Hope Springs Eternal

Warning! Embrace the Lace Spoiler Ahead!

Sometimes it’s hard to believe that Spring really has arrived but here is some proof. (Hmm, looks like the garden needs a good weeding.)

And this daffodil's for you, Christy! It should open any day now. I hope yours bloom soon too.

I was very surprised and excited to receive my first Embrace the Lace club shipment this morning. Since my last shipment from Woolgirl took almost three weeks to arrive I wasn’t expecting it quite this soon, especially since it was only shipped last Wednesday.

If this first package is any indication of what’s to come, it’s going to be great fun embracing the lace this year.

The theme of the first project is Hope, which is expressed through a lace stole designed by Chrissy Gardiner, knit in a specially-dyed colourway of Malabrigo Lace called Verde que te quiero verde. (I’m not sure how that translates into English but I know it involves green). Besides the yarn and the pattern we also received a large knitting tote, a key chain, a stitch marker, and some other goodies. While I’m not sure that I would wear this sort of lace stole I think part of the adventure of joining a club like this is to go outside of your comfort zone and knit the projects as they come. I can always gift it if it doesn’t suit me.

But first things first. I am going to finish my Aeolian Shawl before I begin any new lace projects. Call me crazy but after adding an extra agave repeat and working my way up through part of the edging I decided that I would have enough yarn for yet another repeat and frogged back 24 rows and added it in. I am now on the edging for what I hope is the third and final time. Wish me luck!

Ups and Downs

First the good news.

Some more birthday yarn arrived yesterday.

Dream in Color Smooshy in “Pansy Go Lightly” and Paca Peds in “Fireside”, neither of which I’ve tried before. They’ve been hanging out on my coffee table, where I could admire them while knitting the Aeolian Shawl.

Oh, yeah, the Aeolian Shawl. That brings me to the bad news.

Knitting the Aeolian Shawl has brought me much happiness over the past few days. The pattern is interesting but not difficult and since it incorporates several different stitch patterns you are motivated to finish one section so you can get to the next. I’m even enjoying the nupps, now that I know to knit them at a very loose gauge. So what’s the problem, you ask?

Right from the beginning I’ve been struggling with the issue of yarn requirements. The (very talented) designer, Elizabeth Freeman knit the pattern using three different laceweight yarns, resulting in three different sized shawls. The two smaller she called “shoulderettes” and even though she knit the same number of pattern repeats for each, one came out considerably larger than the other because of variances in the yarn and needle size used. She explained that the size of the finished shawl could also be altered by changing the number of pattern repeats but warned that the edging section required a considerable amount of yarn, with the smaller shoulderette using a full 65% of the total yardage.

I was aiming for a shawl a little larger than the finished dimensions of the larger shoulderette. The Mersea I was using is fingering weight and I was planning to knit it on a 4 mm needle. The two 115 g skeins have a total yardage of about 760 yds. After reading the various comments on the Ravelry forums and doing a multitude of mathematical equations I concluded that I should have enough yarn to knit two extra repeats of the first stitch pattern (yucca) and then follow the remaining instructions for the shoulderette as written. However, after knitting the six repeats of the yucca pattern I used up considerably more yarn than I had estimated and became fearful that I would not have enough when it came to the edging. After more calculations I decided I was right to be concerned so I ripped back to the fourth repeat and continued on my merry way. By the time I came to the edging section I had about 75% of the yarn remaining so I proceeded, confident that I would have enough, with a bit to spare.

Now I know what you’re thinking but you’re wrong. I did not run out of yarn. Instead, I have exactly the opposite problem.

I only have six more rows plus the bind off to do and I have a full 95 g of yarn left. The last two rows, one of which included 24 yarn-eating nupps, used only 6 g of yarn, which means that even if the remainder uses up a generous estimated 45 g I will still have 50 g of yarn remaining. I wouldn’t mind so much if I was happy with the size of the finished product but after comparing it to my newly-finished Gail shawl I can tell that it is going to be too small for my liking.

There’s no way around it. If I want to the shawl to be larger I am going to have to rip back rows and rows and rows of knitting and beadwork, add a pattern repeat, and then reknit the frogged sections. And as crazy as it sounds, I still run the risk of running out of yarn. Keeping in mind that new stitches are increased every other row and that the new section will add 48 stitches to the total number, the reknit sections are going to require more yarn than they did the first time through. My head hurts just thinking about nearing the end for the second time, only to run short.

Still, I think it’s the only way to go. I think I’ll wait until after dinner when I’ve had some sustenance and maybe a glass or two of wine for courage.

Hmm, my love affair with shawl knitting seems to be in jeopardy—now where did I put those socks?

A Tale of Two Shawls

First up, the promised photos of the blocked Gail/Nightsongs shawl, pattern by Jane Araujo (By the way, I don’t know why it has two names on Ravelry; I prefer Nightsongs).

Knit in a merino-seacell blend from Stash Up Yarns in the “Sea of Cortez” colourway.

It's just the perfect size for a shawl, about 64" x 32".

I couldn’t be happier with the results. This is one of my favourite projects ever.

As predicted, after swatching for the Aeolian shawl there was no way I could bring myself to work on another, older project. Since casting on Tuesday afternoon I’ve been knitting on the new shawl every chance I get. At first I found it a bit fiddly attaching the beads with a crochet hook (the yarn kept splitting as I pulled it through the bead) but I soon got the hang of it. I thought I would be able to do two extra repeats of the first lace pattern but after working them and calculating how much yarn I’d used I realized I wouldn’t have enough after all. That meant ripping back twelve rows of knitting but I’d rather do that at the beginning of a project than winding up short in the end.

I’m really happy with how it’s knitting up so far. Just ten more rows until I get to the elaborate edging section. If I keep going at this rate I’ll have it finished by the time the first Embrace the Lace kit arrives; I received notification today that it shipped on Wednesday. The designer, yarn, and project are all secret. The only thing I know for sure is that it will be inspired by one of the seven heavenly virtues and that this month’s project will be green, one of my favourite colours. I love a good mystery!

Still Marching

I’m not sure what has gotten into me but I like it. I’ve finished up yet another neglected project (gotta love fingering weight for lace—it knits up so fast). Here’s a taste of Gail/Nightsongs.

More to come when it’s finished blocking.

With one shawl barely off the needles I am itching to cast on another. Luckily, the yarn for my Aeolian shawl arrived yesterday so this morning I took a trip to the bead store to make my selection. When I first saw the yarn I had envisioned it with a gold matte bead and found one at the store with a slightly rosy tone. Another translucent bead called “Copperline” also caught my eye so I bought a package of each and went home to swatch. As I worked the swatch I found myself leaning towards Copperline (on the left) but once the swatch was blocked I decided to go with my first impulse and use the rosy-gold beads (on the right). What do you think?

The weather is wet and dreary here today so it’s hard to capture the colours accurately (the Copperline beads show up better in real life) but this gives you an idea. My conscience is telling me to finish off another WIP before casting on the real thing but I will probably ignore it. A girl can only be so good for so long.

Now that Clue 4 has been revealed and the mystery socks are no longer a mystery I can show you how I spent the last week of February.

The yarn is some Oceanwind Knits fingering weight I bought a few years ago when Lori first started dyeing and it’s been waiting for something special. I think we can all agree that Kristi's beautiful and interesting design does it justice.

A Love Story

Presenting Muir

Knit in Oceanwind Knits Wool Silk Lace, colourway "Agate".

The perfect marriage between yarn and pattern.

There are no words for how much I love this shawl.

May we live happily ever after.

I'm Marching as Fast as I Can

Soon after I finished my Garter Stitch Jacket my thoughts turned to my languishing Muir shawl, begun so lovingly last January. Because the fine, laceweight yarn and 32-row chart required close attention I found myself working on this project in fits and starts during the past year, knitting several repeats over the course of a few days, then ignoring it for months at a time. I had already decided to devote the rest of March to finishing up some UFO’s when I heard about “March to the Finish” on Stash and Burn. Perfect, another KAL to provide some motivation.

Like many neglected projects, whether knitterly or otherwise, once we finally get around to them they are done in no time and we are left wondering why we put them off for so long. Muir was no exception. I think the secret is giving them your undivided attention; the problem is, I don’t usually have that much staying power and am easily distracted by things new and exciting.
In any case, Muir is finally knit and I spent about an hour this morning blocking it. It was too long for the kitchen table so I ended up laying out my blocking mats on the floor. As luck would have it, the finished measurements corresponded almost exactly to the size of fourteen blocking mats laid out two by two so it took very little time and effort to block the shawl into shape.

Against the beige background of the blocking mats it’s pretty hard to see the leaf and eyelet pattern so I am anxious to see how it looks once it’s dry. Even though the overall tone is taupe, the yarn has subtle bits of rose and green throughout.

Another project I’ve been stalled on is Bellatrix (Ravelry link) for February’s SKA challenge. I began the socks on a bit of a whim; having already completed two February challenges I didn’t really need another pair but I couldn’t resist. After a couple of pattern repeats I decided to frog back to the cuff and reknit them , this time purling every other row to better set off the undulating waves. Even though the pattern wasn’t difficult, or maybe because the pattern wasn’t difficult, I found these slow going and was soon distracted by other projects. However, determined to finish them before the March 31st deadline, I gave them a little love this week and lo and behold, they’re done.

With a full third of March remaining I am confident that I can complete at least one more UFO before the end of the month. My current focus is the Gail shawl I started last November. Probably better classed as a WIP, this project is really more of a guilty pleasure than a chore, begun as a distraction from Christmas knitting and neglected only out of sense of obligation to other, more pressing knits. Now that we’ve been reunited, the shawl is working up in record time. Each and every stitch of the exquisitely hand-dyed, merino-seacell yarn is a pleasure to knit and I predict that this is one project that will end long before I grow tired of it.

But new, exciting knits are just around the corner. This Wednesday I celebrated my 45th birthday and besides receiving several skeins of sock yarn, I have put some of my gift money towards even more yarn, including this merino-seacell to make the new Aeolian shawl. And as if that weren’t enough, the first installment of Embrace the Lace ships next week.

I hope that on this, the first day of a new season, that Spring is indeed springing in your neck of the woods. Whatever the weather, enjoy your weekend.

The Meat and Potatoes

Several months ago when I was looking ahead to 2009 one of my goals was to finish a minimum of three WIP’s and UFO’s, particularly a Fleece Artist Garter Stitch Jacket that I had begun almost two years before. Anything else, I wrote, I considered gravy.

Well, pull up your chairs for some meat and potatoes ‘cause the jacket is D-O-N-E.

Why, oh why, did it take so long to finish? It’s garter stitch, for heaven’s sake. Well, even though the pattern itself is extremely simple, I found that the yarn required great attention. My needles constantly got caught in the boucle loops or mohair fibres so I had to watch every stitch. Added to that was the fact that the yarn was too dark to work on in the evening. And let’s face it, row after row of garter stitch is not exactly stimulating knitting.

It also didn’t help that I messed with the pattern so that I could avoid as many seams as possible. Knitting the jacket in one piece to the armholes and working a 3-needle bind off at the shoulders was easy enough. What was a bit trickier was figuring out how I could knit the sleeve in the round from the armhole down. I kept putting it off and putting it off, even though in the end it didn’t prove to be difficult at all. I thought after I’d done one sleeve that I would immediately do the other but other things came up and, well, it got pushed to the side again. When I finally dragged it out again last week it only took a few days. Makes me want to smack myself.

But it was worth the wait. I love the way it fits. I love the way it feels. I love the way the sunlight makes the sapphire blue and emerald green come to life. And don’t you just love this shawl pin? I’ve had it in my jewelry box for months, just waiting for this moment.

In other knitting news, I can now tell you that I spent the latter part of February working on a secret project. I was very flattered to be asked to test knit the mystery sock for SKA’s March challenge and of course I said yes. The designer, Kristi Schueler, was a pleasure to work with and as my fellow SKA’ers can attest, having seen the results of Clues #1 and #2, she has created a beautiful and interesting sock for us (go here to get a taste). It has been a lot of fun seeing it made up in all sorts of different yarns and colours. I’ll show off my version in a couple of weeks, once all the clues have been posted.

Since finishing up the mystery sock I have been on a ridiculous sock kick and currently have no fewer than five pairs on the needles, two from Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns. But that won’t stop me from casting on another, plain pair to work on this weekend, when we go to Victoria to visit Cameron’s family. Once good thing about making this trip is

(drive to and from the ferry + ferry ride) x 2 = plenty of mindless knitting time

And to leave you with a little taste of why I love to live where I live, here is what I saw when I sat down to dinner the other night.

I only wish the photo did it justice.