FO: The Dark Dance

Another knit from a favorite designer, this shawl was an absolute delight. That's actually not emphatic enough, but you get the idea. Birgit Freyer's designs exemplify German design at its pinnacle: her patterns (like German cars and German architecture) are graceful, complicated, and intuitive. There are almost no written instructions, because the charts tell you everything you need to know. (The bits which you need to have written instructions for come in five different languages!)

This shawl is Flamenco, my first Birgit knit. I purchased several patterns from her over a year ago, but waited 'til now to make one up, and I don't know why I waited so long; Birgit creates beautiful motifs, wielding an impressive control of yarn overs. Other lace patterns seem poorly designed after knitting one of her patterns. Really: when she wants to introduce a centered yarn over into a motif, she has you work a double increase. That may not seem like much until you are in the process of knitting one of her patterns, and the design appears under your needles as if by magic.



My addiction to beaded knitting extended even to this piece, although I knew the knitting would be a pleasure by itself. (That's why it's an addiction: I know I don't need it, but I want it.) I went over the charts before I started, and placed them wherever it looked like they'd be pretty. I placed predominantly on plain stitches, but in retrospect, putting beads on decreases would have looked great and given me a little more space to add beads in. (Still looks pretty, though, whatever improvements I might have made.) Beading lace makes the whole project much slower; by the end, I was glad to have some bead-free right-side rows.



Specs:
Pattern: Flamenco by Birgit Freyer
Yarn: Hedgehog Fibres Cashmere Lace in Boreal, an exclusive Lace Club colorway. I used 1.7 skeins.
Beads: Silver-lined gold (it's quite a light gold) AB finish, size 6.
Mods: I worked 5 repeats of the pattern (Birgit calls for 4 or 5 repeats, but I wanted more than a half-circle), and added beads.

This shawl ended up as a birthday gift to our former manager at work, who has been back in the city for a month, in the middle of his year-long national roadtrip. The muted purples suit him really well (they were too muted for me), and the large size means he'll have plenty of toasty cashmere around his neck next month, when he's in New York.

FO: Midday

This pretty shawlette is from one of my favorite designers, Susanna IC, whose crescent-shaped shawl patterns have garnered her thousands of projects and a Ravelry group of the same name with nearly 1500 members.

While not the largest group by a long shot, this group (which I confess I'm biased to, since I'm the one that started it) acquired 1000 members in about 10 months. To celebrate this, Susanna hosted her first mystery shawl KAL. The result: Polaris (this links to my project page).

There was chatter, on-the-fly pattern changes, yarn drama, and prizes.

It was awesome.

I got to test knit, which pleases me no end, since I have a huge problem keeping track of clues in mystery knitalongs. The only downside was that I had to keep it under my hat (so to speak) once I'd finished, so as not to spoil the mystery.



Specs:
Pattern: Polaris by Susanna IC
Yarn: less than one skein of Manos del Uruguay Lace, in L2330, possibly Rhiannon. (The label wasn't very clear)
Beads: Silver-lined green with AB finish, size 6.
Needles: US7, US10 for the cast on.
Mods: none.

The Manos yarn was lovely; the wool content saved it from being inelastic. I was surprised at the simple "Lace" line name compared to the fiber content. The drape on this yarn, after a hard block, is amazing... it doesn't matter how you throw this shawl on, it always looks great. In the end, it was the yarn color that didn't draw me in. Since I love greens of all kinds, I'm not sure exactly what about it doesn't work. No matter: this shawlette was gifted to someone who loves "scarfy things" (her words) and acid green.

Gifted

Evolution is wonderful, and I'm not talking about Pokemon or Kansas: I have evolved into a process knitter.

My evidence for this is the gifting of two beautiful shawls that I started making for myself, enjoyed knitting, and then handed off to someone else. Times past, I would have kept them both for myself, even though the colors did not end up suiting me. I am very happy at this development, since it not only means that my scarf/shawlette collection hasn't taken over my apartment, but that I am finally spreading the love of handknits to deserving non-knitters. (My definition of "deserving" is pretty strict, and there are extremely few who I think would understand, love, and care for a hand knit item. But more on that another time.)

Oh, and beads!

Well, I have discovered a new love: lace.

I've knit lace before; it started with choosing a single pattern from one of the Barbara Walker treasuries, and then knitting until I ran out of yarn. The first time I can recall using this was for my mom's Christmas scarf two years ago, when I chose Vine Lace (which is about the easiest lace pattern you could hope for- four row repeat, two of which are purling, and the other two of which are the same, really, just offset by one stitch).

I tried a few lace shawl/stole patterns, though I pretty much never got past the cast on (there are three that I can think of off the top of my head). I even have a small bin that has laceweight yarn in it, which, in comparison to the rest of the stash, is but a trifle. Who knows what I was thinking when I bought that yarn?

Much time was spent admiring the amazing lace on the blogs of others, and never once did my internal Adventure Knitter say, "Holy moly! That looks like the best challenge ever! Let's do that!"

Somehow, I got it into my head to knit a lace shawl. It's those free radicals, I swear; they change the brain! So, I bought four skeins of Malabrigo lace from Imagiknit (not that I didn't totally have laceweight at home): two skeins in dark teal (Azul Profundo, I think), and two in Black Forest. I immediately cast on for Aeolian, from the Spring 2009 Knitty. The top picture is a perfect money shot, even unblocked. Can't wait to block the bejeezus out of this project.

Now I'm perhaps halfway through the charts (but of course the rows get longer and longer), and only halfway through my first skein, and halfway through my beads (which are size 6, since the local craft store didn't have 8s). So it all seems to be doing OK.


In other knitting news, I made my dad a hat for Christmas. It was knit from some bulky handspun I nearly couldn't part with, since the color is so amazing- heathery moss green and tweedy. (Sorry for the blur- I was using the last of the daylight). It's a super-simple ribbed hat, extra long so he'll be able to fold it as much as he likes. (I've made him a couple of hats before, but they ended up rather shallow- he's got a big head.)

Unfortunately, the ol' spinning wheel has been languishing. I've been spinning a decadent blend of polwarth/angora in pale green, and I bought 5 oz. from the angora lady at Lambtown back in October. The unfortunate part is that it's quite neppy (not too unusual in such delicate fibers), and since I'm spinning it finely, I've been stopping to pluck out the nepps (and occasional second cut), and so it's not a quick spin. I've got 1 1/4 oz. to go, about, and then there's the plying. This yarn will do well with a thwacking- something I've never really done before.

Last time I tried to spin, Margaret- one of our three 17-month-old cats- was convinced that the treadle and my foot were there for her to play with. She also thought the rotating wheel was trying to escape (and could only be subdued with her teeth).

Snowflake Slouch Hat

This pattern was totally improvised, so I'm reading my crochet as best I can. I started this as something to make while watching a movie on Thanksgiving, and even though it's a quick project, I was too out-of-it to finish until Friday.

I reccomend this hat to be worn kind of slouchy, and I designed (if you can truly design anything while flying by the seat of your pants) it to be a much looser, unstretched gauge at the top so it could drape a bit. You could do away with row 10 if you wanted a closer fit (or work another round if you want more slouch to your slouchy hat).

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in Aran. I chose this yarn because it was what was at hand in my mother's stash, but the finished product will hold up pretty well, even if I find the yarn squeaky to work with.

Hook: I don't know; I fished a hook out of my mom's pen cup. Might've been size M, but you should work with whatever feels right, in any case.

NOTE: I end every round with a slip stitch, as it creates a neat base for the next round to be built upon. Usually, this stitch is worked into the top of the chain st that was worked at the beginning of the row.


EDIT: I use American abbreviations, so in English crochet terms, sc would be a double crochet, dc would be a treble, and tc would be a quadruple.

Make a slip knot. Chain 3 and join with a slip stitch (sl).

Round 1: Work 14 single crochets (sc) into the hole.

Round 2: Chain 1. Work 2 sc into the top of each sc of Row 1.

Round 3: *Chain 7, work 1 sc into the fourth st.* Repeat 5 times. Chain 7, work 1 sl into the base of the first loop.

Round 4: Chain 1. *Work 11 sc on each loop of chain sts. Work a sc into the sc below.* Repeat til the end.

Round 5: Work 1 sl into the top of a sc below, 4 times. You are now at the top of a loop. *Chain 5, work 1 double crochet (dc) into the top of the sc between the loops, chain 5, work 1 sc into the top of the sixth sc below.* Repeat til the end.

Round 6: Work 1 sl into the top of a sc below, 3 times. *Chain 5, work 1 dc into the loop left of the dc below, chain 5, work a sc into the loop right of the dc below.* Repeat til the end.

Round 7: Chain 1. Work a sc into the top of every st.

Round 8: Chain 2. Work 3 dc into every loop (there ought to be 14).

Round 9 and 10: Chain 2. Work 3 dc into the space between the 3 dc-bundles below.

Round 11: Chain 3. Work 1 triple crochet (tc) into the top of every stitch below.

Round 12: Chain 2. Work 1 dc into the top of every stitch below.

Round 13, 14, and 15: Chain 1. Work 1 sc into the top of every stitch below.

Fasten off. Weave in ends, and enjoy!