Hybrid

Not long ago I made this shawl:


I never liked it. Not only was it very boring to knit, it also looked plain and tended to roll up. I wore it once and was uncomfortable with it, it did not work neither as a shawl nor as a scarf. So I ripped it and used the yarn for a new shawl that started out with the Belmondo pattern. After using up a little less than 2/3 of my yarn, I added the edging of the Lazy Katy pattern. Because it comes from two different patterns, I named it Hybrid. This is the result:

Surprisingly, it is a little bit larger than the original. It also looks far more interesting and it lies flat. I already wore it once over a dress and it stayed on my shoulders all night without a pin. Ripping that first shawl turned out to be a great idea.

Micro

I almost named this shawl "redemption" given the recent bad luck I've had with shawls. But this is just a small kiri, and Micro is what best describes it.


It's not for me, it's for my sister, who admired my Nano once. My sister is allergic to wool, so I had to use cotton. I'm using something called Basics, from the Italian brand lana grossa. It's shiny and soft and much better than your regular dishcloth cotton... but frankly, I prefer Mexican Sinfonia. It splits much less, and one 100g skein holds many more yards than a 50g skein, which is how they sell Basics. Plus Sinfonia is cheaper.


I only used two skeins of basics for this shawl. That meant hiding four ends. Cotton is not lace friendly when it comes to weaving in ends. If I had gone with Sinfonia, I could have finished this shawl with only one skein.


Live and learn...

Confetti

For some reason, I forgot to post this pair of socks here after posting them in Ravelry. Well, here they are:



It's a simple pattern, with lace ladders all around it. On the back of the sock the lace is made with purl stitches as an experiment. There isn't really much difference in the end result. The little holes and the splashes of color make me think of confetti, hence the name.

I seriously thought I should name them "transition socks", since I finished them as I was changing jobs. But the truth is, the job change is completely unrelated to the socks. It came about without me having any control in the process.

Long story short, I was told my contract was not going to be renewed, but before my contract was over I had found a different job. The new job is nothing to be excited about, but then, there is no such thing as a perfect job. I consider myself lucky to have avoided unemployment. I even managed to squeeze in a long weekend in a Mountain Lodge between jobs.


The yarn is called Admiral Flakes, by Schoppen Wolle. I loved it. It came with my swap socks from Estibaliz and it was a wonderful gift.

Haruni

There was once an incomplete shawl that ended up abandoned in a corner after running out of yarn. Several attempts were made to substitute with a similar yarn. None worked. But finally, I am pleased to announce that embroidery floss, split in half, worked out. It's only the final crochet row that ended up finished with floss, the rest is all kidsilk spray. Which is, by the way, a terrible yarn for this pattern. The two contrasting colors create splotches that blur the pretty leaf design. All in all, I loved the yarn and the pattern, but not the combination of both.

Soon to be frogged

Another September Project.



The pattern is the Garden View Shawlette. I like the pattern, but not with this yarn, which is Newton's Yarn Country Rayon Ice Hand Painted. Rayon has no memory at all, and a stockinette shawl, no matter how well blocked, just rolls on itself. It slides of my shoulders, even after tying it.

Also, where did all the yardage go? The pattern calls for 200-300 yards. I started out with 2200 yards, according to the label. The fabric was thin and my gauge was way off. I order to get a better fabric and also to hit gauge, I used two strands, which meant I had 1100 yards, right? Enough to make a much larger shawl, with 9 or 11 leaves instead of 7. That’s why I started out with a long garter strip to be able to tie it behind my back.

Well, I am glad this pattern is constructed sideways. This allowed me to weigh the skein as I went. After three leaves I realized that I was approaching the middle. I had to settle for 7 leaves. Of course, The shawl is more triangular now than crescent shaped, given that there is only one center leave instead of three. Also, the tie strips are now pointless.

I am afraid to confess that for the first time ever a FO is going to the frog pond. I just do not see myself wearing this monster.

Snakes and Ladders

Another September project. I did not know if I wanted lace or cables in my socks, so I went with both. Someone from India told me years ago that she knew knitted cables as "snakes", and so I thought of the game "snakes and ladders" as I knitted the socks. Later I learned that in the US the game is know as "chutes and ladders".



Thanks to wikipedia, I now know that the game originated in India, and that over there it is still known as "snakes and ladders". So I'm sticking to that name.

I used a yarn called Summer Sox, which was a pleasure to knit with, though the ends tend to get splitty and weaving them in was not easy. In keeping with my obsession of using up all my yarn, I used the leftovers to make fingerless mitts for a friend, in the same pattern.



No leftovers! Yay!

Now with pictures

September was a productive month. Sadly, it was not a camera busy month. For one reason or another, I was posting to ravelry but not taking the time to take pictures of my stuff. But now that I did, let me show off, starting with a raglan I made with Sinfonia cotton that I got in Mexico eons ago:



I did not want to run out of yarn, so I started from the top and kept going until I had used up all three skeins. Yes, I am lucky to be short.

The one thing I regret is that I thought a seed stitch edging would be decorative enough, but it wasn't. Towards the end I added a few lace butterflies. If I were to knit this again (but I am not) I would add the butterflies at the neckline and at the sleeve cuffs.



The spouse concurs. Only to him those are little holes, not butterflies. But to him, all lace projects are just random holes.

Nano

I had a physics teacher that hated the use of the term "Nano" to refer to tiny things, when they contained no parts that were actually sized in the nanometer scale, or had nothing to do with nanotechnology. He always gave as an example the iPod Nano.

Well, screw that. This shawl was a disappointment in that it turned out too small. So I'm calling it Nano. I actually finished it in July, blocked it and stashed it away immediately. When winter comes, I might pull it out and use it as a scarf.



This is Wendy's Summer Mystery Shawlette, which contains no gauge information. In fact, I remember she said that gauge does not matter with shawls. Well, I proved her wrong :)

By the way, I used my Serratia marcescens yarn, the one I dyed with bacteria.

Labyrinth socks

So this is the pattern that was playing in my head. It does not work in the round with all those diagonals, so it's mainly on the top of the sock. After the heel I added a bit of the pattern to the back without completing the whole circuit to avoid staggering.



Did you notice that they are mirror images? I am sometimes anal like that. If I have not made a Pomatomus pair it's because I am too lazy to figure out the mirror image of the pattern.

By the way, I know I said these other socks look like camouflage, but the name fits this yarn much better.



If you ever want to knit a pair of socks to go with a camouflage outfit, choose Panda Soy in the Chocolate Almonds colorway.

I am still busy packing, we are moving a week from now! Here's one sock on a foot, posing on one of the moving boxes:

Pretty in Pink

Well, I finally finished those sleeves. I must have knit them three or four times before deciding on a final version. Even now, I am not totally satisfied with how they look. They are a little baggy.



Also, I was unable to block it properly, given that all I have is this piece of styrofoam. It has worked for me well with all my sleeveless projects but now there was not enough room for the sleeves. I had to improvise, block it sideways and fold the bottom lace section up at the seam and pin the lace edging to the body.

It did not work. That bottom part took two days to dry and the lace was still a bit curly.

After adding the crochet edgings, here's the final result:





Yep, the sleeves look baggy, but so be it. Either I learn to live with them or I bring the whole thing back to a plastic bin to age for another three or four years.

I wore it to work, got a few compliments, and nobody said anything about the sleeves, but maybe that's because they're too polite.

Remember the lazy pink thing?

This blog has been all about small projects (socks, mitts and hats) for too long. I am kind of fed up and want to go back to larger things. Which brings me to the lazy pink thing that I started back in 2007. I hated it then, having made some mistakes when modifying the pattern and then having to start over. Also, I was a little fed up with pink back then.




I am less averse to working with it now. Except for the sleeves. They are designed so they stick out, just like t-shirt sleeves. My first attempt at a sleeve looked really awkward when sewn in. My poor sewing abilities are partly to blame but I also think they would look ugly anyway even when sewn in by a pro.

Here's when ravelry saved me. NaiadKnitter finished this project but wrote on her notes that she would pick up stitches and knit the sleeves down from the shoulder on the next one.

And that is, precisely, what I am attempting to do:



I hope it works...