Kiri Shawl

Here is my lovely Mother modeling the Kiri Shawl that I made for her for Christmas.  Can you see the family resemblance?  So often I am told how much I look like my mother and I love it.  She often reminds me of a time when I was just a little girl, sitting on the bathroom counter watching her put on her makeup.  I would intently watch her and marvel in her beauty and tell her how much I wanted to be as beautiful as her when I grew up.  Well, I got my wish, and I couldn't be happier.

I've often said that I am a very selfish knitter.  When I spend so much time and energy making something beautiful, I often want to keep it for myself.  However, if there was ever a person who is worthy of such time and dedication, it is my mother.  She is a talented knitter herself, and knows and appreciates all the love that goes into any handmade gifts.  She also loves lace shawls and although I really enjoy making them, I don't usually wear them.  It's a knitting match made in heaven. 



This is more true to the color

The Kiri Shawl is a lovely free pattern on Ravelry by Polly Outhwaite.  A gorgeous, lacey triangular shawl that would work with a variety of yarns and can be made to what ever size you'd like.  I chose a 2ply lace weight yarn by Jojoland yarns called Consonance.  This is an amazingly soft and delicate 50% cashmere, 50% silk yarn that knit up beautifully.  I bought 2 skeins of it (at 40% off, does it get any better than that?) and ended up using just a little of the second one.  I don't know what I'll do with the rest of the yarn yet, but you can guarantee that I'll be using every inch of this stuff.  It's that lovely.

Here, Cupcake and I are contemplating weather or not I can get 2 more rows out of the tiny little bit of yarn that is left there.  I did not.  As the rows get larger and larger, they take a surprising amount of yarn and I was forced to add the second skein in for the last row and cast off row.  Thank goodness I had gotten that second skein, which I couldn't have done if it weren't on sale. 

Blocking this sucker was an absolute bitch.  Some of the points came out very nicely and others I couldn't pull out well at all.  Things might have gone more smoothly if I could have used my blocking wires, but unfortunately they have been packed away.  They are 'some where safe', which means they I have no idea where the hell they are.  So, I did the best I could with what I have.  Meaning lots of sewing pins on a towel, on my living room floor.

See what I mean about the points?  It's not perfect, but when worn, you can't see all the little imperfections.  From this point, it was just a matter of keeping Cupcake from running over it.  Of course, this was the point where she thought a round of 'fetch the squeaky toy' was absolutely imperative. 

This wraps up the gift knitting and I am now back to knitting for myself.  I'm already working on  a spring cardigan and am actually almost done with it.  I look forward to sharing it soon.  Even if spring is a long way off.  Maybe it's wishful knitting to be working on a project for warmer weather when the temperatures are in the -40 below region.  I leave you with a picture of what -42 degrees looks like here in Alaska. 

Looks like a perfect day to snuggle under a blanket with Cupcake, my knitting and a hot cup of tea.  Which is exactly what I did.  Stay warm, my friends.

 XOXO,
Cherry

Ringing in the Knitting New Year

Recently I have received some wonderful yarn as gifts. Both my mother and sister have a great eye for luxury yarns and just love to buy them whenever possible. This always benefits me, especially around the holidays. With a birthday at the end of November, I consider it to be a part of the “holiday season” as well. This year I made out particularly well. For my birthday, my sister sent me a fabulous skein of MissBabs hand-dyed “Yummy” which is their sock/baby weight yarn in “Dark Oak”

. This is an extremely rich very dark purple color. It’s almost black, but when looked at it under natural light, you can see the deep purple variation. Oh oh oh, what shall I make out of this??? Well, nothing for awhile. It was the holiday season and I had about a million other projects going on at one time. So, fast forward to Christmas, and I unwrapped an absolutely stunning skein of green sock yarn from Sunshine Yarns, sent to me by my mother. Just saying that this yarn is green is a horrible injustice to this yarn. The color is called “Jade” and it is such a happy summer green. Now, I wonder what this yarn will become?

At the end of the year a lot of people come up with New Year’s resolutions. I, instead, came up with a few Knitting New Year Resolutions. Three of my resolutions are: 1) Knit more from my stash, focusing on yarn that people have given me, 2) Learn at least one new technique, and 3) Document my knitting better. So, I wanted to start the new year off with a knitting bang. I need to find a project that fits as many of my resolutions as possible. I already have some wonderful new yarn in my stash, now I’d like to find a project I can make with that yarn, that I can learn a new technique with. In order to speed my knitting skills up, I decided, I would like to learn to knit Continental style. I’m an English style knitter or a “thrower”, meaning when I knit, I ‘throw’ the yarn around the needle - wrapped with the index finger of my right hand around the right needle after the stitch has been partially slipped from left to right. I’d like to learn how to be a “picker” which is the continental method where the yarn is ‘picked’ onto the right-hand needle from where it is held out in front of the left-needle. Over the many years I’ve been knitting, I’v been told that ‘picking’ is faster and less strenuous on your hands than ‘throwing’. This is because the hands/fingers are making much smaller movements. So, now I need to find a pattern that can use 2 different colors of sock yarn AND has lots of plain knitting, perfect for practicing a new knitting style.

The idea of knitting a shawl seemed perfect, because when I’m done with it, I’ll have something beautiful to wrap around me that came from BOTH my mother and my sister. With the help of my mother, I decided on the pattern. Well, considering the pattern I ended up knitting was my mothers idea and she paid for the pattern, I don’t know that I actually decided on it. She did. But that’s okay with me. Anyways, lets get on with the show.

Here is my “Eagle Twist”, pattern written by Dennis Marquez. You can find it at my favorite online knitting community Ravelry.com. I did make some altercations to the pattern. Firstly, the pattern calls for a sport weight yarn but I was making it with sock weight. Because my yarn is finer, I thought I should also go with a smaller needle so instead of using US sz6, I opted to us US sz5 needles. Also, because I was afraid the end result was going to be a tiny scarf and not a shawl, I did a total of 7 sections of my contrasting color (the green) where the original pattern only called for 6. In the end......... IT’S HUGE!!

It took up the whole bed! Haha, of course it is. I should have known that with my very loose gauge knitting (and continental knitting is usually even looser than English) just because I was using smaller needles and smaller yarn, I would be just fine. Anyways, it’s big, but not too big and I love it.

It's like a BIG hug from two people I don't get enough hugs from. Damn it for living so far away from them.

As far as learning a new technique went, well that didn’t go as smoothly as I’d have liked. I watched a few tutorials on continental knitting over at Youtube.com and gave it a go. It was uncomfortable at first, but got a little easier as I went along. The first few times I tried to purl in continental the stitches came out twisted so I decided I would just focus on the knitting and to keep the purling in english style. After the first few days my right hand was hurting some, due to all the new movements that my hand wasn’t used to. But that didn’t stop me, it just meant that I could work on it a little bit each day and be working on other projects at the same time. I’m ok with that. All and all, I learned how to knit, but not purl in continental and it is still sort of uncomfortable, but I think I’ll use this technique when I’m working other patterns that call for a lot of plain knitting. And someday I’ll learn to purl, as well.

I think that if I do this pattern again, there are a few things I would change. I would slip the first stitch in every row, this would make a much smoother edge. Also, I do not like the YO (yarn over) increases at the beginning and end of each row. I would do a different increase, either a KFB (knit front and back) or M1L/M1R (Make one Left/Make one Right). I think this would also look a bit smoother and not leave holes in the knitting. I considered changing the increases at the center cable but I believe that changing the YO’s would make the cable blend into the surrounding knitting. The holes that the YO’s create make the cable stand out. All in all I am very happy with the pattern.

A shawl for Mothers Day

I had a wonderfull day with my daughter spent watching movies and hanging out.... and knitting. After having to un-knit (tink) 2 rows of lace pattern (total nightmare) I was able to finish my "Traveling Woman" shawl. Yippee!!! This was my first shawl and my first time reading a lace chart. It's such a feeling of acomplishment. I still have to block it, but concidering summer is here, that may wait for a bit till I have some other things to block with it. Blocking is almost as repulsive to me as a gauge swatch, so I like to put it off till I have a few things and can do them all at once.

To my amazing mother, I LOVE YOU WITH ALL MY HEART. I could never put to words how much I admire, respect and cherish you and our relationship. Thankyou for all you have ever done for me (even if I didn't understand at the time). Thankyou for changing my diapers. Thankyou for teaching me how to be strong. Thankyou for showing me compassion. Thankyou for nurturing my creative side. Thankyou for always being my number 1 fan. I would not be the person I am today without you. I am everything I am because of you.

Hours knitting: 6
Total so far: 36.5