A Little Photo Shoot

So I unpinned my shawl today and took it outside for a bit of a photo shoot. Here are some of the better photos.

First FO of the New Decade

I finished my Equinox on the Solstice Shawl in 19 days. I found the pattern on Ravelry (and it's free), it had originally been offered as a "mystery shawl" meaning that it was broken up into clues and people knitted it blindly. The first time I saw it I knew I had to knit it, I love the combination of the geometric patterns and the edging was awesome. When I downloaded the pattern I noticed that the edging that I had fallen in love with was indeed a crochet chain bind off, there was only one problem, I don't crochet. At all. So I knit on the shawl and ignored the edging issue, I figure I would deal with it when I got there. I finally got there and I put it down for a few days, did some research, asked around, and found this really helpful tutorial, and decided to jump in. I figured it out and the best part is I didn't even have to fudge the stitch count at the end, it worked out perfectly, I was relived to say the least.

This was different from the other shawls I made because the lace motifs were larger and crossed over from repeat to repeat. Another interesting thing is that most of the increases takes places in the last row of each of the clues, which is something I had never seen. It was a great shawl to knit, the patterned charts only take up three pages of paper and you only knit one element at a time so that was nice. However it is only charted not written out, which is fine with me but I just wanted to warn those that only like the written out patterns. Also the purl rows were a nice break, but on the longer outside rows I wished the purl rows would have knitted themselves. There was a lot of frogging on this project because on clue 3 I misplaced a YO at a very obvious part and I had to frog over 1,750 stitches. It hurt but it had to be done. I figured that this shawl was well over 45,000 stitches and well worth it.

This was also my first (but so not my last) project in Wollmeise Lace in colorway Lavendel. Wollmeise Lace is great because it has over 1,700 yards and it's a bit thicker than regular lace weight yarn. It's great to work with and the stitch definition is wonderful, and the color is stunning. I already have an idea for my next Wollmeise shawl, I can't wait!

One Last Post for 2009

So the end of 2009 is here, the year has gone by super fast. ItShe asked me what my knitting goals were for 2010, and I said I don't have knitting goals, I just want to finish my thesis.

There are three projects on the needles right now:

1. My replacement Jaywalker sock in Strange Little Mama
2. Kingscot sweater, back and right front finished, casted on for left front.
3. My Wollmeise Lace for the CPaASG-ers KAL, the objective of the KAL is to finally break into those highly coveted skeins of Wollmeise lace and knit something.

I decided to use my Wollmeise Lace in Lavendel and casted on for Vernal Equinox Shawl Surprise by Lankakomero. The pattern is great and it's the first time I have ever knit a half circle shawl. I've had to frog a few things here and there but a few days ago I had to frog 1750 stitches because I misplaced a YO and it was really obvious, it was a PITA but I did it. This piece of lace is different from the others I have knit in the past because it has larger lace motifs and not just little self-contained pieces that you repeat over and over. The original pattern was a Surprise KAL so it is broken down into 6 clues, I've finished Clues 1, 2, and 3 and I'm half way down with Clue #4.

Here is a picture of Clues 1-3.



So 2009 it's been a good year, but I think I'm ready for 2010 and a fresh new start. Happy Knitting!

A Great Way to Eat Your Veggies!

I bought the book Hello Cupcake a while ago, there are some amazing things in the book and I have wanted to make something out of it for a while. My parents and their RV club came into town and they invited me to hang out for the day and join them for a Pot Luck dinner so I wanted to make something special to say thank you. So I decided to make the Garden Party cupcakes.



It took a while to make the vegetables but it was well worth it, they looked so cute sitting on top of their Oreos crumbs "dirt", the best part is everything is edible. It's a great book there are some awesome things in it, can't wait to try another one out.

There has been a little bit of knitting, a baby hat, a hat for a friend, and knitting my replacement Jaywalker Sock in Strange Little Mama.

Where Did the Summer Go?

Seriously where did it go, if someone finds the rest of my summer please let me know.

Well the last thing I posted about was my Molly Kingscot sweater. I finished the back of it and I finished the left side with a lot of complications (knitter error, not pattern error). I've never knit a sweater with hand-dyed yarn so I never had to alternate skeins while knitting, and boy did it show. Between the cabling, chart reading, annoying bobbles, and alternating skeins there was a point where I thought I was just going to walk away in frustration. I didn't realize that when you cast on on the same side that you alternate you have to carry the yarn you aren't binding off (ask me how I learned this painful lesson). The top part of the left side almost killed me since there was binding off at different rates on both sides with the alternating thing, sucked, but at least I learned something. But as proof that I did finish the left front here is a picture (the color is not accurate, it's much more red purple). I have had a nice long break from this project and I think I might be able to handle the other side, so I might finally cast on for it. Also the word from the Wollmeise is that there will be no more Molly for sale (it was too costly to offer) so this will most likely be my only Molly sweater.



The second project is because everyone I know was having a baby this summer/fall. There were three baby boys on the way so I made three pairs of the ever so housebreakingly cute Moc-a-sock booties. The great thing about this project is they look like shoes and socks but they are one piece and you get to use up some sock yarn scraps. The first pair (cream socks) was for Baby Pearce, the second pair (blue socks) was for Baby Novak, and the third pair (Boston Red Sox) are for Baby Lebo (due any day now). The pattern was easy, it was fast and it was cute, you can't go wrong.



The third project I casted on and finished is my "Drop it Like it's Hawt" pooling scarf made out of a We're Different skein of Wollmeise in Pfauenauge (German for peacock feathers). A Rav friend is famous for her pooling stoles, and her pooling projects inspired me to pool my drop stitch scarf pattern I already had. It was great mindless knitting project because except for the first, second and last row it's all garter stitch. I knit it while watching TV, waiting in line at various things, Oktober-fest, and car knitting. The picture does not do the color of this yarn justice, the color is so much more deep in person. But I do have a picture of the finished project.



The fourth project is a basic pair of socks, I got the yarn for $2 a ball so these are my 4 Dollar Socks. The yarn is like Cascade Fixation but it's made by Knit One Crochet Two, it's called Soxx Appeal.



The last project was much more of an organizational move, but I'm proud of it none the less. I decided after some fabric crafts for the holidays that I need to get my fabric stash (which thank god is much smaller than my fiber stash) organized. So after about 3 hours of hunting it all down from all over the house, and folding for three hours and now it looks like this, I love it.



Last month I celebrated my sixth wedding anniversary in Boston, we went to two Red Sox games, spent time with old friends from college, hung out, ate some ridiculously good food, played with a 4 year old, went to a beer festival, went apple picking and generally had a wonderful time. Big A surprised me with a single tier replica of our wedding cake from the same bakery, it was delicious (but huge, it's was over 6 inches high) and I was so surprised.



And here is a picture of us and the Green Monster at the last game of the '09 season that the Red Sox's ever won, we had a great time.

Where Did the Summer Go?

Good Golly Miss Molly!

The woman I learned to knit from always told me to knit with the nicest stuff I could afford and that would work for my project. Great advice! And I have knit with some really nice yarn since I have become a knitter. There have been very few projects however that I can honestly say I never wanted to end because I like to have a finished project in the end. However I think I have found a yarn that I love knitting with the yarn and pattern so much I don't want it to end. I was lucky enough to get my hot little hands on some Molly and after swatching (and finding out from others that have knit it) that it acts more like a DK than a worsted weight yarn I knew I have to knit Kingscot with my Molly. Kingscot was designed by Norah Gaughan and released in the Winter 2008 Twist Collective (that same issue has also has Vivian which I HAVE to knit).

The only problem was I had 2 different orders of Molly from two different updates and they were so different it almost looked like a different colorway. I loved the dyelot of yarn that I got from FluffyKira (a Rav friend) in exchange for Wollmeise Lace. Thank the knitting gods from Ravelry because I found someone that bought yarn from the same update that Fluffy got her yarn from and she was more than happy to trade me my batch from her batch. Her batch matched mine a little better so I was excited but I knew I had to alternate skeins since they were different.

So I casted on and knitting with Molly has been nothing sort of a dream, I love it so much it's not even funny. It has awesome stitch definition, the color is gorgeous, and it's so easy to knit with, no joke.

Here is a picture of my progress so far, this is the back of the sweater. And I have been knitting on other things so I can make the Molly knitting last a bit longer. I finished three pairs of baby booties and finally finished that pair of house socks that have been waiting over a year for the other sock.