Elizabeth of York - Making Progress

I have been slowly making progress on my Elizabeth of York.  Photographing it is a bit of a challenge.  I ended up pinning it to my dress maker dummy.  I did have a mistake that I had to fix - discovered after I had already worked a couple of rows past the mistake.  I ended up dropping the stitches down and pulling them back up in the correct colors.  It was not easy and I'm pretty amazed that I managed to do it.  I'm taking this one slowly on purpose, only working on it in good light and when I'm not tired or watching TV.  I really don't want to make another color mistake because they are not easy to fix.  Here is a view of the back side.

Pattern:  Elizabeth of York by Alice Starmore (from Tudor Roses)
Yarn:  Alice Starmore Hebridean 2 Ply in Wild Orchid and Spindrift
Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm) and US 3 (3.25 mm)

October Vest - Finished!

I finished this up last weekend, on Saturday, but we were at The Unique Sheep Retreat Sunday through Wednesday so I didn't get a chance to block it until Thursday.  I think my gauge on this one was a little bit looser than the gauge on the December Vest.  This one seems to be a bit more drapey and slightly larger.  It still looks great on me, which is all that matters.  What actually inspired me to knit this was a forum post on Ravelry looking for some Dream in Color Classy in Coolfire.  I had used that colorway back in 2012 on the Briar Rose Bolero, which I think I knit the first year I participated in Camp Loopy.  When I was pulling it from the stash box it was stored in I decided to try and use up the rest of the yarn in the box so I could put more stash away.  My knitting mojo has been a little bit shakey lately.  I have a number of projects on the needles but they aren't really inspiring me right now so I decided I just needed to do something different.  This vest knits up very quickly and is a great accessory.

The needle called for us a US 8 (5.0 mm), with a stitch gauge of 19 stitches in 4 inches.  Unfortunately, no row gauge is given, which makes the stitch gauge not as useful.  To be complete a pattern really should give both.  The gauge I ended up with on this vest is 18 sts and 24 rows in 4 inches, which is not the same as I ended up with on my December Vest (17.5 sts and 27 rows in 4 inches).  The December Vest is also not as drapey.  They are both Dream in Color Classy, but the yarn for the December Vest is Classy with Nylon.  Both are listed as worsted weight yarns.  But the Dream in Color Classy has 250 yards per 113 grams (2.2 yards/g) while the Dream in Color Classy with Nylon has 340 yards in 170 grams (2 yards/g).  So the Classy is just a little thinner than the Classy with Nylon.  I actually started out with a US 6 needle on this vest but it seemed to be coming out too small (just based on the yoke rows compared with the December Vest), so I went up to the US 7.  It just goes to show you what a difference in the finished project a little difference like this can make.

One other thing that you may notice is that the yarn appears to darken as it goes from the top of the vest to the bottom.  That is not an artifact of the picture, it really does darken.  That is one of the challenges of using yarn like this - consistency between skeins.  When I was caking the skeins I noticed that both of the skeins started out lighter and became darker and that one skein was darker than the other.  I caked them so that as I knit from the cake I would start out with the lighter end and work to the darker end, and when I cast on I started with the lighter of the two skeins.

Pattern:  Practically by Kelly Herdrich
Yarn:  Dream in Color Classy 2014 October Dream Club
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Peacock Feathers Shawl - First Section Done

I spent some time last week working on this project and got to the point where I used the Rowan yarn.  I've since knit one of the feathers but don't have a picture of it yet.  I'm liking how the colors are working out.

Pattern:  Peacock Feathers Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila
Yarn:  Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Starke 6 and Rowan baby silk merino dk
Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)

October Vest - Cast On

This is the October 2014 Dream in Color club yarn.  I bought 2 skeins with the idea that I would make a vest.  I made a vest with the December 2014 club yarn and it is one of my favorite vests to wear.  I took it to Norway with me to wear over my turtlenecks.  I needed an easy project for travel so I pulled out the yarn and cast on.  I actually dug through my patterns to find the printed version I had used before as it had all my notes on it.

Pattern:  Practically by Kelly Herdrich
Yarn:  Dream in Color Classy
Needle:  US 7 (4.5 mm)

Peacock Feathers Shawl - Take Two

It turned out that the Hikoo Trenzado yarn I was sent for the first incarnation of the Peacock Feathers Shawl was not a good match for the Zauberball Starke 6.  The pattern calls for Rowan baby merino silk dk, but that yarn is not really a dk weight.  It has 135 m / 50 g or 2.7 m/g and the Zauberball has 400 m / 150 g or 2.66 m/g, the Hikoo Trenzado in contrast has 100 m / 50 g or 2 m/g.  You might not think that would make a big difference, but when it comes to yarn substitutions, it does.  It is important to choose a yarn with a similar grist.  Ellen and I went back and forth over email while I was still in Norway, but in the end we decided to abandon that pattern.  Finding a good yarn to replace the Rowan was just getting too complicated.  But I didn't want to abandon the pattern, so I ordered the yarn called for and it arrived today.  It is always tricky picking yarn from the little pictures online, but I think I did okay.

The trip to Norway was for work, so I didn't really get any time for play, although I did get to a yarn store and did by a few skeins of yarn.  The hotel room was nice, not overly big.  It had two beds, but they were also not big, basically twin-size, as opposed to the two queen sized beds you might get in a US hotel.  The floor was hardwood, the shower was small, and the bathroom floor was heated.  It snowed every day that I was there and I had to get up at 1 am to get a picture of a snowplow that was making the circuit under my window.

They do have some pretty cool snow removal equipment.  It is a beautiful country, and the people were very nice, I'm just sorry I didn't get a chance to see more of it.

Pattern:  Peacock Feathers Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila
Yarn:  Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Starke 6 and Rowan baby silk merino dk
Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)

Peacock Feathers Shawl - Cast On

A month ago Ellen of Earthfaire approached me to do a pattern test knit of the Peacock Feather Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila.  She had come up with two potential yarn combinations and offered me  choice.  I went with the teal.  The pattern is a little bit of a challenge, being translated from Russian and there are typos and errors.  It took me three tries before I liked how things were starting out.  The pattern has you work backwards yarn overs, which I interpreted as meaning wrap the yarn in the opposite direction you normally would.  This results in the orientation of the yarn over being reversed - leading leg on the back side of the needle - and I am guessing that is done to force you to twist the yarn over when you knit it to close up the hole.  I tried working it with backwards yarn overs and just didn't like doing them.  Next I tried just working regular yarn overs and not twisting them, but that left holes along the edge that didn't seem right - the edge just wasn't substantial enough.  Finally I decided to work regular yarn overs and the knit them through the back loop on the next row.  That seems to be working for me, the edge is not too tight, and it looks good.

The next challenge came right at the beginning of the work.  The instructions have 5 rows, but then state to repeat rows 5 and 6 until you have done 96 rows total.  I did a Google translate of the Russian instructions and they stated to repeat the last two rows - so rows 4 and 5.

Pattern:  Peacock Feather Shawl by Aksenik Lyudmila
Yarn:  Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Starke 6 and Hikoo Trenzado
Needle:  US 2.5 (3 mm)

Another Scarf-in-a-Scarf - Finished!

I had been making pretty good progress on my Scarf-in-a-Scarf, knitting during telecons or when I was reading documents, but yesterday I got a lot done because my work computer decided to do the Windows 10 1803 update.  All morning long I got to sit and knit and watch my computer update.  I actually made it to the last 20 rows yesterday, and then got a few more done today during a telecon, so I finished up the last half dozen rows this afternoon after coming home.  Now I'm going to need another easy project for my work bag.

Pattern:  Scarf-in-a-Scarf
Yarn:  Hand Painted Knitting Yarns Precious
Needle:  US 7