Pineapple - Finished!

I finished this shawl up last Sunday night, and blocked it Monday.  It isn't as much of a crescent as the other two shawls, which made it a little harder to get a beauty shot of it.

This just doesn't do justice to this shawl.  Then last night the best way to display it on my dress maker dummy occurred to me.  Now if I made a one shouldered dress in silk and dyed it to match...

Pattern:  Vidalia Lace Shawl by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve in Pineapple
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Ornate Arches - Second Block Done

And the second block is blocking.  The second block always goes quickly.  Now I can get back to my Pineapple shawl, although I already worked a fair bit of the short rows while we were watching our science fiction shows (Continuum and Defiance).

Pattern:  Ornate Arches by Donna Kay Lacey, the June 2012 Unique Sheep Crochet Block of the Month
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve in Washington and Cornwallis
Hook:  2.75 mm

I finally managed to get some decent beauty shots of Gr-orange.  We've had thunderstorms almost every afternoon last week and the light just wasn't cooperating.  Here's the front.

And here's the back.

I noticed that the colorway is available on The Unique Sheep web site now.  This was a Sip 'n Stitch colorway from last year.


Pattern:  Indian Feathers by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Gr-orange
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Pineapple - Lace Pattern Done

I finished up the lace pattern last night.  The pattern does not call for the eyelet row, but I like the way it sets the lace off from the short row stockinette section, so I added it.  I did the same thing on the Gr-orange shawl.  I'm going to do the first two short rows, which establish the pattern, and then set this aside and finish up my second crochet block.  The works in progress are piling up again.  I received my yarn for the Open Eye Tunic, Camp Loopy Project 2 starts tomorrow, and I need to finish my Wavelettes shawl.  I am not quite done with the first half of that one.  I will confess that I got distracted by the combination of Unique Sheep yarns and Alina Appasov's crescent shawl patterns.  The basic pattern would be an easy one to modify, and it is filling my head with all sorts of possibilities.

Pattern:  Vidalia Lace Shawl by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve in Pineapple
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Gr-orange - Finished!

I love these patterns, even the long cast on.  I finished this one this morning, and have already cast on another crescent shawl by the same designer with the Pineapple colorway.  I ended up with 18 grams of skein 1 left over on this one, but decided not to do any more lace layers.  I like this one just the way it is, although I did add eyelet rows between the lace pattern and the short row section, and also at the neck edge.  Instead, the leftover yarn is going into my crochet block leftover stash.  It is a silver gray and pretty uniform.  Skein 1 of the Pesto colorway was a little too variegated to do that with.  One of the other things I love about these patterns is their compactness.  Everything is on one pattern page, very neatly laid out.

Pattern:  Indian Feathers by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Gr-orange
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Gr-orange

As soon as Pesto was on the blocking mats I wound up the skeins of Gr-orange and cast on Indian Feathers, another Alina Appasov pattern.  This time I used a long tailed cast on, and way over estimated how much yarn I needed, which is preferable to underestimating.  This pattern is actually intended for a lace weight yarn, but there are several projects that did it in fingering weight.  It also has nupps, which I am replacing with beads.  Right now I am trying to decide on a bead color.  I think I may end up going with the clear beads that I used on my Crushed Tart.

Pattern:  Indian Feathers by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Tinsel Toes in Gr-orange
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Pesto - Finished!

This was definitely an experiment.  After the short row shaping I had an entire skein of yarn left over, and you know how much I hate having leftover yarn, so I decided to add another layer of lace.   For my first, unsuccessful, attempt I repeated the lace pattern, but only over half the number of repeats.  I then joined that strip of lace to the shawl and finished off with the eyelet rows.  I should have known it would not work.

But one of the beauties of knitting is that you can always rip out and start over again.  I also noticed, to my horror, that I had missed a yarn over in the eyelet rows right after the lace.  So, I ripped and started over again.  But first I fixed that missing yarn over, pulling a stitch all the way up.  It did result in a strip of three tight stitches going up the shawl, but I figured I could address that when I blocked.  This time when I added the extra lace I decided to be a bit smarter about it.  I went ahead and finished the main body of the shawl with a repeat of the eyelet rows rather than the I-cord bind off that the pattern called for.  Then I picked up stitches right below the purl row and knit the extra lace down from that.  I went for a very simple lace pattern that would increase my stitches, hopefully to the point where they would lay flat when I blocked the shawl again.  By picking up stitches I also gave myself the flexibility to keep trying until I got it right.

If you look closely, you can still see where I picked up that extra stitch, but it is much better than it was.  I may work on it some more.   Overall, I am happy with how my experiment came out.

Pattern:  Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve in Pesto
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Pesto - Short Row Shaping Done

After finishing up the short row shaping, I have 4 grams left of skein 2 and all of skein 1.  The short row shaping was fun, instead of doing a wrap and turn, or even a shadow wrap, you just turn the work and slip the first stitch.  Then when you come back through you do a slip, slip, knit with the stitch after the slipped stitch, or a purl two together, depending on whether you are on the right side or the wrong side.  I want to use as much of my yarn as possible so I am going to cast on 165 stitches using skein 1 and knit the lace portion again, then I am going to attach it to the neck edge, probably by just knitting the two together.  The pattern calls for an I-cord bind off, but I might just repeat the eyelet rows instead.

Pattern:  Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve in Pesto
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Pesto - Lace Part Done

I finished up the lace portion of my Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl, which I have renamed Pesto, after the yarn color, cause I am silly like that.  As I was working on this yesterday it occurred to me that I had another 4 skein gradiance set that would look good in this pattern so off I went to dig it out of my stash.  Now, you have to understand that while most of my stash is cataloged and organized and in nice plastic containers there has been some overflow in the last year or two which has accumulated in piles in various places around the house.  The latest pile up is in the room that would be a formal dining room, if we did any formal dining.  I dug into the project bag that I thought I had put the yarn in and came up with another set.

This is Gr-orange on Tinsel Toes, and after some thinking I realized that it must have been a Sip 'n Stitch Tea Club shipment.  I dug into another project bag and found the original set that I was thinking of.

This set is Pineapple, which is one of my favorite snacks, and was also a Sip 'n Stitch Tea Club shipment.  The yarn is Verve, which is the same yarn as Pesto.  When I turn this into a shawl, I will start with the first skein, the dark green, and end with the yellow.

Pattern:  Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve in Pesto
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl

Yesterday the second shipment in The Unique Sheep Gourmet Club arrived, but I didn't get a picture of it.  There was a recipe complete with spices for Ratatouille, a package of Basil seeds, a Basil Pesto recipe and this yarn.  The color is, of course, Pesto, the yarn is Verve, and I just had to find a project for it and cast on.  The pattern I settled on is Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl by Alina Appasova.  It is a crescent shaped shawl that starts at the bottom.  There are, as with all things, both advantages and disadvantages, with this construction technique.  The advantage, of course, is that the rows get shorter rather than longer.  The disadvantage, of course, is that cast on.  327 stitches.  I started out doing a long tail cast on using size 8 needles (the larger size was recommended for the cast on and bind off).  But after incorrectly estimating the length of the tail that I needed, twice, I decided to switch to a knitted cast on using size 5 needles.  After the cast on, the pattern starts off immediately with lace, and knitting lace directly after the cast on row proved tricky.  After running into trouble on the second stitch I decided to knit a row first and then start the lace pattern.  But first I had to count my stitches, again, and figure out how many I had lost - it turned out to be three.  I fixed that and happily knitted away.  The lace pattern looked trickier than it actually was and I memorized it quickly, but reading the lace was a little bit tricky and somehow I got off in the pattern and when I reached the end of the stitches I was not at the end of the row.  So, I went back to the start of the row and carefully checked the pattern to figure out where I had screwed up.  I did find it, somewhere between the halfway and two-thirds way point, and marked it with a split stitch marker, and then I went to tink back and discovered that some stitches had slipped off the needle.  Sigh.  Fixed that.  Tinked back.  I hate tinking centered double decreases.  Got back to where I had made my mistake and picked up the pattern again and when I reached the end of the stitches I was at the end of the row.  Success!  I stopped there for the night.

Pattern:  Peridot Necklace Lace Shawl by Alina Appasov
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Verve in Pesto
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)