Category Archives: Knitting

October 2006 goals

Posted on 01 October 2006 by Kris

I actually did pretty well with last month’s goals. Didn’t complete all of them, but hey, what else is new?

  1. Finish Tina – Done!
  2. Finish Tubey – Done! (It’s not quite dry yet, though; pictures to come!)
  3. Finish at least one toe sock – Not done.
  4. Work on Eris – Done. Just barely.
  5. Hold off on pipeline projects until completing at least one of the above goals. – Done!
  6. Start Peacock Feathers – Done!

And for this month’s goals:

  1. Finish chart 3 and at least part of chart 4 for Peacock Feathers
  2. Finish at least one toe sock
  3. Finish Eris again. (Hopefully it’ll be more wearable than the last time I’d “completed” it.)
  4. Finish at least one new WIP

Not quite as ambitious this time around, as I’ll be out of town for nearly a week, and I won’t be making progress on my older WIPs because they’re not great for travel knitting. I’m not even going to try taking Peacock Feathers onto the plane – the US0 Inox Express needles can cause injury, as I found out the hard way, so any screener with half a brain wouldn’t let them through. The toe socks involve three balls of yarn dangling from the needles, since I’m just carrying the yarn along the side of the foot. And Eris, being nearly a complete sweater, would take up more room than I’d like in my carry-on and I’m (admittedly very stubbornly) refusing to check in any baggage.

So, smaller projects are good; I’m swatching for a new pair of socks and I’ve started a scarf out of the Louisa Harding Grace I picked up when we did our mini yarn crawl a few weeks ago, though I may actually frog the scarf and start over with a new stitch pattern. Haven’t decided yet. But both projects will be coming to Rhode Island with me.

I’m really going to be focusing more on my family (the entire reason for my trip) and on seeing the sights, but of course, I’m not opposed to stopping by a good yarn shop if one is in the area. Any recommendations? I’ll be staying in Newport and will not have a car, so any shops I visit would have to be fairly accessible by public transportation.

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And on to the next

Posted on 21 September 2006 by Kris

As those of you who know me have probably already guessed, I started Peacock Feathers on the very same day I unpinned Tina.

The picture isn’t true to color – offline, it’s not quite as bright and has slightly more green in it. But other than that, this is what my new WIP looked like as of yesterday afternoon (before I knit a few more rows on it) Then, I’d just barely finished chart 2; I’m now nearly half a chart past that point.

I’d always admired this shawl, but up until fairly recently, it wasn’t really high on my list of things to knit. I think a big part of that has to do with its size – Tina is really about as large a shawl as I can stand, and Peacock Feathers, knit with laceweight, is quite a bit bigger than that. Jessica took a picture of me wearing her Peacock Feathers Shawl (knit with the recommended yarn and needle size), and as you can see, it comes down to my knees. It’s a good size for Jess, but not so much for someone a foot shorter.

So I figured that, if I ever got around to knitting it, I would use cobweb weight yarn and smaller needles.

And then a little while ago, Jen and Kristen blogged about how The Grove had new colors of Lacey Lamb in stock (a yarn I could never resist touching, but which Susan had previously only stocked in some seriously lousy colors). So, that Saturday, I went in, was immediately drawn to the two remaining balls of turquoise Lacey Lamb, and knew right then and there that it was destined to become Peacock Feathers.

I really like working with this yarn so far. I’m knitting it on US0 Inox Express needles, and I think that, for me, it’s the perfect combination.

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Variation of a shawl

Posted on 16 September 2006 by Kris

I actually unpinned this from the blocking board on Tuesday morning, but since there hasn’t been sufficient light to take pictures of it after work, I’m just now getting around to posting this:

It’s official, I’m in love with this shawl.

Detail shots:

And now, the notes.

Pattern:
Tina Shawl by Dorothy Siemens (Fiddlesticks Knitting)

Yarn:
Jaggerspun Superfine Merino in Ruby

Needles:
US3 / 3.25mm Inox Express circulars for the border and lace edging
US4 / 3.5mm Inox Express circulars for the center triangle
US5 / 3.75mm Inox Express circulars for the i-cord edging

Modifications:

  • Made it triangular, rather than square. I used Birch (from Rowan issue 34) as a model for the center triangle’s construction.
  • Incorporated short rows into the edging, to get the angle of the top edges lined up with the rest of the shawl.
  • Added i-cord along the top edge. It makes a really nice edge, at least on the border and edging. It looks nice along the center triangle, too, but didn’t help much with the slight rippling there, despite how severely I blocked it. Perhaps going down a needle size for that section’s i-cord would have been better…

This shawl was a fantastic learning experience for me, thanks to all the modifications, and it was also a lot of fun to knit!

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Just around the corner

Posted on 02 September 2006 by Kris

Tina’s pretty much the only thing I’ve worked on this week. I’ve just turned the corner, putting me over halfway through the edging:

At this rate, I’ll finish the edging sometime next week.

I won’t be done after the edging chart, though. From the earliest planning stages, I intended to finish off the top of the shawl with an attached i-cord edging. Which is going to be a monotonous pain in the butt, but I think it will be worth it. Besides, if I work on it at Rebecca’s, that will help the task fly by.

I can’t wait to have the finished shawl in my hands. I’m so incredibly pleased with how this is turning out so far. I keep putting it down and pinning sections of it out, just so I can get a better idea of how it will look after blocking. It’s definitely a lot nicer in person than it is in the pictures, considering my complete inability to accurately photograph the color.

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September 2006 goals

Posted on 01 September 2006 by Kris

Progress has indeed been made:

  1. Finish seed stitch ribbed socks – Done!
  2. Finish chart 3 of Tina – Done!
  3. Work on at least one other WIP – Done!

Okay. I’m done with light goals for now. Time for more demanding ones!

  1. Finish Tina
  2. Finish Tubey
  3. Finish at least one toe sock
  4. Work on Eris
  5. Hold off on pipeline projects until completing at least one of the above goals.
  6. Start Peacock Feathers

I once thought it would be nice to have only one project of each type on the needles, and I stuck to it for a very short while, but then I got bored with the toe socks and the multiple problems with my Eris sleeves got too depressing and, well… yeah. But! This month’s goals, assuming I complete them all, should help me get back on track with the one-project-of-each-type thing.

On a blog-related note, I’ll be doing some restructuring in the background later today. Hopefully I don’t break anything, but if the blog goes down for a bit, well, at least you’ll know why…

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