Juniper Shrug - Finished!

I finished knitting the sleeves this past Tuesday and blocked the shrug.  Once it was dry I tried it on and decided I like the length of the sleeves so yesterday I used Skein 1 to work an I-cord bind off on both sleeves.  But then I was faced with the task of blocking the I-cord.  So I decided to pin it to my dress maker dummy and let gravity do most of the work for me.

This picture provides a pretty good shot of the sleeve lace, you can see the vertical panel I put in on the top and bottom of the sleeves, as well as the continuation of the lace pattern from the back.

At some point I'll get some beauty shots, but for now my dress maker dummy will have to do.

Pattern:  Created from Knitting Modular by Melissa Leapman

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Juniper Shrug - Skein 7

I finished up with Skein 7 this morning.  As skein 7 ended at the end of the 10th repeat I decided to place my sleeve stitches on waste yarn and block the shrug to see where I was with regards to size while I thought about how I wanted to finish it off.

Here it is blocking.  I stretched things out fairly aggressively.  The sleeves at this point are 20 inches, which is what my swatch predicted they would be.

Pattern:  Created from Knitting Modular by Melissa Leapman

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Juniper Shrug - Skeins 9 and 8

I've been focusing on my shrug this weekend and have worked skeins 9 and 8 on the sleeves.  I am alternating between sleeves, working through each skein.  I keep track of the rows I work with each skein in my notes, noting the row numbers from knitCompanion.  I have two copies of the chart, which I alternate between as well, so I don't have to reset anything or try to remember what I did on one sleeve when working on the other.

Based on my swatch I will need 11 repeats of the basic 12 row pattern for the sleeves.  I am currently working on repeat 9.

I will block the shrug once I have knit 11 repeats (putting my sleeve stitches on waste yarn) to make sure the sleeves are good before I finish them.  At that point I will also decide if I want to do anything else with the shrug, or call it done.

Pattern:  Created from Knitting Modular by Melissa Leapman

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Juniper Shrug - Skein 10

And the sleeves get longer.  I worked 27 rows in skein 10.  I probably could have worked 28 rows.  It doesn't look like I will use up all of the yarn on the sleeves, so I'm thinking I will pick up stitches in my I-cord bind off (unless I decide to pull it out entirely) and work some basic eyelet lace around and around to add some length and a little more coverage across the front.  For that I would start with skein 1, working the skeins in ascending order, rather than descending order.

Pattern:  Created from Knitting Modular by Melissa Leapman

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Juniper Shrug - Sleeves Started

After finishing up with the back, and skein 12, I switched to skein 11 to start the sleeves.  I worked the cast on and two repeats of the motif for each sleeve.  This left me with just less than 1 gram of skein 11 left.  Once I had finished with skein 11, I used skein 1 to work an I-cord bind off around the front edges.  I had all of those stitches on holders and I was tired of dealing with them.

Pattern:  Created from Knitting Modular by Melissa Leapman

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Juniper Ombre Shrug - Back Done

I finished up the back last night, working 48 rows, or one and one-half repeats of the motif.  This gives me 49 stitches between the spines.  I am including the 2 spine stitches for the sleeve, which takes the count up to 51, and will cast on 49 stitches to complete the sleeve, giving me 100 stitches total.  This will work out to 6 full repeats of the motif on the sleeves (3 on the front and 3 on the back of the sleeve), plus 26 stitches that I can use for a vertical motif, which will go down the top and bottom of the sleeves (13 stitches each).  I will finish off with a knit on border.  I've already picked out my patterns and recharted them in Stitchmastery so I can easily pull them in to knitCompanion.  For the vertical motif I am using #137 on page 225, but will replace the nupps with beads (I don't do nupps).  For the cuff I plan to use #180 on page 263.

I've spent the first part of this morning figuring out the cast on for the sleeves.  I tried to be all clever and work an I-cord bind off across the top, then an I-cord cast on for the front part of the sleeve, but it turned out that the I-cord cast on was too tight, even when I went up 2 needle sizes.  So I pulled it all out and will do a simple crochet cast on for the front of the sleeve and finish up with an I-cord bind off and edging.  I will work that in skein 1, so it will be a contrast edging.

Pattern:  Created from Knitting Modular by Melissa Leapman

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri

Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)

Juniper Ombre Shrug - Cast On

Last week I received my copy of Melissa Leapman's new book Knitting Modular - Shawls, Wraps and Stoles.  It contains design elements - wedges, vertical inserts, horizontal inserts, ends and knit on borders - that you can combine in a multitude of ways.  I learned from her Facebook page that she was holding a knit along for the book to encourage people to try their hand at designing their own shawls, wraps or stoles based upon the elements from the book.  I have been wanting to design a shrug that started out with a square worked from the center out, so I grabbed some yarn from my stash and sat down with the book.  The yarn set that I grabbed is the Juniper Ombre set from The Unique Sheep.  I have a number of these in DK weight yarn and also a number in fingering weight.  This is one of my fingering weight sets.

For working in the round she recommends a Magic-Loop Cast On, which I had not done before.  It did take me two tries to get it right, but once I got it I decided that I like it.  It creates a little button in the center, like a tiny little doughnut, and you can cinch it tight so there is no hole and it is very firm.  Before I grabbed my yarn I had flipped through the entire book, but when I sat down with my yarn and picked up the book again I opened it at random and just happened to like the lace wedge on the page I opened to.  It is #91 on page 148.  To work the square I cast on 8 stitches and then started with the first row of the chart.  The top picture is one full repeat of the chart.

Pattern:  Created from Knitting Modular by Melissa Leapman
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiri
Needle:  US 5 (3.75 mm)