of a challenge, especially the row of front post single crochet.  That took me several tries and I almost gave up.  I kept losing stitches because it was easy to miss a post and thus skip a stitch.  In the end I put stitch markers every 20 stitches and did a lot of counting, but at least I only had to rip back a few stitches when I came up short on a section.  I still came up 1 stitch short, but I sneaked one in and now I can’t even see where I did that.

I did work a gauge swatch, sort of.  I only worked a couple of rows to see how it worked up and what the fabric and stitches were like and how it felt to work, then I just started, but based on the picture I think it will come out close to the given measurements in the pattern.

Pattern:  Lato by Johanna Huck

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Blossom Fingering 

Hook:  3.5 mm (E)

Sulenkti - Section 2 Done

This is another pretty mindless knit and I’m enjoying my color choices.  The yarn has very nice drape and sheen.  The pattern does not provide stitch counts, and I haven’t really worried about it too much, but out of curiosity I figured out how many stitches I am supposed to have at the end of Section 2 and I am three stitches short.  I knew that I was off when I got into the last part with the slipped stitches, but I really didn’t worry about it as stitch count is not really that important for this shawl.  As long as you are doing the increases and decreases correctly most of the time missing one or two here or there is not really going to have much of an impact.  And who wants the stress of always worrying about stitch count?

Pattern:  Sulenkti by Janica York Carter

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Blossom Fingering

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Sulenkti - Section 1 Done

Expression Fiber Arts is also hosting a Knit Along of their pattern Sulenkti, which is sort of a knit version of Zakret.  For this one I had no real problem picking colors.  The colors are, from left to right, Floral, Inflorescence, Budding, Luminous, Deliquescent

The pattern calls for a US 6 (4.0 mm) needle, but I started out with a US 5 (3.75 mm) needle.  The fabric was still too loose for my liking, so I ripped it out and restarted on a US 4 (3.5 mm) needle.  It is still pretty open fabric but I think it will look nice when blocked.

Pattern:  Sulenkti by Janica York Carter

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Blossom Fingering

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Zakret - Section 1 Done

I finished section 1 last night.  I will confess that I did not work a gauge swatch - I typically don’t for shawls - but I was a bit worried that my gauge was too tight so I did a quick swatch this morning on a hook one size up and it came out too loose, so I’m sticking with what I have.  I like the fabric, and if it comes out on the smaller size I can always work more repeats of the pattern sections to make it bigger and use up my yarn.  Now I need to decide what color to use next.  The colors I have used so far are Inflorescence and Fragrant.

I have the the next color caked up but I may swap it out for the green at the end.  I am also still considering using the yellow as the main color throughout, just because it is such a lovely cheerful color.  I  am not going to cut the yellow yet so I can keep my options open.

Pattern:  Zakret by Janica York Carter

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Blossom Fingering

Hook:  3.75 mm (F) 

Zakret - Chain On!

So I guess when it is crochet, you chain on, as opposed to cast on.  But anyway, Expression Fiber Arts has started a summer Crochet Along of the pattern Zakret by Janica York Carter.  It started on June 3 and runs through August 27, so hopefully I should be able to keep up.  The pattern calls for 5 different colors and I went with some bolder jewel tones, although I’m not sure if I will stick with these colors.

I really like the yellow and may keep that as a main color and pick a couple of the other colors to use for contrast.  The way the pattern is designed there are three stitch patterns (I’ve done the first one here), and that set of three stitch patterns is repeated 4 times, changing colors each repeat.

Rep 1:  MC - Color A, CC - Color B

Rep 2:  MC - Color B, CC - Color C

Rep 3:  MC - Color C, CC - Color D

Rep 4:  MC - Color D, CC - Color E

I have my colors laid out from left to right in the order that I am planning on using them, but we will see what happens when I get to repeat 2.  The yarn is Blossom Fingering 50% Rayon from Bamboo, 30% Merino, 20% Tencel.  I really like the sheen, and it feels wonderful to work with.

Pattern:  Zakret by Janica York Carter

Yarn:  Blossom Fingering

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)