Sunny Side Shawl - Finished!

I finished this up on June 23 and posted it to the Loopy Ewe web site.  This is my June Camp Loopy 2019 project.  I like the colors, but am not so crazy about the yarn.  It is dyed as a knitted blank and then caked.  The yarn is kinky as it comes off of the cake and that kink translates into uneven stitches, especially given the amount of stockinette stitch in the pattern.  I think there was an option to work the body in garter, which might have been the better way to go with this particular yarn.  Regardless, I will still give it to Carol.  I showed her pictures last weekend and told her about the uneven stitches and she doesn't care.  And it is her colors.  I will try blocking it again to see if I can get things to even out a bit more before I send it to her.

Pattern:  Simone's Shawl by Annette Junge
Yarn:  Canon Hand Dyes William Merino Gradient
Needle: US 4 (3.5 mm)

Sunny Side Shawl - Halfway Point

I really wasn't going to participate in Camp Loopy this year.  I haven't made it through for the last couple of years.  I've signed up, but not managed to complete the projects, so I was going to pass and just focus on knitting from my voluminous stash.  Then I saw the theme for this year - Space Camp, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.  How could I not join?

The requirement for the June project was that it had to have been published in 2019.  I paged through the potential projects on Ravelry and chose something simple, a one skein shawl that would let me use up all of the skein.  I bought a skein of Canon Hand Dyes William Merino Gradient.  I used the yarn on a previous Camp Loopy project.  I have mixed feelings about this yarn.  I like the color changes, but I don't like the fact that the yarn still has the memory of being knitted as part of the dyeing process so your stitches don't come out nice and even.

The first picture was taken yesterday, just before I had reached the halfway mark, and this picture was taken this morning, just after the halfway mark.

Pattern:  Simone's Shawl by Annette Junge
Yarn:  Canon Hand Dyes William Merino Gradient
Needle: US 4 (3.5 mm)

Goldwing in Green - Finished!

Finally!  I started this back on August 9, intending it to by my third Camp Loopy Project.  Unfortunately other events intervened to prevent that from happening and once I had missed the deadline I didn't have the incentive to keep working on it, so it languished.  The finished shawl is lovely, but knitting it was, well, boring.  It is just the same 10 rows over and over again.  It wasn't challenging enough to keep me fully engaged, and it wasn't mindless enough to read while knitting.  I did have a little glitch at the end.  I ran out of yarn 3 repeats short of finishing, so my wing is a little clipped.  The two skeins did not weigh exactly the same, the skein I started out with weighed 97.5 grams, the second skein weighed 97.3 grams.  I thought I had compensated enough for what I perceived as a minor difference, but apparently not.  Lesson learned - weigh both skeins before casting on and start with the lighter skein.  This is a great pattern if you want to use up all of your yarn, and if you want to show off a special skein.

Pattern:  Goldwing by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Canon Hand Dyes William Merino Gradient in Emeralds
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Goldwing in Green - Over Half-way

I started the second skein this week and am working the decrease part of the pattern now.  I did one repeat with no increases or decreases before beginning the decreases.  I am working this skein from the inside, which is the dark green.  I do like the subtle change of the color from light to dark and back again.  This is the first time I've used this yarn and I'm very curious how it will block.  The yarn is dyed, I believe, by knitting a blank and painting it in order to get the gradual color change.  Then it gets caked up.  The yarn is still a little kinky and the fiber feels a little compressed, I'm hoping it will bloom a little when I block it.

Pattern:  Goldwing by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Canon Hand Dyes William Merino Gradient in Emeralds
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Goldwing in Green - Making Progress

The shrugs are such easy mindless knitting that it is easy for me to just lose myself in them, but I decided that I really needed to work on some of my other WIPs, so this past week I picked this one back up, using it for my TV watching knitting, and reserving the shrug for knitting while reading.  This was going to be my third Camp Loopy project, but my test knit took precedence, so that didn't happen.  It is definitely looking more wing-like, and the green is gradually getting darker as I get closer to the end of the cake.  The pattern is actually pretty boring, and I have found myself a couple of times forgetting the increase stitch that increases the depth of the center section.  Fortunately I've caught it pretty quickly when I do it, and I'm trying to be a bit more mindful of it.

Pattern:  Goldwing by Ambah O'Brien
Yarn:  Canon Hand Dyes William Merino Gradient in Emeralds
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)

Camp Loopy 2017 Project Three - Goldwing in Green

Having to completely restart my test knit I realized that I also needed to rethink my Camp Loopy Project Three plans.  I had planned on making a cardigan, but I had substituted a different yarn and new I would have to make modifications and just didn't feel like I could devote that much time and effort to the project so back I went to Ravelry to find an easier pattern to make.  I decided to look at Ambah O'Brien's shawls, knowing that they often used multiple skeins so I could more easily meet the yardage requirements, and she has been very prolific in recent years so I could find something published in 2015 or later (the requirements for the project).  I settled on her shawl Goldwing.  It has a simple construction and can be easily modified to use as much yarn as I need to in order to meet the yardage requirements.  For yarn I went with Canon Hand Dyes William Merino Gradient.  They have some lovely gradient yarn colors but I decided to go with something simple.  The color is Emeralds but for the title of my project I went with Goldwing in Green because I like the alliteration.  I'm working the first skein from light to dark and when I get to the middle and start the decreases I'll work the second skein from dark to light.  I went down a needle size from what is recommended in the pattern because my yarn is a little lighter weight than the one called for in the pattern.

Pattern:  Goldwing by Ambah O'Brien

Yarn:  Canon Hand Dyes William Merino Gradient in Emeralds
Needle:  US 4 (3.5 mm)