Sad Trombone

A couple weeks ago, I was dutifully scooping up clothes off the floor and throwing everything in the wash.  A 50 minute 30c cycle later, I hauled everything out and started hanging it out on the clothes line outside, when I came across something balled up in the middle of the laundry bolus that puzzled me greatly.

What on earth was it?  It looks like flat bread or a nacho or something.

Oh.  I somehow managed to not notice my Damask lace shawl had been wrapped around the shirt I had been wearing the day before, and in my overzealous laundry-doing it ended up in there with the unwashed masses.

This had become a wardrobe favorite.  While I normally don't like really lacy frilly things, this shawl was manageable, and I would draped it around my neck a couple times and it was so soft and warm and elegant, and the YARN!  Sundara silk merino, with a beautiful peachy blush.  It was my favorite and I wore it quite a bit.

  

It was a bit of work, but I loved every second of it.  It also brings back memories of living in Paris- I sat in the Tulleries in the late afternoon sun and plugged away at this, and blocked it on my futon before donning it until it got too cold to have holey-lace around your neck.  

And now, it's about a 18" across and a solid, unbendable mass.  But look, you can still see the perfect nupps!  It's like a archaeological dig to find ruins and then piecing it together and theorizing what it looked like back in its glory days now.

Rather interestingly, because the silk didn't felt, it kind of looks like boucle yarn.

I'm a bit sad about it, but somewhat amused.  In all my years as a knitter, this is the first such accident to take place.  I know from rumors and secondhand information that many of the gifts I had sent on have ended up in this state, but I've never self-sabotaged.  This is an epic fail.

Lesson learned.  I was going to give it to a friend with cats for bedding, but someone else at the pub chimed in and grabbed it.  Novelty fabric perhaps?

Well, I loved it enough to want to make another one, perhaps in blue.

FO: Hitchhiker, take two

I made another hitchiker scarf.  The first one I had gifted.  I quite liked making it.  It's fairy mindless, it's garter stitch, and it shows of wildly handpainted yarns quite nicely.

Like this skein of Wollmeise that I got in a swap.

The color was "Aspen Tree".  I loved it because it was COLORFUL, but couldn't really think of too much to do with it as I felt it was a bit busy.  Except...

It's glorious, this second hitchhiker scarf.  Wollmeise is sturdy stuff, so wearing this on a trail was no thing at all.  Plus, when I went to the pub at night, I had some class little accessory to brighten things up.

 I used up the entire skein, and it is plenty long.  It can drape, it can wrap, it can just be an awesome scarf-shawl and keep me warm, I can flip the end around and make a bandanna.  The asymmetry is fun to play with and I've worn this quite a lot already.  It's too bad- I love knitting lacy fancy shawls, but they never get any use as I feel they are too delicate or fussy to actually wear.  The big boring plain knits I wear all the time.

  Also....there's a fair bit of navy blue in there, which means I can wear this with pretty much anything in my wardrobe.

FO: More hats! A shawl! And another thing!

Three hats, in fact.

Even though I don't celebrate Xmas, I feel swept up in the spirit of the cold dank weather and whip out gifts to my non-knitter friends.  My stack of hats is slowly diminishing as I send them to the four corners of the earth in time for the Winter Solstice.  Which is still a month away!  I don't even know how the days are going to get any shorter, but apparently they will.  This is the furthest north I've spent a winter.  I feel like I'm atoning for enjoying summertime so much.  I'm actually having a really hard time waking up in the mornings, and one recent weekend, I managed to sleep until 10:30.  Seriously!  That's half my day, gone.  It just wasn't light enough outside for my body to convince itself that it was indeed morning, and nearly afternoon.

I made a Whale Watch Hat from New England Knits.

It's all scraps- mostly Knit Picks Pallet.  For the price, it's a really nice yarn, similar to Jaimison's spindrift in weight and hand.  I was thinking of making the Whales a bit darker, but I kind of like them in the lighter shade of blue- they look kind of abstract, and probably more acceptable that a grown-ass adult might pull this off.

Speaking of which...the trend of grown-ass people wearing spirit-animal hats...why?  Kitten ears and giant false eyes are cute on toddlers, a bit weird on adults who aren't on their way to support a sports team.  Enlighten me.

Last fall when I was in Dublin, I visited a cute knitting shop and nabbed a couple skeins of Studio Donegal Tweed merino.  They knit up perfectly into a set of hats- kind of a his-and-hers affair.  The same, but different enough to not nauseate casual observers if they happen to leave the house together wearing them:

A masculine cable hat called One Bourbon, whose recipient has a smaller head size than my beau:

The brim will actually fold up when it fits properly.

And a lovely lace hat called Magnolia:

Oh!  And here's a shawl:

I usually do a better job of photographing these beastly shawls, but it's been raining like crazy every morning this week, and I needed to get this in the mail.  So you get to see my interior windows.

It's the Cladonia Shawl by Kristen Kapur.  It's written to have stripes and a looped bind-off, which looks fantastic, but I thought it gave it a much different appearance to make it plain and solid.  The yarn I used is Brooklyn Tweed Loft, and it used every last inch of yarn.  In fact, I ran out the very last bit- I needed about 10 inches more.  Panic!  Freak out!  I tinked back a few more stitches and then, gasp, SPLIT THE PLIES.  So there's one edge that has slightly thinner yarn in the bind off, and it survived blocking like a champion.  Honestly though, I couldn't think of anything else to do in that situation.  

The yarn is not my favorite.  The stitch definition is a bit muddled, which can be used to nice effect here with just the small bit of lace.  The one thing that does irk me is that if you tink back at all, the yarn will sometimes just un-spin itself and you are left with a broken strand.  It's lofty and loosely spun, making it great for warmth and texture, but it doesn't hold up to multiple mistakes.  Not that I ever make them.

Finally:

One of my favorite blends to spin and knit would be Blue Face Leicester sheep wool blended with silk.  The BFL is a long, silky soft wool that has beautiful drape and lustre.  Add some silk with that and, oh, I become enraptured.  It begs you to hold it close.

While I loved the colors in this skein of Codex- gold and near-black- they pooled up terribly.  I tried and I tried to do anything with this- spirals, garter stitch, lace, broken rib- and I just couldn't get it to stop with the ugly pooling.  Disappointed, I was.  

Ah, wait.  I know how to crochet.  A quick search and I found something well within my abilities- the Chi-town Cowl.

That's not so bad, is it?

I made a moebius cowl.  Easy as pie, it used up almost the entire skein and only took a few hours.  It's soft and silky and if you have a small-ish head, you can loop it around twice comfortably.

 Now, to bring back the sun...I understand why the 21st December is such a celebratory affair.

FO: Orchid Thief Shawl

This was just one of those patterns.

It's the Orchid Thief by Ysolda.  It was so very lovely, and I've been wanting to make it for a while.  It came from a book called "Brave New Knits", which featured a host of well-established but young-ish knitwear designers, and wispy, winsome looking models.  To me, it was the perfect sized shawl- not so small that it would drape around your neck without always coming un-draped, no so large that it might be cumbersome and frumpy.

It also seemed to be rushed through production as the pattern had dozens of mistakes in it.  It seemed like the person who proof read this before printing was bit by a fox (blind drunk) or maybe had no idea what they were doing, or both.  I noticed right away that something wasn't right.  I found the errata online and I was able to get through it, and I went on for quite a bit with no issues, but then the instructions on row 86 made me put down the project and shove it into the darkest recesses of the couch for a week.  The transition from the lace diamond section to the leafy section at the bottom edge was driving me all sorts of batty, and I knit and it ripped it out several times.

Bonus Routemaster double-decker bus action!

Eventually, through a couple Ravelry searches, I found that everyone else was insane over this row as well, as the instructions were confounding and it is hard to tell where things should be lining up.  A few people took the time to actually write out the pattern by hand and were kind enough to share.  This is what saved me.  I ended up following the new instructions blindly as it was my very last chance to get this before I dumped gasoline on it and flamed the whole thing.

Well, it worked out.  If you make this, good luck with it and search around before you get to row 86.

The yarn is Sundara fingering Silky Merino in Summer Sangria.  It's dyed gorgeously, with tones of peach and apricot picking up the light.  It's my go-to yarn for shawls now, and a generous 500 yard skein means that I can do most small shawls with no yardage issues.  HOWEVER, I was tempted, as I am often, by doing another repeat of the small triangles as I thought I had PLENTY of yarn at that point.  I'm glad I didn't, as I wouldn't have.  This is why so many of my shawls have a contrasting stripe at the bind off.  For once, the urge to use up all the yarn was overcome by having a correct shawl of one solid color, and I'm very pleased with the results.    



The finished shawl, along with some tea and cakes, got shipped off to the USofA in a care package to someone in need of a pick-me-up.

 

Fo: Live Oak Shawlette

Hey, would ya look at this:



Wow.  There was a whole grove of these trees blossoming in Regent's Park.  It was lovely.  It's February, I'm still in my winter coat, but it's warm enough here for some confused trees to flash some obscene shade of pink.





For serious, guys.  It's pretty much springtime if you squint.

I'm getting my life together here and meeting some fab people.  Meanwhile, I've finally got a new-ish laptop to work with and I'm getting caught up on the backlog of pictures I've taken over the past six months or so.  So, I present to you this lacy little number that I made last fall, took pictures of on the banks of the Seine one sunny day, gifted and forgot all about.





It's the Live Oak Shawlette by Romi Hill.  It's a gorgeous half-circle shawl.

My only real regret was not to be able to block it out properly.  You'd need about 740 pins, but it would make it oh-so lovely.  I only had about 8 pins and some scrap yarn, so the edge isn't as lovely as it possibly could be.




I did get a bit cocky with my yardage and did another lace repeat, and had to find a contrasting color to finish it off.  I actually kind of like it with the contrasting stripe.  The yarn is Madelinetosh Merino Light in "Thoreau" and the contrast is "Rosewood".



It's totally wearable and sweet, and I gifted it to a chic newly-minted Parisian friend.

FO: Damask Shawl

A beeyooteeful lace shawl to dress up my summer, and to wear until it falls apart for the next 10 autumns. Behold, the Damask.

I love it. I've been wanting to make a more complicated lace bit for a while, but I get stuck on how much time they take. They don't really, it's usually the chart-reading that consumes time for me as I have to constantly be referring back to it and scribbling out line by line as I go. I made a little bargain with myself: There is 158 rows in this patter. If I forced myself to do two rows a day, I will be done in 11 weeks or so. That sounds do-able.

And like magic, three weeks later I was done! Poof! The pattern was so lovely to make and well written and well charted, I just couldn't stop. I'm positively thrilled.

I guess the easy deadline motivated me to finish early. I wore it all summer and I love it. The pattern starts off on the bottom edge with a shitload of stitches, so each row gets progressively smaller, which helped with the optimistic finish. It has the most astoundingly intricate looking lace pattern that will cause you to spend much time admiring your own handiwork throughout.

The yarn is a skein of Sundara Merino/Silk fingering in "Porcini". In France, it's a "cèpes"! But still. Lovely color, and this yarn is perfect for lace and something you would want wrapped around your neck.

FO: Eiffel Tower Shawl

Hey, did you guys see this yet? It's pretty cool. I mean, if you like cool things.

Paris, more than any other place I've ever been, is defined in so many ways by its main monument. I kid about them striking oil with it one of these days, but you never tire of staring at it. It's an amazing, iconic piece of engineering. Originally, it was not meant to stand for very long, and was just a monument for the World's Fair to be torn down after the crowds have gone home. However, some genius knew an opportunity when they saw it and it remains as the most visited tourist attraction on the planet. It graces a whole lot of tourist tchotchkies and sells a lot of hotel-room views. You can't even fathom a Paris without it.

The first time I saw it up close, I honestly couldn't believe that it was painted brown.

For whatever reason, in my head, I thought it was inky black.

I thought that A Fitting Tribute to knit a shawl inspired by the gorgeous scrollwork in pink.

The pattern is from Natalie Servant. It's well-written and totally unique. It's a pretty big shawl, with lots of stockinette stitch to eat up yardage. I used 750 yards of laceweight.

I do need to block it out a bit more. It could use a more drastic point, and I just couldn't get the shape right with my improvised blocking technique.

The yarn is a skein of merino Sanguine Gryphon Mithril in the "Woman under the Willows" color. It's not my favorite. It's really tightly overplied, so it's hard to get even tension and the yarn tends to twist itself into a tangle every few feet. Annoying. I don't see it pilling anytime soon, so I'm hoping it will wear well. I did frog back quite a bit at one point and the yarn is no worse off for it.

It is a lovely pattern though and I had fun making it. It's fairly mindless for a while and then you get to make all the pretty scroll work. It was a good pattern to travel with, and I'm happy with it.

FO: Herbivore

Oh, hey! I made a pretty shawl.

One of my friends gave me a pretty skein of Brooks Farm Acero last summer, and I thought the best way to make use of such a pretty yarn is a shawl. It's a lovely, heathery fingering-weight yarn of wool, silk and viscose. I paired it with a simple Stephen West pattern- Herbivore. I'm determined to make more lacey-lace scarves and shawls, but when I'm traveling, I like mindless stitch patterns to just knit away the hours of planes and trains and waiting for bubble tea to be customized.

I already bemoaned how the security at Orly threw my needles away, but I got to Berlin and bought a set of Knit Pros and carried on. This scarf was so easy and fast that I had most of it done by the time I was on the delayed flight back to Paris. I knit until I was out of yarn, blocked it best I could on the couch with scrap yarn and pins, and it's just lovely. The yarn drapes beautifully, and it softened up nicely once it was washed.

It's big enough to wrap around your neck without it coming un-done, but not so huge it's unwieldily. Which, to me, is perfect sized.

While it's not the warmest scarf ever- these pictures were taken in Copenhagen and I did spend some time chilled, but more on that later- I love the twisted stich pattern and increases give it a shape that means it will stay put.

I am totally embracing and carrying on with the style of Parisians and their love for scarves. I now feel naked without one.