How The West Was Spun

Chrysler Scarf

I was delighted to be able to work with my friend, Kim, at The Woolen Rabbit for her 2012 yarn club.  The theme for this year (and for the upcoming 2013 club, if you are interested) is the Roaring 20s.  I love the Art Deco architecture of the period, so I chose the Chrysler Building in New York, which is one of the finest examples of this type of architecture.  

Kim dyed me up a steel gray on her Airy fingering-weight yarn, which is a lovely, drapey SW singles.  I decided to utilize the motifs from the cupola of the building, which are a series of triangular shaped sunburst arches, and to also take a motif from the 31st floor corner decorations, which are replicas of the radiator caps from the 1929 Chrysler cars.  I worked up a long, slinky scarf, which I envisioned over a simple black dress (and which could also be worn around your shoulders as a narrow shawl, if desired), and I bumped the bling up with a few steel-blue beads for the sunburst lace pattern. 

I was delighted how this pattern turned out.  I think it'd be a really versatile accessory - whether you wrap it around your neck and tuck it into a coat for cooler weather, or wear with a sundress on an evening out in the summer. 

While the Chrysler Scarf is available only to The Woolen Rabbit club members until October of 2013, if you'd like to know when it's available to the general public, please feel free to leave me a comment at the pattern page on Ravelry, and I'll add you to the notification list when it goes live!

All for now....

 

Another FO: Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief

Did I mention I had a lot of knit-time this past weekend?  Our local LYS is expanding, and I wanted to get some shop samples knit up for them.  I love the DK-weight MCN blend I carry and it's a great 1-skein project kind of yarn, so I thought I would zip through a version of the Age of Brass and Steam for a display item.

The pattern uses just one skein of DK-weight yarn (or really any weight yarn - you can easily make this as big or as small as you've got yarn for) on size 8 needles).  I used one skein of the MCN in the colorway "Dusk" for my version.

This would be a great last-minute gift and for those of you who might need one of those, I'll have this yarn base on sale the entire month of December at 20% off in the shop!

All for now...

Pattern/Kit Release: Lady Bathory Shawl

Introducing the Lady Bathory Shawl.

This elongated crescent-shaped scarf/shawl is knit from one short end to the other using one skein of the shop's Nimue Sock (50/50 silk/merino) fingering-weight yarn.  I used the "True Blood" colorway and dark ruby-red seed beads for the sample.  Shaping is created using increases/decreases along the upper edge of the jagged, pointy-toothed lace border. Beads are applied using the crochet-hook method.  (The pattern requires a total of 416 size-6 seed beads if you choose to use beads).  

Suggested skills for this pattern include chart-reading, some basic understanding of lace patterning, knit, purl, M1 increases and K2tog decreases. 

My inspiration for this shawl was the Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary (1560-1614), who married into the Transvylanian aristocracy.  The Countess, a well-educated, intelligent woman, also had a cruel streak, and the tales of atrocities committed within the walls of the Bathory castle terrified locals.  Legend has it that many of the Vlad the Impaler and other vampire tales that exist today are based at least in some part on the bloody rituals that went on inside the castle. Arrested finally in 1611 on a number of charges, she was convicted and spent the last 3 years of her life under house arrest.  The locals refused to allow her body to be interred in the local cemetery, and she was finally laid to rest in her girlhood home’s family crypt.

The pattern is available via Ravelry as a PDF download, and I also have kits available (which include the yarn and the pattern, although not the beads) through the online shop.

All for now.......

WIP Wednesday: August 1, 2012

SPINNING PROJECTS

Nothing to see here, sadly.  STILL have not gotten my patiently-waiting singles plied up.  I am doing that this week, no matter what.  Geez.

DESIGNING/KNITTING PROJECTS

Making steady progress on the sweater.  I have back section of the body knit up to where I'm now ready to cast off a few stitches for where the sleeves will live.  I'm trying to get thru one cable repeat a night, which gives me about 2-1/4 inches of length each evening, so while it's sort of slow, it is progress.

My Whosian Scarf is headed into the home stretch.  I pick that up and do a few rows now and then, which obviously have been adding up.  I'm just under 3/4 of the way finished with this and hoping to have it off the needles in the next week for a photo shoot!

All for now....

New Pattern Release: Orbspinner Scarf

I've got a new pattern to share with y'all today. This is currently being hosted as a KAL with the Ennea group, but it's a nice, quick and easy scarf pattern that can be knit with just one skein of fingering weight commercial yarn as well.

This is the Orbspinner Scarf. The original was knit with the soft and sparkly handspun I spun up this spring in the gray alpaca/carbonized bamboo/sparkle blend. 

The scarf features a leafy Estonian-patterend border with self-scalloping edges, and then a diamond pattern for the center panel of the body.  It's knit by casting on at one end, knitting the first border, then knitting the entire center panel, and then casting on for the second border, and finally grafting the border onto the body (which means you get to graft in stockinette and not have to worry about working Kitchener in the lace pattern!).

It's a nice generous size, so you can wear it as a typical scarf, but you can also wear it as a little mini-stole around your shoulders as well.

The lace is not particularly difficult.  It'd be a nice way to have a beginning lace knitter ease into reading slightly more complex charts, and it would make a fairly quick project for an experienced lace knitter.  (And it'd make a great holiday gift in case you want to start filling up the gift-giving bin early this year!).

I also need to mention a HUGE thank-you/shout-out to Manise for knitting up the sample for me.  She did an awesome job with it and got it finished up while I was slogging thru a few other deadline knits so this could be released on time!!

All for now....

New Pattern: Blenheim Roses Cowl and Mitts

Have you gotten your Summer 2012 issue of Spin-Off magazine yet?  Mine arrived this weekend, and I am delighted to announce another new pattern published: The Blenheim Roses Cowl and Mitts. 

This matched set features a long cowl with buttons at one end, which can be worn loose, like a scarf, or looped more snugly around the neck.  It also features a pair of feminine fingerless mitts with lace cuffs and striped stockinette sections for the hand, and also have little buttons at the cuffs.

The yarn is a DK-weight handspun.  The darker rose is Polwarth from Two If By Hand in the "Blooming Bouginvillea colorway, and the paler pink is a 50/50 merino/alpaca blend from Pigeonroof Studios in the "Blithe Spirit" colorway.   This would be a great project if you wanted to knit half with handspun and half with a commercial yarn, or even use up scraps of handspun. 

The Summer edition also has a ton of great information about spindles, lots of other nice portable summer-knitting-type projects, and a great technique section on chain plying yarn on your spindle on the fly.  The pattern is available only via the magazine, which is on sale right now through Interweave (or at your local bookstore/craft store, I believe). 

All for now......

 

Unsinkable

Did you know that this April marks the 100th anniversary mark of the sinking of the Titanic, a ship deemed "unsinkable"?

To commemorate the event, Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loops and I have teamed up for a fun, quick-to-knit project.  I was really excited when Kirsten approached me about collaborating on this project, and even more excited when I saw the gorgeous pattern she came up with.  Interesting to knit, but a single-skein shawlette with just a hint of lace, it's a great spring project that you can finish and wear for cooler evenings in the late spring, early summer.

Kits will be available in the shop starting April 1st (and includes the pattern with written and charted instructions, plus the yarn to knit the project).  Or shoot me an email/leave a comment if you'd like to pre-order yours now!

All for now.....

More Ennea Patterns

A couple more new patterns that are in the Winter Ennea Collective magazine for y'all.

The first is a super simple lace scarf.  This takes very little yarn, and if you have a special skein of handspun or a commercial beaded yarn, you can zip thru this on large-ish needles and even get it knit in time for Xmas this weekend.

The Ponderosa Snowfall scarf:

I used the beaded yarn I spun up from a 4-oz braid of BFL earlier this year.

The Diamond Dust Tam is another quick knit. I used about 150 yards of a nice soft Aran/heavy-worsted weight merino for this one.  It's not a super floppy tam, but big enough if you have curls to be able to work with those.

And a shot of the interesting cabling on the crown, which is awfully fun to knit up.

All for now.....

KSH Scarf

Normally, I refuse to knit scarves.  Yawn.  Yes... great gifts, but usually I think about poking my eyeballs out with a needle after the first repeat or so to actually knit the scarf itself.

However, since I am working on gift-type, finished items for the crafts fair in a couple of weeks, I decided to work on a few scarves using some sample yarns I had in the shop that have been kicking around for a while.  I had several lone skeins of a Kid Silk Haze version (kid mohair and silk laceweight), so I decided on a very simple garter stitch scarf, which I then lightly felted and added some beads on the ends.

The felting is kinda fun and doesn't take much to firm the fabric up a bit.  It also lets you take a mostly boring rectangle and do funk-ay things with the ends and the selvages so it looks more interesting.  It also softens up the halo a bit.

The scarf wound up being about 5 inches wide and 60 inches long, which is plenty to wrap once around your neck and only used one skein (I just knit until I ran out) of the yarn, so it'd be a great quick stash-buster project too.

All for now....

FO: Dragonflies Shawl

I finished up the Mystery Shawl from the Ennea fall edition, aka the Dragonflies Shawl.

PROJECT DETAILS:
Pattern:  The Mystery shawl as noted above at the link.  This is now available as a full-fledged pattern via Ennea Collective magazine from Lori.
Yarn:  My handspun from eons ago.  It's a 50/50 cashmere and silk blend in the Forest colorway from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks.  I originally purchased the roving at the Back of the Wasatch fiber festival - I think it was now 6 years ago?  At least 5.  The yarn was a 2-ply, 440 yards from 3.8 ounces.  I used about 400 yards for my version.
Needles:  Size 5 US circs.
Mods:  None.

Depending on the light, this colorway is either very dark and broody, or prettily subtly striped with the dark green/purple/golds you see directly above.  It is insanely warm for it's size (which I would consider a small shawl/shawlette, in an elongated crescent shape) due, I'm sure, to the cashmere component.

I don't think I'd recommend this for a very beginning lace knitter - there are a few rows of the border you need to pay close attention to with patterning, although not lace patterning, on both sides.  Otherwise, tho, it is not a super tough knit and definitely one you could knit in less than a month if  (unlike me... ahem...) you worked on it without putting it down for almost 2 weeks and getting distracted by other things.

No Spinning Friday tomorrow. D and I are taking a long weekend of R&R, but hopefully I'll be back with some spinning for next week for y'all.

All for now.....