Winter Wonderland MKAL - Finished!

I finished this up on 29 December.  It was fun, and I love the colorways that have been created for it.  So many beautiful shawls!  I liked the construction.  Blocking was straightforward, pun intended.

This shawl is a nice size, generous without being too big, and the yarn is lovely, soft and with wonderful drape.

I have finished six projects during my winter break, and am down to thirteen WIPs, I frogged seven WIPs last year as well, and I have seven WIPs that are in hibernation.  I am determined to finish or frog them all.

Pattern:  Winter Wonderland MKAL by Kay Hopkins

Yarn: Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply

Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm), US 4 (3.5 mm)

Winter Wonderland MKAL - Clue 4 Done

The mystery knit along is over, it finished up on December 9, but I knew that I would not be able to complete my shawl in time for any of the prize drawings so I set it aside in order to finish some other projects.  But now that those are done I have pulled it back out and will finish it up this week.  The final clue joins the pieces together.

Pattern:  Winter Wonderland MKAL by Kay Hopkins

Yarn:  Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply

Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

Winter Wonderland MKAL - Clue 3 Done

Clue 3 finished off the first side, and started the second.  The last section of the first side has some double increases, and the gray is worked as short rows, which gives it the shape.  The lace pattern in the first pink section of the second side is candy canes.  I barely had enough of that mini-skein to finish, ending up with maybe two feet left over.  I had plenty of my second mini-skein.  I’ve already started working clue 4 and have pulled clue 5 into my knitCompanion app.  I’ve seen a finished photo and it is a really cool design.

Pattern:  Winter Wonderland MKAL by Kay Hopkins

Yarn:  Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply

Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

Winter Wonderland MKAL - Clue 2 Done

Once I got into the rhythm of things the second clue went fairly quickly.  I didn’t make any modifications to the pattern for this clue.  I’ve already set up clue 3 in knitCompanion, and have the clue 4 pages added as well.  The yarn is really lovely to work with.

Pattern:  Winter Wonderland MKAL by Kay Hopkins

Yarn:  Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply

Needles:  US 3 (3.25 mm) and US 4 (3.5 mm)

 

Winter Wonderland MKAL - Clue 1 Done

I am a bit of a sucker for Mystery Knit Alongs, especially when Miss Babs dyes up such beautiful sets for them.  I have more than a few in my stash, just waiting to be knit up.  This one I am almost doing on time.  I think clue 4 will be dropping soon.  The color way is Dark Canis Major, and the gray is Quicksilver.  There were so many lovely colorway options it can be very hard to choose.  I try not to overthink it and just go with something that makes me happy.

It did take me a couple of tries to get this one going, mostly because I forgot a very important detail that I had read when looking over the pattern about slipping the first stitch of each row.  I remembered it when I introduced the first color, so I ripped back and started over.  My next challenge arose with the first chart.  I didn’t really care for how the repeat was marked as the spacing between the first three repeats of the pattern and the last repeat of the pattern were not the same (11 stitches, and then 10 stitches), which made the placement of the next set of motifs not line up symmetrically with the first set, which just bugs me.  So  I decided to shift the start of the first motif over one stitch, which allowed me to have 11 stitches between each of the repeats without putting the last repeat right up agains the center stitch.  It also meant that I could have the second set of repeats placed symmetrically in relation to the first set - the first pattern row being 9 stitches.  It also meant that I did not work the partial trees on the second set, but that is fine by me.

Pattern:  Winter Wonderland MKAL by Kay Hopkins

Yarn:  Miss Babs Yummy 2-Plu

Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm), US 3 (3.25 mm)

Garden Variety MKAL - Finished!

I finished this up this past Monday, although I didn’t block it until Tuesday.  It was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed the construction and the color work and the pattern was extremely well-written.  It is huge, about two feet wide and eight feet long.

Pattern:  Garden Variety MKAL by Lisa K. Ross

Yarn:  Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply

Needles:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Garden Variety MKAL - Clue 3 Done

After spending last weekend finishing up Arabian Nights, I turned my attention back to this shawl and finished up Clue 3 yesterday morning.  The design is a lot of fun, and very inspiring and I like the fact that it kind of looks like a dress.  The fourth clue is out and it uses the first three colors.  I may add some rows in to use up my leftovers, depending on how much of my main color I have.  I like the asymmetry of the design, and I love the colors.

Pattern:  Garden Variety MKAL by Lisa K. Ross
Yarn:  Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply and Yummy 2-ply Toes
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Garden Variety MKAL - Clue 2 Done

The second clue on this shawl was a fair bit of knitting.  If I were running the show I probably would have allowed two weeks for this one, just so folks didn’t feel rushed.  I did find some of the stitches not hard, but a bit tedious, so I took my time.  I did use a crochet hook on the second and third loops of the Dahlia stitch.  Now I have to do more or less the same thing on the other side.  There is still a clue left, and this shawl is not big enough to be a shawl, yet, and there are three colors that we haven’t used since clue 1, so there is more to come.

Pattern:  Garden Variety MKAL by Lisa K. Ross

Yarn:  Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply and Yummy 2-ply Toes

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Garden Variety MKAL - Clue 1 Done

Last month Lisa Ross (Paper Daisy Creations) announced a mystery knit along and I was captivated by the kits that Miss Babs put together.  This is the Morning Glories kit, and the picture above shows the order that the mini-skeins were packed, but they are not the order that I am using them in.  I used the monochrome filter on my iPad to order them from lightest to darkest, which was a technique recommended in the pattern notes.

Here is the first clue knit up.  The second clue comes out on Tuesday.

Pattern:  Garden Variety MKAL by Lisa K. Ross
Yarn:  Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply and Yummy 2-ply Toes
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)