there and back again

It is done! Melanie Berg’s Sunwalker shawl has been in my Ravelry queue since November 2015 when I bought the yarn at Knit, Purl on a Thanksgiving trip to Portland. While it took me a long time to start it, it took just a month and a half to finish. I think that speaks to both the simplicity of the pattern and how much I enjoyed it. I certainly intended for it to be a longer knit, but there you go. Couldn’t put it down.

I did need to refer to the pattern at the beginning and end of each row to make sure I had my increases correct, but the fabric itself is quite simple. The textured sections are moss stitch and the lace panel pattern was not only easy to memorize, but easy to read from the row below.

I remember taking the photo above and thinking “omg am I ever going to get to the lace section???” As the rows of moss stitch grew, the long stretches of k1/p1 motion was getting harder on my hands so I switched back and forth between working on this and the other things I have going. I mean, what else is a girl to do while watching all of the tennis?? 

The first rows of the lace felt like a huge milestone only to be eclipsed by the first rows of the second moss stitch band. I must admit, once I started that last part I ignored the rational me who knew it would be an awful lot of knitting for one day and just kept going until I finished. The I-cord bind off wasn’t cumbersome but took a long time. It is a lovely way to finish off an edge though. Taking stock, this thing is huge. Like I wasn’t sure how to take pictures of it huge, and I am likely not going to block it and the lace looks just fine without it huge. As for me, I like the larger shawls because they wrap easily and in many ways. 

I’m not totally sure where the color name ‘Shire’ came from but I’m assuming it is a Lord of the Rings reference, so instead of Sunwalker I’m calling this There and Back Again. We still have some chilly days ahead of us in April so despite the fact that I did not finish this in time to wear it for St. Patrick’s Day I’m hopeful it will get some use before it gets too hot. 

Pattern: Sunwalker by Melanie Berg (my Ravelry page)

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in ‘Shire’

Needle: US 6

Size: 124” x 30”

Update:

I decided to block it. It is now more like 140" x 40" Huge! And awesome. The lace panel looks way better and even the textured seed stitch sections are improved after the soak and stretch. 

more mosaic

I’ve been enjoying a return to crochet lately. I’ve also enjoyed starting a bunch of new things. And (ahem) acquiring more yarn. This new project ticks off all three of those boxes at once! I have a nephew coming this summer and I decided it was the perfect time to try out a crochet blanket pattern I found recently. It might seem ambitious, but I think it will actually go pretty quickly! 

Picking out colors for a little boy was SO FUN. I ended up with a slant rhyme to nautical yellow and blue. While the teal and mustard are not what I’d call bright, they are still saturated and vibrant. The natural colored background (Scheepjes calls it English Tea) color sets them off well and hopefully will hold up better than white. I wonder, does “English tea” suggest the color of a cup of tea, or that the yarn was dropped in tea and rescued? It makes me chuckle as I work to think of fishing yarn out of a cup of tea. 

The Crossroads Throw I finished was so fun that I went searching for other mosaic crochet projects on Ravelry and came up with this pattern. The center panel will be the teal and tea waves, and there is a border strip with the mustard ‘snake’ all around the edges. It was a little slow getting started and reading the pattern, but now that I’m used to it things are moving along. 

lavender

With all the tiny yarn shawl projects on the needles, sometimes you just have to work on something quick and easy. It seems like every time I stop in Michael’s I find myself over by the cotton yarn bins picking out a couple of balls for crocheting. 

This time I was with a friend who picked out these pretty spring colors. The fun thing was, when I got home and started working on these I realized that the purple ball was scented like lavender! That made working on these especially nice - I will have to keep my eye out for more of the smelly ones. 

I used the scented solid in the border rows and the variegated ball in the center and for the edging which means each of the finished squares look quite different from each other. These four squares used up all of two balls of cotton and filled up an evening with lavender scent and relaxing making.

yet another

While it’s ironic that I haven’t made much more progress on the Shetland shawl, whose last hank of yarn was the reason I wound all of the things, I have enjoyed the casting on of not one but THREE new shawls. All triangle, all fingering weight, two of which are just one skein big. This third shawl uses another King’s Mountain Art Fair purchase. It has SPARKLES in it and is a variegated party of some of my favorite colors: gray, purple, and turquoise.

The pattern is super simple and has some really neat slipped/dropped stitch texture to it that I think suits the relatively busy variegation very well. I am enjoying the way the colors are playing in the stockinette and also the funny fact that my needles and silly sheep stitch markers coordinate. It’s a simple thing, but oddly satisfying whilst taking photos. This yarn bowl is on my nightstand so I can get in a row here and there before going to sleep. Hopefully the mischievous kitty who likes to play with yarn can ignore it for now!

another beginning

I was inspired by my trip to Stitches West this past weekend to start more of the things. I just got myself a bunch of very pretty yarn that I really want to use! Before that though, I have a lot of pretty yarn already in the stash that I've got plans for. I should at least start on some of those projects before diving in to something totally brand new (I am itching to start that sweater...).

This lovely ball of yarn is one of those that got wound earlier this month when I needed the last hank of my Shetland shawl yarn wound. Turns out it was great to have this ready to go when inspiration struck, I literally had to cast on just 8 stitches and away I went on a new knitting adventure. This is one of my purchases from the King's Mountain Art Fair. I remember it was one of those skeins I couldn't put down - the color combination is unusual with orange, yellow, and purpley blue. 

I found a pattern that looks like it plays well with irregularly variegated yarns like this one. It's got garter stitch stripes alternated with some open dropped stitch and simple yarn over bands. It's pretty mindless knitting, mindless meant in the most positive of ways, and I've already made a lot of progress in just a couple evenings of working on it. The rest of my knitting projects require quite a bit of attention, so it's nice to have something simpler to just breeze through some days. Maybe I won't be so happy in a few months when none of these are finished yet, but that's just borrowing trouble and  for now I'm happy to be digging into the stash and getting a few more things started. 

Crossroads throw

I love these poofs. I attached gold pom poms to the edge of my mosaic throw and it was just what the project needed. The extra pop of color sets off the mosaic nicely and their texture and floppiness give it a whimsical finish. Because it is a crochet fabric it can tend to be a little bit stiff, but the weight of the pom poms on the edges help to get it to drape.

I ended up taking the eight pom poms and splitting them evenly down two sides of my mosaic square.  The diamond pattern gave me a handy guide to help with spacing, and I just tied them on with yarn pulled through the center of each ball. This evening I made some more pom poms in peach and a slightly smaller size (2.5") to consider adding in between the gold ones, but after attaching one side with some temporary knots I decided against it. I really like just the gold, and it was *gasp* just too much pom pom. 

Overall I enjoyed making it and learning this new crochet technique. The finished fabric looks super impressive and this was a perfect use of a self striping Caron cake. I like the slant rhyme to primary colors that I ended up with after adding the gold, and I think the navy was a great choice for a background color to contrast with all the peaches, pinks, and browns in the cake. 

I really like Dave's suggestion to use this as a lap throw. It isn't really a blanket but it covers my legs down to my ankles on the couch which is just enough to keep me cozy. I can't help but think that this would totally look cute thrown over the back of a llama. Maybe it's all the llama prints I've been seeing around lately... no llamas here, so I'll be keeping it for myself. 

Pattern: Southwestern Mosaic Cross Throw, free on Ravelry (my Ravelry page)

Yarn: Caron Cakes in 'Cinnamon Swirl', Loops and Threads Impeccable in 'Navy' and 'Gold'

Hook: US J (6 mm)

Size: about 36" square

Stitches West 2019

Wow, that was fun! Yesterday I spent a couple of hours walking around a convention center hall full of yarn. It was fiber paradise! Stitches West comes to town every year, and I've never gone. This year I looked through some of the classes and thought about signing up, but decided instead to just go to the Market portion of it. I may have bought a few things... 

It was so fun to walk around and meet the folks that spin, dye, and make for a living. There were vendors from all over the US. That cute llama print on the left is a project bag I bought from a pair of sisters that were in town from Chicago. Obviously we chatted about how great the weather is out here. It's cold right now for Californians, but we forget how cold February is everywhere else! I was really happy to meet some more shop owners from around my local area as well. They are further afield than my usual haunts, but I'm excited to go visit their brick and mortar stores and discover new places. I can probably get Dave to go if I sell it as new restaurant and coffee shop discovery, too. 

On to the yarn. The greens on the left are going to turn into a sweater. For SURE the best thing vendors can do is have projects made up with their yarns. Kits are a close second. This particular vendor had a very pretty striped sweater on display that looked doable for me. It's an a-line stye with an interesting hem and raglan sleeves, so it doesn't look overly complicated to make and I think it will be a forgiving style on my frame. I didn't love my last sweater attempt (also my first...) so this is kind of a risk to take with such nice yarn (it's got yak in it!) but I am looking at it as treating myself and getting over this fear of making garments.  

In the middle are some mini skeins that I was happy to find. I recently bought myself a colorwork mitten pattern book and these are destined to become Latvian mittens. Two of them are just 25g and the bright peach is 50g, which should be the perfect amount. I would have liked to see more vendors with mini skeins like these; there were just a couple. 

On the right, continuing in the peach theme, are a couple of skeins that I just really liked when I saw them. It was hard not to buy even MORE yarn from each of those two vendors, but I limited myself to just one each given that I don't know what I'll use them for. My view is that I should take advantage of the supply when it presents itself! There are some really creative dyers out there. I'm not sure why peach was grabbing me so much, but I definitely kept gravitating to it at nearly every stall. Maybe it's the gray days we've been having?

Speaking of creative dyers, THIS lady. Wow. I loved all of her yarns and so many came home with me, both these four and the two below. The silky feel of her fingering weight base also got me. She was from Missouri, so there is no way I would have just happened upon her without going to this market. Lucky me! The four yarns above are a somewhat unusual color combination, but they are a kit she had made up for a shawl that looks like so much fun to make. I was intrigued. Two of the colorways may also be named for characters in Outlander... That was something fun about this vendor - most of her yarns are in collections that are named for characters in movies or shows. Think like Harry Potter, Outlander, Doctor Who... I don't know why it is so much more appealing to buy something named "Jamie Fraser" than "variegated turquoise" but it is. A very clever idea on her part, and likely an endless source of inspiration for colorways. 

I know there are a lot of places to get yarn online, but I really enjoyed the opportunity to walk around and touch the yarns. Apparently I like some nylon and/or cashmere blended in with the wool. There's something I wouldn't have known without seeing like a zillion different yarns. It was also really fun to meet some of the folks behind all the fibers. I'll remember them and their yarns later on when I want to buy more. In like, 5 years. Because this is a lot. So much for a dwindling stash! I'm a lucky lady.