Its been a busy week for the family and my Afloat has been neglected but I have been working on my Bermondsey Shawlette whenever I had the chance.
As you can see I still have quite a bit of yarn from the first skein of each colour and I have a second skein of each so I think I will make it larger than the pattern. Sorry about the poor light and the ipad pic, still need to get my camera fixed.
Its a really fun knit with little details that stop it being boring, here's a closeup of the centre detail:
I'm hoping to make more progress this coming week as I've finally decided the colour for the scallops on the edge - Shibui Sock in Cranberry is on its way from Eat Sleep Knit in the US, from their Black Friday Sale and I want to be ready to use it once it gets here.
That's all for this week but check out my interview over on the Midnight Sky Fibers blog!
My Afloat shawl from Wild Prairie Knits is progressing nicely and I'm starting to really get the hang of the lace pattern.
I worked the first repeat from the written instructions and then started following the chart, its a really nice clear large chart that looks great in Goodreader on my ipad mini. I have my usual issue in that my left-handed mirror knitting style means I'm knitting from left to right and reading the chart from right to left but that's OK, I'm used to it.
After a few repeats I have managed to keep knitting by following the lace itself as family members keep monopolising the ipad. I've not done a great amount of lace for a while, mostly yokes or panels on garment and never an edging like this but this one is quite geometric and easy to follow.
Here's a close-up of my lace edge so far:
Unfortunately the other evening I was having a few issues with painful finger and thumb joints, so I decided to give the lace a rest for a day or two and cast on something simpler. (Not knitting for while was considered and quickly discarded as an unacceptable option :0 )
I've been wanting to make Alex Tinsley's Bermondsey Shawlette for quite a while and had snapped the pattern up in the GAL sale, so decided to cast on with two shades of grey in Shibui Sock.
Its a great pattern, very nice little slipped stitch details along the centre line and edges. The colours are Graphite (darker) and Ash (lighter). There's just one problem, I have no idea what to use for the edging!
What colour/yarn would you suggest I use for the edge scallops?
What, I hear you ask, is the pairing game? Sounds like some sleazy sort of matchmaking?!
Well, its matchmaking of the yarn-loving kind, as described in the first post of the competition thread by EchoChiKnits aka Lindsay Lewchuck:-
Your mission, should you choose to accept is to match a yarn (or prize) from the prize list here with a pattern from one of our 177 indie designers and tell us why it is a good fit. This thread will be the only thread receiving the random select trivia questions for the next two weeks (‘til Nov. 30th). It is a chatter thread, because when it comes to yarn who can keep silent, but note, only posts with the following 3 criteria will be eligible for the random select trivia question and subsequent prize. The post must:
Tell us why it is a great pairing One more thing, to make it truly your own, you may not use a pattern where the specified yarn by the designer is the yarn you selected from the list!
The prizes are pattern downloads, and no, you don't win the pattern and yarn you suggested, although that would be uber-cool, but any of the donated pattern prizes would be fun to win.
Designers (like me) aren't eligible to enter but I'm still enjoying reading all the entries and chatting. And right at the start it solved a problem that I've had for some time.
A yarn problem, you say? Well yes, do you ever have yarns that just won't tell you what they want to be?
Some time ago I bought three skeins of Malabrigo Silky Merino in Ravelry Red, only to discover that it is not quite the usual bright red of Raverly Red in sock or Rios or the other pure wools, because of the silk. Its a bit more pinky rather than true red. And I've been confused about what to do with it ever since.
And there it was, in Post 4, the greatest suggestion from another raveler, to pair the two skeins of Ravelry Red Malabrigo Silky Merino donated by Triona Murphy with the pattern Inganess by Lucy Hague. Now Inganess has been in my queue before, on more than one occasion, but as I try to keep my queue short and only for the things that I will do soon, it had dropped off (I use my favourites for things I might do one day).
I can't wait to cast on an pretty red Inganess now, but I am going to stick to my Afloat at least until the end of the striped section before I let myself.
Have you found a serendipitous pairing of stash yarn and pattern?
I've just discovered WIP Wednesdays over at Tami's Amis!
That's Work in Progress Wednesdays for the uninitiated, no whips involved at all (although you can amiguri anything I'm sure).
Here's what I'm working on at the moment, an Afloat shawl by Cindy Garland of Wild Prairie Knits. I'm using Malabrigo Finito in Natural (cream), Azules (blues) and Cereza (dark red) for a colour combo much like the designers original sample.
My camera battery has died recently and I need to order a replacement so we're stuck with the fairly poor, badly lit, ipad shot, but you can see the stripes are coming along nicely.
Finito is wonderful to knit with, I asked in the Malabrigo Junkies group on ravelry if they thought I should prewash and they suggested that I do, and to use woolwash not just water. So all the skeins got a bath in Soak on Sunday night and dried very quickly looped around the drying rack. And its lovely, just like knitting a cloud. When I started it was like I could see the yarn but not really feel it!
I'm a bit tardy in posting this here but I've been helping out with a huge Ravelry event this month, the Indie Designers Gift-a-long!
Over 170 designers, tons of patterns and the biggest list of prizes I've ever seen!
You can check out the prizes, including yarn and equipment and pattern downloads, here.
Need some help in deciding what to knit? A team of dedicated designers pinned all the patterns on Pinterest, links to all the boards are on Ravelry here.
I'm helping with the moderating duties in the Garments and Baby and Child threads, drop in an say hello. I'm also knitting some things myself, more on that in another post.
I've been a bit slack about this blog for a while, but I have been busy designing!
My first garment pattern was released a couple of months ago, Merewether is sleeveless vest or tank top (depending on your yarn choice), in DK to worsted weight, this sample in Madelinetosh DK Twist, with projects on ravelry in Malabrigo Rios, Wollmeise DK and many others.
