Knotty and Nice - Finished!

I finished this shawl up on January 8, but it took me a while to get a decent outside photo.  I used up pretty much all of the Sunshine Yarn leftovers that I used for the border, finishing with a foot or two to spare.  The border yarn is Classic Sock, in the color Enchanted Pony.

Pattern:  Knotty and Nice by Laura Dobratz

Yarn:  Emma’s Yarn & Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

 

Knotty and Nice - 12 Border Repeats Done

One of the projects that I have been working on after finishing my daily clue for Northern Crown is the border on my Knotty and Nice Shawl.  I had about half a skein of Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock in Enchanted Pony left over from the Box of Chocolates Shawl and decided this would be a good use for it.  I am one quarter of the way done with the border.  I am using my current favorite knit on border that reminds me of the Eye of Horus.  I’ve used it on several other garter stitch shawls.

Pattern:  Knotty and Nice by Laura Dobratz

Yarn:  Emma’s Yarn and Sunshine Yarns

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

 

Box of Chocolates - Finished!

 

And speaking of large shawls...after finishing up my Raspberry Cordial Shawlette I turned my attention back to this shawl, which took over 1600 yards of yarn (1644 according to my project page).  The last clue was pretty easy, although I was a little worried about having enough of the purple yarn (I had a couple of grams to spare).  Blocking was a bit of a challenge.

Not the best photo, but it does show the challenges.  I just let the shawl do what it wanted to do and didn’t even pin it except for the two points at the end of the curve at the top.

It is easy to where, thanks to the shape, and it is huge.

Pattern:  Box of Chocolates MKAL by Hilary Latimer 

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Box of Chocolates - Clue 8 Done

 

I finished up Clue 8 (the penultimate clue) this past Thursday.  It didn’t take me all that long, even thought I had to rip back a few rows.  I was knitting on autopilot and failed to notice the pattern changed on row 9 until I got to row 11.  As a rule I don’t use lifelines, but I do have a handy tool for capturing stitches before I pull the needles and rip back.

Essentially it is a skinny knitting needle attached to a long cable with a stopper at the other end.  I have four of these, two long and two short.  I think I picked them up at The Loopy Ewe when I had some Loopy cash that needed spending and didn’t want to buy more yarn.  You can also use them as a stitch holder.  There is a hole in the stopper that you can pass the needle through to secure everything.  The biggest challenge is making sure that you stay on a single row, I keep a cable needle handy for grabbing those stitches until I can safety transfer them back to my working needle.  Once I’ve inserted this I pull my working needles and start ripping.  Then I transfer the stitches back to my working needle.

Out of curiosity I took a picture of the shawl so far on my dress maker dummy.

Reminds me of a layer cake at this point.  We’ll see how it comes out after the last clue, which apparently uses all of the colors.

Pattern:  Box of Chocolates MKAL by Hilary Latimer

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Box of Chocolates - Clue 7 Done

 

Another straight forward lace pattern.  No more increases, just 402 stitches.  This clue brought in my third contrast color, the purple. I’m not completely sure about the color combination at this point, but I will wait and see how it looks when it is not all scrunched up on needles.  I do like the use of the yellow as my pop color.  Clue 8, the penultimate clue, is out and we have two weeks to work it.

Pattern:  Box of Chocolates MKAL by Hilary Latimer

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Box of Chocolates - Clue 6 Done

 

Once more we have two weeks to complete this clue, but it was straight forward and didn’t take me long at all, even with all the other projects I am working on.  I finished up the clue this past Thursday (18 February) and then was pondering what I could work on while waiting for the next Observatory MKAL clue to drop, when it dropped.   I am enjoying this one.  The knitting is really pretty easy, and I like the use of color.  Next week I get to bring in my third color.

Pattern:  Box of Chocolates MKAL by Hilary Latimer

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Box of Chocolates - Clue 5 Done

I finished this yesterday, just in time for Clue 6 to come out today.  I had no problems with this one, no ripping back.  I actually thought it was pretty straight forward, despite all of the warnings in the pattern about how non-intuitive it was and how there was a leap of faith.  Nope.  Seemed pretty intuitive to me, I could see just where it was going.  I stuck with pattern B again.  It used a stitch that I’ve done in other shawls where you slip a stitch, knit, yarn over knit the next two stitches and then passed that slipped stitch over.  But in this case you didn’t do that yarn over right away.  You slipped a stitch, knit two stitches, and then passed the slipped stitch over them.  Then on the wrong side row coming back you did a purl, yarn over, purl into those two stitches.  It has the effect of keeping that yarn over from getting swallowed up, which I like.  I’ll have to remember it.

Pattern:  Box of Chocolates MKAL by Hilary Latimer

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

 

Box of Chocolates - Clue 4 Done

 

I also finished up Clue 4 of Box of Chocolates.  I did have a false start and had to rip back, but once I got myself sorted and understood the pattern it went smoothly.  She only has written instructions for the lace, which I really don’t care for, so I sketched out the lace on graph paper to try to figure out which option I wanted to knit.  I also wait and see the pictures in the spoiler thread.  So far I’ve been sticking with Pattern B.  I’m not one for markers, but I do place the additional ones that are called for in the pattern.  I tried it without, and that is what got me into trouble on the first go of this clue.  As an aside, I do place markers when working Larissa Brown’s patterns - they are essential - but most of the time I do no use markers, or life lines.

Pattern:  Box of Chocolates MKAL by Hilary Latimer

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Box of Chocolates - Clue 3 Done

 

Clue 3 went very quickly, and it was pretty easy as well.  No tinking back on this one.  I really like the speckles in this skein.  Now I’m impatiently waiting for Clue 3 of the Observatory MKAL.  I did finish Dancing in the Dark.  It was okay, not as much fun as the other two.

Pattern:  Box of Chocolates by Hilary Latimer

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Box of Chocolates - Clue 2 Done

 

I also finished up clue 2 of the Box of Chocolates MKAL.  More fun textured stitches.  I did have to tink back a couple of times, mostly because I wasn’t paying attention, or got distracted, or was falling asleep while knitting, or didn’t read the instructions carefully, or didn’t interpret the instructions carefully.  Totally operator error.  But I’m super happy with the colors of my main color skein.  I also finished the second mystery by Hilary Latimer.  More fun brain candy.  So I started reading a third book by her, which is a spin off series, I guess - Dancing in the Dark:  An FBI Knitting Game Spin-off.  I almost stopped reading it because every chapter starts out with a passage inside the head of a serial killer, which is not somewhere I want to be.  That and the steamy scenes between two of the main characters were turning me off (I skipped about four pages of that at one point).  Hilary could write bodice rippers if she wanted to, but I haven’t read or enjoyed one of those since the summer I was thirteen.  I spent exactly one summer reading romance novels and bodice rippers before I got bored and discovered science fiction.  I even started a different mystery, but in the end I decided to go back and finish this one, or at least persevere for a while longer.

Pattern:  Box of Chocolates by Hilary Latimer

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Box of Chocolates - Clue 1

I signed up for two Mystery Knit Alongs that both started with the New Year.  This is Box of Chocolates by Hilary Latimer.  It takes 5 skeins of yarn, and every clue has 3 options.  Her group on Ravelry is called Criminal Knits...for the Serial Knitter in all of us.  She also writes mystery novels.  I read the first one Malice in Wonderland.  It was a fun and quick read.  I’m now reading her second one The Dyeds of March.  They are definitely brain candy - but these days, that is just what I need.

I grabbed 5 skeins of Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock that had found their way into my stash over the past year or so.  The colors are (from left to right):  Aspenglow, Frozen, Slopeside, Unity and Enchanted Pony.

Pattern:  Box of Chocolates by Hilary Latimer

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

 

Adventurous Beach - Finished!

 

I ended up making two shawls, one each out of each half of the Advent set.  This is skeins 1, 14-25.

This is skeins 1-13.

I suppose that I could have mixed the triangles rather than matching them, so that each shawl used all 25 colors but I think I had just gotten so used to working with each half set of colors separately that it didn’t really occur to me until later.  I’m not sure how I would have paired them up if I had done it that way.  By doing it this way I have two fades, and I really like fades.  I did think about putting all four triangles together into one huge shawl, but the thought of trying to block that just made me want to go hide.  Even blocking these took a lot of floor space and most of my blocking mats.

Pattern:  Adventurous Shawl by Ambah O’Brien

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock in the Beach Tones Advent Set

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Adventurous Beach - Four Triangles Done!

 

I finished up the fourth triangle today.  While knitting this last triangle I pondered what I would do with them when they were all done.  I considered joining them all together to make one shawl, but I realized that shawl would be huge.  Too huge.  So I came up with the idea of two shawl, each using half of the Advent set.  But instead of just joining the two triangles I decided to use up the leftovers from each pair of triangles to add some length between the two triangle with rows of garter stitch worked on the bias to match the bias of the triangle edge.

Pattern:  Adventurous Wrap by Ambah O’Brien

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Beach Tones Advent Set

Needle: US 5 (3.75 mm)

Adventurous Beach - Three Triangles Done!

This project has not been getting quite as much attention lately as I’ve been focused on some other projects, but today I managed to finish up the last few rows.  I had to rip back though when I checked my stitch count just prior to working the last set of rows with Skein 24 and discovered that I was two stitches short.  I checked the edges and the center spine and discovered that I had forgotten the center increases on the first set of rows with Skein 1 in Section 6.  The thought of tinking back three rows at this point was daunting, so I decided to put in a lifeline to rip back to.  Instead of using yarn and a needle I used these.

There is a slender knitting needle on one end, attached to a cable with a stopper at the other end.  There is a hole in the stopper that you can thread the needle through to keep your knitting from slipping off.  If you don’t thread the needle through, your knitting will slip off when you aren’t looking.  I think I picked these up at The Loopy Ewe.  Given that this pattern is in garter stitch, it was easy to place this into my knitting and then pull the knitting needles out and rip away.  I did place the center stitch marker when I was placing my lifeline.  Then I put my knitting back on my original needles and got back on track.

Pattern:  Adventurous Wrap by Ambah O’Brien
Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Beach Tones Advent Set
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Adventurous Beach - Two Triangles Done

I’ve mostly been working on this project in the evening while watching TV.  That way I have access to all my tools, most especially my scale so I can track the yarn usage.  I will now work the other half of the Advent set into two triangles and then I will figure out how I want to assemble them.

Here is the first triangle for comparison.

Pattern:  Adventurous Wrap by Ambah O’Brien

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Beach Tones Advent Set

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Adventurous Beach - One Triangle Done!

I’ve also been working on my Adventurous Wrap, mostly in the evenings while watching TV or reading, and yesterday I finished up the first triangle.  I have cast on a second triangle using the same set of skeins but in reverse order.  I put all of the stitches onto waste yarn instead of binding off one of the edges as the pattern instructs because I’m not sure how I want to arrange my triangles and I want to leave all my options open.  I will use color 1 for the bind offs and the three-needle bind offs.

Pattern:  Adventurous Wrap by Ambah O’Brien

Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock Beach Tones Advent Set

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Adventurous Beach - Take Two

So, my experiment didn’t last long.  I got bored with the color block knitting, and I forgot how addictive this pattern is.  I’m already working on color 6, when I really should be working on my August Camp Loop project.  So for this one I’m back to my original plan, which is to work the two triangles as called for in the pattern, and then extend the length with the leftovers the same way I did for my original Adventurous shawl.  I’m keeping track of my yarn usage on this one.

Pattern:  Adventurous Wrap by Ambah O’Brien
Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock Beach Tones Advent Set
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Adventurous Beach - Cast On

This one is a total experiment.  I purchased a Beach Tones Advent Set from Sunshine Yarns when they re-offered them.  My intention was to make another Adventurous Shawl, but I didn’t feel like working all of the color changes, and I didn’t want any leftovers, so it occurred to me that I could work it in bigger color blocks, making as many triangles as I can out of the yarn I have and then assembling them.  I’m not even sure how I will arrange them.  I have a locking stitch marker marking the front of the work, and this is more mindless knitting for me.  We’ll see if this experiment works.

I started with skein 14 - Pink Umbrella

Pattern:  Adventurous Shawl by Ambah O’Brien
Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock in Beach Tones
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Adventuresome Shawl - Beauty Shots

All done blocking.  It’s a challenge getting photos of shawls this large.  Here are a couple more.

Pattern:  ADVENTuresome Wrap by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock, 2019 Night Sky Advent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm

Adventuresome Shawl - Blocking!

I blocked the shawl this morning.  Blocking these bias knit shawls is always a bit of a challenge.  I started with the top edge, stretching it out and pinning it along one of the grid lines of my blocking mats.  I then spread out the body trying to get things to line up as best I could and stretching things out some.  Next I pinned the right edge.  Then I went back and pinned the bottom edge, and lastly I pinned the right edge.  What I noticed is that the top edge is shorter than the bottom edge.  I'm guessing it is because the kfb increase does not have as much give as a yarn over increase would.  I may do some swatches to confirm this.  As my husband pointed out, you will never see it when you're wearing it.  Still, it always bugs me when I can't get things lined up.

The colors are:
1.  Outer Space
2.  Black Hole
3.  Dark Nebula
4.  Asteroid
5.  Horizons
6.  Blue Moon
7.  Aurora Borealis
8.  Equinox
9.  Orbit
10.  Crater
11.  Ursa Major
12.  Galaxy
13.  Neutron
14.  Constellations
15.  Orion Nebula
16.  Pink Sky
17.  Star Cluster
18.  Starburst
19.  Lyra
20.  False Dawn
21.  Satellite
22.  Comet Tail
23.  Heat Lightning
24.  Polaris
25.  Light Year

Pattern:  ADVENTuresome Wrap by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Sunshine Yarns Classic Sock, 2019 Night Sky Advent
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)