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Knitting Friday
Cripes! I just saw an error in Wednesday's post. It's "He's hoping" not "He hoping." Do I dare re-enter and edit? That could take an hour. Or do I stop trying to be so compulsively correct? What a choice!
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| #1 3-Triangle Shawl in cotton thread |
You may remember my saga of summer cami cover-ups. On the right with #1, you see another 3-triangle shawl which can be found at:
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| #2 3-Triangle Shawl in DK |
(Note: It's a Ravelry patten so you have to sign up and the picture of the shawl there is different today [you see less of it] but I'm hoping that the pattern is still the same since this is a great one.)
You can see by comparing pics #1 and 2 that different weight yarns produce completely different results. The one done in cotton thread looks "dense" unblocked and I think it's going to stay unblocked because the idea is to cover the cami, not emphasize it.
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| #3 Model w/cotton thread shawl (#1) |
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| #4 Back view |
One of my favorite dogs is modelling the cotton thread shawl in pics #3 and 4. The drape looks like the mantillas wore by noble Spanish ladies going to church in old movies. But I'm looking forward to it being a "grab and throw on as you walk out the door" sort of garment. We'll see.
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| #5 O. A. Bear |
Which brings me to a new member of my Knitting Friday family. Seen in #5 is O. A. Bear, a rather huge gal (I'm saying she's a girl bear) who will be a larger model for me. Bear is so named because when someone walks into the room and see here sitting in a chair, the first words are: Oh, a bear!
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| #6 First modelling job |
I've put O. A. to work already and
she's modeling the same back view as pic #4 but you get to see so much more.
However, O. A. is only going to be a shawl and scarf model since no way am I stretching my tops or hats onto her massive frame. She's one big bear.
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| #7 Birch Vest Yoke pattern |
Which brings me to pic #7, a top-down shell, crocheted in the yoke and knitted in stockinette and lace for the body. It's in a white/beige heavy cotton (what was I thinking!) and it's from the Birch Vest pattern I first mentioned in 11/12. I had trouble linking to it then but today I found this:
You must do a free registration with Knitting Daily to get it but, because it was featured on their TV show ($5.50 otherwise), you get it free. However, when you look at the pattern you are going to think WTF? since it looks nothing like what's in #7. I just work up the Knitting Daily pattern through the yoke. Then I pick up stitches on my knitting needles just below the armhole and knitted the rest of the garment. As you can see, I hold the yoke front together with a small shawl pin.
Anyway, it's done. I do like the combination of crochet and knit but my choice of yarn was a mistake. Now, I'm looking at a biggggggggg ball of this yarn left over. It's not going into another top. What about an open shawl? Which leads me to my last picture and project, and some back story.
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| #8 Top into shawl |
My thrifty (OK, say cheap) soul just had to buy 2 skeins of black boucle on sale at Michaels for $1 each. On the right in picture #8, you see the top I started to make with that yarn. In fact, try to picture that top at least 12" longer (I was going for the top over tights look) before I discovered the first dropped stitch about 8" down from my needles. No problem. Black boucle is forgiving. I just carried it up as close to the needles as I could (I had done two increases along the way so it was not a straight run to the needles), brought the loop to the back, pinned it and was going to tack it and move on. That is until I discovered the second dropped stitch way down in the work. And then I discovered a gap between two stitches. What? It was almost like knitting drunk since I had no memory of making these mistakes but that's the problem with any dark textured yarn: you knit "on faith" a lot of the time.
So then I thought: A black shawl. You can always use a black shawl. And I knew it had to be crochet since I am never, ever, ever going to knit black again. (Ha!)
When you decide to look carefully, you can find some really nice crochet shawls out there in free patterns that don't have you working 30, 40, even more different rows. Here's one:
I'm so happy I found Easy Iris (only on Ravelry so you have to join to see it.) With this shawl, you crochet first to the length (the arrow in #8 shows the direction) and, when you reach it, you turn you work one-quarter and crochet only on one long side till you reach your width. What a great idea!. From the picture with the pattern, you'll see a two-toned shawl done that way but the concept would work one-toned, two-toned, striped?, variegated? ....... I see a lot of possibilities here. Of course, I'm not ruling out crocheting the length (as above), then turning and knitting the width (not with black yarn, of course.) I think I'll be revisiting this pattern a lot.
That's it for today. Did I tell you that Miss L sent us a postcard? She prints her name beautifully. She has passed her hip x-ray (It gets reviewed by Penn!) and has been sent on for her training. We all miss her.
See you next week. Happy knitting.
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