Two Sisters, One Knitting Technique: Lace Work

This is my Rebel Scarf: an infinity scarf of my own design.
While it is a bit lacey, it is funky rather than precious. 

Last week Shelagh wrote about Fair Isle knitting and how she isn't fond of doing it but appreciates the look of it. So I thought I would share my thoughts about Lace Work.

Funnily enough, my feelings about working on lacey projects are pretty much like Shelagh's about Fair Isle! I love the look of it but I'm not keen on that knitting technique. But I had seen Shelagh working on a lot of different shawl patterns. She enjoyed making them and that joy is infectious. So I tried a few patterns that are considered lacey--you've seen them if you've been following our blog posts. Do you recall my Rebel Scarf--which was my own design? Or how about the Colorflo Shawl I made for myself?

Here's a close up of the lace pattern along the bottom edge of my small Colorflo scarf/shawl.
It's pretty and not as complicated as some lace patterns. 

But I still hadn't fallen in love with lace knitting the way Shelagh had. So when I saw the Sunray Shawl with its much simpler "lace effect" using strategically placed yarn-overs and knit-togethers, I thought I'd give lace knitting one more go. Besides, I had this cake of beautiful green merino yarn from artisan dyer Georgian Bay Fibre Co. and I knew the shawl would show that yarn to perfection.

Want a better view of the "rays" pattern? Check out our earlier post for some great photos!
Better yet, check out our Etsy shop for photos and info. 

I love the simplicity of the Sunray Shawl pattern, both in the work and the finished piece. And, as you can tell, lace patterns can range from delicate to funky. I'm glad Shelagh's passion pushed me to try lace knitting. But I don't think I have her patience to do that work often. I will stick to simpler pieces, I think.

Fashion Friday - Three Ways to Wear a Knit Shawl

For today's Fashion Friday, we're talking shawls. While not quite the same as ponchos, which are everywhere this season, shawls are truly versatile accessories. These mid-size triangles can be worn multiple ways. First up: two ways to wear your shawl for that funky and comfortable "boho" look.

To start your boho look, wear a sheer top over a tank or long-sleeved T-shirt. Worn with tights, ballet flats and a leather tote, your shawl can either be worn traditionally (shown above, over both shoulders, point down the back) or “rolled” to a narrow shape and tied (see below). This look would be great for running around or, better yet, for travelling. The rolled shawl is a nice accessory as you move through platforms or gates; then, once seated, unroll and throw over your shoulders to keep you warm.

The final look takes traditional accessories and amps them up for a fun look with your LBD. How about wearing your pearl necklace twisted around your wrist as a bracelet? Then add a funky cocktail ring and pearl-studded clutch to really make your look vintage. And we always we need a wrap, so why not keep the vintage look with a colourful shawl? While everything is vintage, this really ain't your grandma's look!

So there you have it: a shawl provides function, style, warmth.

Margaret's Green Sunray Shawl

It's finished! You may recall I started working on this project back in April. Yikes! Back then I named it the "Spring Greens" shawl because it seemed so timely. Now that I've completed this project, though, it's simply a green Sunray Shawl. No matter the name, I'm delighted with how it turned out.

While working on this project I came across this excerpt from "Answer to a Child's Question" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
And singing, and loving -- all come back together.
But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he--
"I love my Love, and my Love loves me!"

These few words really resonated with me because of knitting this shawl in April and seeing everything "green up" throughout the month. And the sentiment of this piece is just so . . . perfect. This shawl is exactly like Spring: green and bright and warming, both physically and to the heart. 

No matter the season, green is such an inviting and calm colour. It's great to surround yourself with green, sitting in the garden or wrapped in a shawl. Green allows you to be "brimful of gladness and love."

 

 

Y-Knot? 25 Ways to Wear a Scarf

Have you ever seen women walk by wearing a great scarf in a really cool way and wonder, "How'd she do that?" I know I have. Most mornings, I just stumble out the door and quickly wrap something around my neck without much thought.

But the the other day I was checking out Fall styles online and came across this very cool video. The young woman in the video, Wendy, uses rectangular or square fabric scarves, not knit scarves or shawls like we make. But I do think some of these style would work well with one of our scarves.

Now, I'm not saying I'm going to do all these styles, but I will look at one or two of these more closely and perhaps adopt them to up my style quotient a bit.

Shelagh's Lilac Sunray shawl at the top of the page is a great example of how to work with a triangular scarf shape. First, we folded the point of the scarf up to the centre top. Then we continued folding the scarf evenly, up to the long edge. That gave us a long, narrow scarf--kind of the shape of a man's tie. Then we simply tied it around the Judy's "neck" and let the pretty picot edges flutter freely. This is a great way to show of the pattern while keeping warm in the early Fall morning.

Below is a style I've always liked, but I think that statement gives away my age!

I always loved this look. But do you think it's too '80s?

Y-Knot? A Night to Dye For

Shelagh and I are so fortunate to have such talented ladies in our Knit night group. One of the ladies, Jenn aka The Yarn Therapist, suggested something different than the usual knitting together: she offered to teach us to dye our own yarns! Of course, the entire group heartily agreed because, well, let's face it, we're all yarn lovers. And who wouldn't want to create a custom yarn?

Jenn is an avid knitter, yarn lover, and she dyes her own yarns. She and another of the Ladies, Amanda aka Yarn Enabler, walked us through the process while Christina, aka The Cozy Knitter, was one of our cheerleaders.

So Jenn ordered some yarn blanks in both fingering/sock weight and worsted weight; made up over a dozen containers of dye; and brought along lots of aluminum containers to use for our artistic adventure. Someone brought apple fritters; someone brought coffee; and Shelagh and I brought sangria--'cause that's how we roll.

Shelagh chose two skeins of fingering weight 80/20 Superwash Merino and nylon. I chose two skeins of worsted weight Superwash Merino. And then we spent at least half an hour deciding on colours. Honestly, when confronted by so much choice, it really is difficult to narrow it down to what we wanted.

Did we want a variegated yarn of one colour? Or perhaps chunks of different colours? Or maybe a solid base with speckles of different colours? The choices seem to be endless!

At the top and above, Shelagh "painting" her skeins.

Shelagh went with a different look for each of her skeins; I decided one look for both--I figured I'd need two the same to make something like a scarf.



The photo left shows my two blank skeins in one container as well as each of them after I dyed them using colour Silver Gray.

Below is a photo of my finished skeins wrapped scarf-like on our dressmaker's Judy. Can you see the teal, turquoise, purple and black that I added? When Jenn was showing us the colour options, I fell in love with what I thought of as "peacock colours," those bright colours at the "eye" of the feather. I knew they would look amazing on the platinum background.

Now I want to come up for an appropriate name for my yarn; although it will be considered a one-of-a-kind yarn, I think it deserves a lovely name.

I have some ideas, but what would you call it?

FO Jamie Crescent Shawlette Finished!!!

Well when I left off with this shawlette last November, I had only the first few rows started on it. When I finally got back to it I couldn't figure out which row I was on even though I had tried to keep track. So I frogged it and cast on all 243 stitches again. I know this sounds frustrating and like a lot of work, but it actually worked out to my benefit. When I finished the first few rows again I realized the new work looked nothing like what I had frogged!

I really like knitting lace, although I have to pay close attention to my stitch count and all the repeats. That can be difficult when you are trying to get even one row done and people keep talking to you . . . even when they see you intently talking to yourself, knitting and continually glancing back at the pattern. My husband is the main culprit in my house. I actually had to tell him to not talk to me if he saw me knitting with the blue yarn I was using.

 Even though the lace pattern was only 14 rows done twice for the edging, it was time consuming while working it. But one of the great things about this pattern is that I learned short rows while knitting the main body of the shawlette. I didn't think it would be difficult, especially since the short-row sections were small. So it was probably one of the easier short row patterns to learn on.

It is now finally done, washed and blocked. I look forward to my next project.  I do have just over 65gm out of the 100gm  I started with. So what next for this lovely Baby Boo Lace? I may just have an idea or two!

WIP Wednesday - Spring Greens Shawl

Confession: Although I purchased a fair bit of yarn at the Toronto Knitters' Frolic on April 25, I had already purchased lots of yarn on April 1. No joke!

I couldn't help myself--about one week prior to April Fool's Day, one of my favourite indie dyers announced a sale. So on the morning of April 1, I signed in to the Georgian Bay Fibre Co. site and bought some yarn. Those four skeins at the top of the page are what I was able to get . . . man, they moved fast!

As soon as I received the package, I knew I wanted to start making something with these gorgeous yarns! I talked to Shelagh about a shawl--something I don't have a lot of experience with but she does--and she showed me a bunch of patterns she had. And when I saw the Sunray Shawl from Ravelry, I knew this would be it!

So, I picked the green yarn--a lovely blend of BFL and silk-- and I started on the shawl. I've renamed mine "Spring Greens Shawl" because of the lovely soft shades of green in the yarn: it really looks like fresh shoots of green seen everywhere in the Spring. And the light airiness of this wool makes me think of Spring and Summer.

Starting with a garter tab cast on, the eyelet details in this shawl lead out in a "ray" pattern.

Highlighter of my Life

Here's a close up of the Super Eyelet Shawl design by The Woolly Brew.

One of the ladies at my local "knit night" is an indie dyer known as "Yarn Enabler." You might have seen her yarns on her Etsy shop; she is known for her Fruity Feet and No. 2 Pencil sock yarn.

A couple of months ago, she posted about one of her yarns. I loved the colourway. It made me smile as it is so bright and cheery. She named it "Highlighter of My Life." I looked at it for several days then messaged her to see if it had been sold; it hadn't, so I told her I would buy it. She was happy. I was happy. And when she brought it with her to Knit Night, I fell in love all over again! It is 462yds of soft, fingering weight heaven! And because it's 75% superwash merino and 25% nylon, you can put it in the gentle cycle of the washer and dryer too. Bonus!

I brought it home and began going through patterns. Being a fingering weight, I had many patterns to choose from: socks, scarf, cowl, or shawl. I don't knit socks, so that wasn't happening. But I knew that whatever I made, it would be  a statement piece! The colours are so bright--like a hand full of highlighters. A scarf, cowl, or shawl would look great with a dark winter coat. Whatever I made would cheer up any day and brighten any outfit.

When I came across a pattern for a scarf called "Red Skies at Night," I knew it would make this yarn pop. So I started on it but just couldn't get going on it: too many other projects on the go. (You know what that's like! So I ripped it out and waited until I could really concentrate on it.

Then a FB post from Nova Scotia yarn store Baadeck Yarns linked to a pattern on Ravelry called Super Eyelet Shawl designed by The Woolly Brew. When I saw the picture, I knew it was the right shawl for this yarn.

I made a couple of attempts, ripping it out each time. Then I took a deep breath and read the pattern closely instead of skimming over it--a very bad habit I have!

Once I got into it, I got really excited about it: it worked up so beautifully. I could tell that it work well as the weather warms up and for the cooler evenings because it is so light weight.

It knit up rather quickly which made me really happy after the earlier frogging I did! It turned a little smaller because I used a sock weight and not a DK weight the pattern called for. It is more of a shawlette-type scarf. This suits me fine as I am keeping this one for myself!

And I still have about 46 gm left, so I may make another small shawl or a scarf.

WIP Wednesday - Jamie Crescent Shawlette

I enjoy making shawls but as you know from my post about my first shawl, I have always steered away from shawls that start at the top. There is something about casting on over 200 stitches that usually makes me turn away from a pattern. So when my husband brought me back a few skeins of wool from an Ottawa business trip (yes, he's well trained and he's mine, ladies!), I knew I had to "get over" my aversion because some of the yarns were perfect for a shawl.

One of the skeins he brought me was Baby Boo Lace from Turtlepurl Yarns, which is a 2-ply 80% Merino and 20% Bamboo. It is a lovely gradient of aqua blues to green and suits the name "Wanna Go for a Swim?"--don't you love some of the colour names? This Baby Boo Lace has 875 yards, so I can actually make a couple of small shawls or triangle scarves. And being Merino and bamboo, it's so soft and just eases through your fingers onto the needles.

So I found a pattern that was not an overly large shawl: the Jamie Crescent Shawlette designed by Julie Farmer courtesy of Red Heart, which I found the pattern in Creative Knitting of Spring 2013. It is the Easy Everyday Openwork & Lace pattern.

A couple of starts, a 243-stitch cast-on, and 10-stitch markers later, the cast on row is done and the shawl is under way!

Funny thing is, this pattern does start at the bottom, as most of my favourite shawl patterns do, but because this one is crescent-shaped (rather than a triangle) the wide bottom means I have to cast on a large number of stitches.

Unfortunately, so many projects on the go means something's gotta give. So, birthday knitting, consignment knitting and finishing other smaller projects have taken my time. But I will get to this eventually. I have to because it is sitting in my knitting room looking at me when I am working on other projects! It keeps saying, "What about me?" and making me feel guilty me when I pick up another project!

FO Friday - Colorflo Shawl

This year Shelagh and I visited the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters' Fair for the first time. This wonderful fair has been organized by the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitters' Guild for over 20 years. The Fair is amazing because it gives knitters a chance to see small-ish vendors, artisan spinners and dyers whose yarns are mostly available online and not in yarn stores (or only in a few stores). It really offered a diverse variety of yarns and all things knitting related. And I have no idea how we hadn't heard of it before!

A few weeks before the the Fair, Shelagh and I checked out the various vendors' websites and prioritized those we wanted to visit. So, when we arrived at the site, we headed straight to the vendors we most wanted to see. And, yes, we did buy from some of them! But we'll save those for later posts. 

After visiting our top priority vendors, we wandered to look at everyone else.

That's when we stumbled on sweaterkits. They had beautiful yarns and yarn/pattern kits. I fell in love with the Mulberry silk cakes: gorgeous colour combinations, so it was difficult to choose one. But I decided on the cake made up of purples and blues. Gorgeous! And the accompanying pattern looked quite straightforward.

I started knitting right away. The silk felt wonderful in my hands and the shawl took shape very quickly.

The cool part about this yarn is that the artisan dyer who created it figured out how to dye 300 yards of yarn in five different colours! The result is that you follow the pattern and don't have to switch skeins for the different colours--which means only two ends to weave in when done. Plus, the following the pattern means it colour blocks naturally.

It was quite thrilling to watch the colours and pattern appear while I knit.

I knit the pattern in about a week. I didn't knit constantly, but I did knit some of it every day. I loved getting to the lace edge part of the pattern, too. Very easy and so pretty in those last colours.

I've blocked it and will be photographing it shortly for selling in our shop. I'm really in love with this one. Oh, who am I kidding? I love everything I knit!

My first shawl ever!

It's Finished Object (FO) Friday! So I'd like to share my experience knitting my first shawl ever.

A while ago, I was visiting one of my fairly local yarn stores with my sister Irene. She loved to peruse the yarns and patterns there. As I was leaving, I saw this little bundle of wine-coloured fluff. There were 10 tiny 25-gram balls in the bundle. I managed to feel a little bit of one ball of fluff: it was so soft. Although it was mostly nylon, it also had a bit of silk in it. I had never bought anything with silk in it before, and here was a good amount of yarn marked down. Sold! 

When I got the yarn home I realized two things: first, that I wanted to knit a shawl, although I had never made one before; and second, this bundle of yarn meant I had enough to dive in and make one. So I started looking at patterns. But I discovered most of them required me to start at the top and work my way down. Having never done a shawl before, I found the thought of casting on over 200 stitches very daunting. So I put the yarn aside for a bit . . . until I discovered that there was a yarn store in my own town! It was a five-minute drive away and had been there for a couple of years. I don't know what I had been during that time! So, on one of my visits, I told the store owner about this yarn and about my aversion to huge cast-ons; she suggested the "Bottom Up Birch" pattern.

I went home, found the pattern on Ravelry, and started knitting the shawl that night. Then another discovery: I noticed the yarn had tiny clear sequins! I loved it even more then. After all, a girl has to have some sparkle! The sequins have been so subtly placed that they do not take away from the either the pattern or the yarn.

See what I mean about the sequins not overwhelming the pretty pattern?

I have learned much from knitting this shawl. The main lesson is not to be afraid of lace weight yarn. There are many beautiful lace weight yarns and you usually only need 1 skein for a shawl. And, if you really want to try something new, just try it!