End of Summer

The Leafy Lace cardi got finished a while ago, and I've worn it a few times already.


After that got done, I started on a Very Secret Birthday Project on a rather tight schedule. What caused the schedule to be tight was not so much the upcoming birthday, as my mother turns a year older on the same day every year (very helpful), but the fact that I just couldn't decide on the pattern or the yarn. I finally ended up reverse engineering a pattern that I'd seen pictures of, but that was only available in Russian, and a similar pattern that would have been in past issue of a Norwegian craft magazine. It actually was a very simple crochet stitch pattern, which is used quite a bit in shawls. I had my mind set on crochet for whatever reason, I've already forgotten why, but I was very determined that it had to be crochet. I started the project twice with yarns that I had in my stash, but at the end ended up going and buying a new yarn, as I didn't have anything that would have fit just right. It was either too woolly, too stiff, too thin, too something. The yarn got is Berroco Twist, wool and viscose, a very nice and drapey yarn with a nice sheen.

The main idea I stole form the Norwegian pattern was the pseudo fringe. It's constructed from single crochet loops that are attached to one another, it's fringy without being too much so. I very much like it.

As far as I could tell, mom was very pleased, and I liked the shawl so much myself that I bought yarn for one for myself, too. As far as progress on that one... well, I've started, let's just say that. The yarn I bought (not the same one as my mom's) is very splitty and a pain to crochet, so I quickly came up with other projects that were more urgent.

Last weekend I started a new cardi, which I'm calling the "End of Summer Cardi". The yarn is Elann's Callista (no mom, it's not expensive), a blend of cotton, linen and viscose. I've planned a one piece construction with slightly puffed sleeves (we'll see how those turn out...), V-neck, and raglan sleeves. So far I'm about half of the way done.

A bunch of my co-workers have been reproducing lately, and baby gifts are in order. So far two girl gifts and one boy gift are needed, plus one unknown, due within the next two weeks. I've worked on some baby bootie patterns, and here are two of my favorites:

Now a couple more pairs of cuteness, and maybe a pair or two to have in the stash for future small people.

Summer knits

I'm in need of some more summery knits than all the wool sweaters I've been cranking out lately. I was working on a lace cardigan design, but found a free pattern that was so close to what I was doing that it just wasn't worth re-inventing the wheel.

This is the back of the Lacy Leaf Cardi by soobeeoz. The yarn is Lily Chin Chelsea, a wool/cotton/acrylic blend, perfect for summer clothing. I'm already done with the body pieces and one sleeve, so this cardi should be finished pretty soon.

A few weeks ago I bought some Jojoland Melody yarn that was on sale at Needlework Unlimited, and thought it would be perfect for a shawl. Something fairly simple that would benefit from the beautiful color changes of the yarn. I found the perfect pattern in Ulla; Revontuli by AnneM.

One thing I wasn't too excited about was how the stripes would get progressively thinner, as the shawl got wider, and I wanted to somehow work around that. I contemplated a couple of strategies, and ended up knitting each section (or actually each two sections) from a separate ball of yarn. I wasn't quite sure how it would work, if it would look weird or stand out too much that the sections are all different, but it worked out ok, and I'm very pleased with the result.

I really like the three-dimensional look that is created by the pattern and the slight sheen of the yarn. I've worn this to work a couple of times already, and the really nice thing about it is that it goes with almost every shirt that I own! :)

FOs

As you may have noticed from the added photos in the last post, I finished the red Pinheads and Picot socks. They are super comfy, and even though today was a fairly warm day, I've been wearing them all evening. I just love how hand knitted socks feel on your feet, and whenever I get a pair done, I have to wear them right away. And talking about wearing your hand knitted socks, I ordered a pair of shoes that will allow me to wear them to work, too. When the weather cools down again, that is.
I think these will look very nice with wool socks. They are Red Wing Alexandrias -a brand I've never worn before, but they look comfy. Most of my shoes are SoftSpots, because they have really nice ones for wide feet. And I order all my shoes online, because so few store carry wide sizes any more. I could go on and on about this...

But there's something I've been wondering about when it comes to wearing your own handmade socks. Do you wear them to work? And do you have certain ones that you can wear to work and others not? (I'm thinking black or other more subtle colors that wouldn't be too obvious if you have any kind of a dress code.) I've wondered about this for a while, and would like to hear from you.

I also finished something else, namely the Clementine shawlette. I actually finished it over a week ago already, but didn't get a chance to take pictures, other than of the blocking.


I used sock yarn to knit this to get it a little heavier than lace weight. This took almost 200 g of yarn on 3.5 mm needles. I really enjoyed knitting it, it was fairly mindless with the easy to memorize pattern and all. I made a couple of changes to the pattern, though (hey, that's new! Who would have thought...) Other than knitting with a different weight yarn, I added two pattern repeats sideways, because with just 5 repeats it would have been way too narrow. I also added some short rows on the last row to make the join work better. The zig-zag pattern would pull otherwise, when you join it head to head. I thought I'd try short rows (very short, 6 stitches for each pattern repeat), and it worked. So the zig-zag is still a zig-zag even at the join.

Here's a couple of modeled shots, too. It works perfect for keeping me warm in my chilly office.



My husband says I look too serious... but look at those pretty skies and the slough in the back of our house getting all green! It's full of birds, as you might guess. So much so that we can't sleep with the windows open, because the birdies start screaming EARLY in the morning and wake us up.