milkweed shawl

Before I left for Urbana over the weekend I purchased and printed Laura Chau's newest pattern, Milkweed Shawl. I started knitting it in a cotton yarn, but only had 4 of the 5 balls with me so I couldn't finish it this past weekend. I'll finish it soon, but in the meantime I picked up a skein of Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere 2-ply to knit the same kerchief.


I enjoyed knitting this small shawl because of all the garter stitch and simple columns evolving into little diamond shapes at the end. I also really like the edging. It is not too pointy, but has some shape to it and the two far end points look like little wing tips.


I knit on US sz 4 bamboo circulars at Chris' apartment and during the whole train ride back to Chicago. The train was an hour late leaving Urbana, but that didn't bother me because I got that much more uninterrupted knitting time. I arrived at 1pm with a lot of time until my 6pm rehearsal in Chicago so I walked the short distance from Union Station to Loopy yarns to "waste" some of that time. I got a couple awesome skeins of sock yarn, Nova Sock in a rusty orangey red and Casbah Sock in shades of blue. Then I did EZ's sewn bind off on the Milkweed Shawl and worked on some fingerless mitts at the shop. There were a couple of really nice employees to hang out and knit with too.

Anyway, I am working on a lot of projects and several of my own designs as well. Getting some of my patterns out will be slow going as I am new to that process, but I am really excited about how my designs are knitting up!

Here is another picture of Laura Chau's Milkweed. I have more pictures on my ravelry project page.

wwkip 2009

This year was my second time participating in World Wide Knit in Public Day. Last year I was at Daniela Johannsenova's event at her shop, Maschenkunst, in Cologne, Germany.
This year I took the train down to Urbana for the weekend and had a wonderful time knitting at the farmer's market for WWKIP day. We'll see where I end up next year.


Brigitte, the shop owner at Klose Knit, did a great job putting together this little event and there was a nice group of knitters that showed and several people at the farmer's market stopped to admire and ask questions which is great!



I started working on Laura Chau's (blog link) newest pattern, Milkweed (rav link), on the train this weekend and at the farmer's market. I love all the garter stitch in this shawl and the fun simple lace detail. It's fairly easy and the pattern is written out and charted clearly.


I'm knitting my version with Fiddlesticks Ecoknit Organic Cotton on US sz 8 needles. It's a worsted weight soft cotton so, it will be larger than the shawl in the pattern. I will most likely knit Milkweed again in fingering weight yarn though.

Anyway, how was everyone else's knit in public day. What did you do? Where did you knit?

chicago with ysolda

I had a great time on Wednesday meeting Ysolda. I got to relax and knit with her and several other awesome knitters at Nina in Chicago.

I admired her sample suitcase that she brought and shared some of my knitting.


This is Ysolda's Hap Blanket pattern (rav link) that I knit up in Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran and Plymouth Homestead.

I also just finished her Cairn hat and mitts earlier this week. Here's a picture of the mitts meeting the designer. : )

Ysolda didn't have any mitts with her sample suitcase so mine get to join her during the remainder of her US trip. The Cairn fingerless mitts (rav link) were knit with Lorna's Laces Green Line dk and Colinette Cadenza in the Large size with US 5 needles.


I made the 22" size of the Cairn hat (rav link) with Queensland Kathmandu dk and Noro Cashmere Island. Those two yarns made a wonderfully squishy pair. I especially like the garter stitch at the top of the this hat.


I started working on a garter stitch foot stool with a simple pattern found on this site.


While at the shop I recognized Eliza who is ifandany (rav profile link) and met her friend Jill who is Juneberrystar on ravelry. It was so cool meeting all these people in person.


After visiting at the shop the four of us had a delicious dinner at the Earwax Cafe in Wicker Park and there were cupcakes involved. mmm.

Anyway, I'm excited to see the people I met at Nina more this summer.

I'm aiming to get out the pattern for the botanic hat (rav link) later this month. It keeps getting pushed back because I was working on a couple other designs and I still need to work out a couple more sizes for the hat, but I did just finish knitting a version with a folded ribbed brim (rav link) with Malabrigo and Plymouth Boku.


I really love the way it hugs comfortably around my head and covers the ears.


This summer is sure to be a heavy knitting season. I seem to be working with just as much wool despite these warm days.

slipped rib scarf

Slipped Rib Scarf

Knit this Scarf bigger for a cozy wrap or small (as pictured) to wear wrapped around your neck.

Yarn: You can use any weight you prefer. I used two skeins of an aran weight cotton yarn, Araucania Pomaire, colorways 4 & 7. I had more than half a skein leftover of the green/yellow/purple colorway.

Needle: With an aran weight yarn, I used US 10 circular needles for a loose drapey fabric. I recommend using larger needles for any given yarn to get the most out of a yarn's yardage and to create a fabric with nice drape.

Slipped Rib Stitch:
Row 1 (WS): Purl all sts
Row 2 (RS): K1, *wyif Sl1, wyib K1, repeat from * for slipped rib stitch


Abbreviations:
K: Knit
P: Purl
yo: yarn over
Sl: slip (stitches in slipped rib stitch are always slipped purlwise)
wyif: with yarn in front
wyib: with yarn in back
RS: Right Side
WS: Wrong Side
CO: Cast On
St: Stitch

Instructions:
CO with your favorite triangular shawl cast on.
I usually CO 5 sts and do the following 2 set up rows...
Row 1 (WS): K2, yo, P1, yo, K2
Row 2 (RS): K2, yo, K1, yo, K1(this is the center st), yo, K1, yo, K2

Row 3 (WS): K2, purl to last 2 sts, K2
Row 4 (RS): K2, yo, work the RS row of slipped rib stitch until you get get to center stitch, yo, K1, yo, work in the slipped rib stitch again to last 2 sts, yo, K2

Repeat rows 3 & 4 being careful that all the Knit sts are stacked on top of each other and all the slipped sts are stacked on top of each other on the RS of the shawl. This will mean that on one right side row you start the slipped stitch pattern with a knit stitch and on the next right side row the slipped stitch pattern begins with a slipped stitch.

Work shawl until desired length leaving a couple inches free for a garter stitch border.
I knit 8 rows while maintaining the 4 yo sts every other row.
Cast off, weave in ends, and enjoy!

(My cotton shawl ended up being about 20 inches in length from the cast on edge to the pointy tip, and the width or wingspan of my shawl is roughly 48 inches across)

chicago trip

I came up to Chicago with Chris on Monday so he could talk with a professor about grad school research opportunities at UIC. We stayed at my mom's in Skokie and took the train into Chicago Tuesday morning. After we went to UIC we got to check out Loopy Yarns in Chicago.


They had a really great selection of all kinds of yarn organized by weight. So, their worsted weight yarn was what you saw first, then they had their chunky yarn and sport/dk weight had its own room as well as lace/sock weight yarn. Their Lorna's Laces selection was excellent. I may have to get some of that at their shop this summer. However, their prices were all $2-3 more per ball of yarn than I've seen anywhere else. Perhaps that's because of their Chicago location, but they had some really nice yarns 25-50% off downstairs. They also had some roving downstairs. I want to explore spinning more, so I got my favorite colorway of merino top roving that they carry from Frabjous Fibers.


I even got a 10% discount for being a student and an awesome free tote bag for signing up on their email list. The bag has sheep knitting on the train.

Also on Tuesday, we went to Close Knit in Evanston, Illinois. It's a nice cozy one room shop with nice yarns stacked on all the walls. I found some awesome Fiddlesticks organic cotton yarn on sale for less than $5 a skein. I grabbed all five skeins because it was a soft neutral tweedy cotton.



I worked on a little shawl Monday and Tuesday with some Araucania Pomaire yarn. It's a wonderful cotton with amazing variegated colors. I loved working with it.



I cast on during the car ride from Urbana to Chicago, knit at home that night, on the train in the morning and throughout the day, and finished it at the beach in Evanston that afternoon.



I used a simple slipped stitch pattern with yarn overs on the edges and on either side of the center stitch. Then I just switched to garter stitch for eight rows with another colorway and cast off.



I think I'll definitely use this yarn again. It's a really nice soft cotton. There are several gorgeous colorways and they are all a little different. I like the purpley blue based one I got because it just had hints of the the yellow/orange bits.


I used one skein of the blue and less than a half skein of the green. So, I might have enough leftover for some fingerless mitts. I may try to add a crocheted border? Or some tassels maybe? I don't know. I may save that edging idea for another shawl sometime.



Let me know if you want me to write up a little recipe for this pattern. It's basically the same as the Boneyard Shawl that I wrote up, but you use less yarn and there's a different easy stitch pattern for the body of the shawl/neckwarmer.

boneyard shawl

Boneyard Shawl
By Stephen West

This simple triangular shawl is a great project for traveling or while relaxing at home. Once you get started, it is easy to memorize the construction of this cozy garment.

I worked this shawl in a DK weight tweedy wool yarn, but it would look lovely in any weight or fiber (bulky, fingering, striped, variegated, cotton, silk, etc…) I like to knit with a larger than recommended needle size for the yarn on this shawl because I get the most out of a yarn’s yardage. A looser fabric also allows for excellent drape.

Yarn: Rowan Rowanspun DK, colorway #748, 3 skeins (654 yards)

Needles: US 8, 32” circular

Notes: The shawl increases from the cast on stitches and ends at the shawl’s point with a garter stitch edge. The first and last 2 stitches of every row are knit while 4 yarn overs are added every other row (a yarn over at each end and a yarn over on each side of the center or “spine” stitch). As the shawl grows, a ridge is added every 12 rows to create extra textural interest and a simple garter stitch border ties everything together.

Instructions
CO 5 sts

Set up row (WS): K2, P1 (mark this center stitch by placing a marker on it or a removable marker on each side of it), K2

Row 1 (RS): K2, yo, K1, yo, K2

Row 2 (WS): K2, yo, P3, yo, K2 (this is the only WS row where you increase with yo’s)

Row 3 (RS): K2, yo, knit to center stitch, yo, K1, yo, knit to last 2 sts, yo, K2

**Row 4 (WS): K2, purl to last 2 sts, K2

Repeat rows 3 and 4, creating a stockinette stitch fabric with garter stitch edges.

**On every 12th row (on the WS) knit the entire row instead of purling to form the ridges.

Continue knitting until shawl reaches about 2 inches less than desired finished size.

Keeping the yarn over increases going on every RS row, Knit all stitches on the RS and WS rows, making the garter stitch border. (Remember to allow enough yarn for the garter stitch border because with the large number of stitches at the end, the long rows use a lot of yarn.)


Finishing
After the border is the desired length, bind off all stitches and weave in the ends. (I used one of my favorite flexible bind offs, Elizabeth Zimmerman’s sewn bind off, and I was very pleased with the finished edge.)

Block the finished shawl if you wish and enjoy!

felted things and malabrigo

A lot of knitting has been going on, but not a lot of typing due to an incident involving a bowl of soup and my computer keyboard. I can still access the internet and my mouse works along with half of my keys, but I have to click letters on my screen to make up for the other half of my keys that don't function. I'm waiting until I'm back home to get it looked at. Fortunately, I don't have to type many papers this semester.

Anyway, I've been knitting constantly and completing several projects. Most recently, I've felted a couple things.

Last night I just added the lining and button/closure to a felted bag.


I used Cat Bordhi's Moebius Sling Bag - Summer Weight pattern as a guideline, but I cast on about 20 extra stitches to the strap and 10 extra stitches to the body of the bag. The strap also isn't a moebius.


I used a few skeins of Classic Elite Skye Tweed (marmalade) and some leftover Madil Loden in a pickley grellow color that I got when I was in Italy last summer. The Skye Tweed took several hot washes to felt for me. I put it through a couple cycles in a top loader washing machine and a few times in a front loader. I've never had a wool that took that much washing to felt. It turned out fine though.


I sewed some quilting fabric together with a machine and then attached the fabric to the felted bag by hand with a tapestry needle and some Noro Shinano. Then, I just made a simple i-cord loop to fasten around a wooden button.


It's the perfect size for a small knitting project like a hat.

I also recently made a basket/bag type thing for Klose Knit out of Malabrigo in the Cadmium colorway.


It's been a little while since I worked with Malabrigo worsted and I've fallen in love with it again.

After making that felted basket I got a couple skeins of Malabrigo at Knit 1 in Chicago to work on a pattern of mine. I came up with a reversible hat idea last summer, but I'm finally perfecting it and starting to get the pattern written up.


I'll put the free pattern on here and on my Ravelry page in the next few weeks or so. The hat looks great playing with two different yarn as well as a solid color.


I'm excited to see other people knit this hat up in different colors.

My needles have been busy with hats in March. I worked with the new Noro Chirimen yarn and whipped up this hat about a week ago.


It's a wonderful cotton blend with gorgeous colorways. I'll be able to wear it in the spring and summer.



I'll still be knitting with wool over these next couple seasons, but I also want to work with some cooler yarns as well. Do you all have any favorite spring/summer yarns. What projects do you find yourself working on in warmer months or what to do you plan on knitting during spring and summer?