Saturday, December 31, 2011

Another year flew by!

Happy New Year to you, my dear readers! As I write this, 2011 is almost over and I am looking forward to 2012. I hope the new year brings you joy, prosperity and good health. I hope that there is more peace in the world and less suffering. 2011 was a tough year for many folks but there were also some streaks of light in the east. People stood up for freedom and against tyranny. I hope their sacrifices don't go unrewarded.

My goals in 2012 are to work from stash and not to buy more yarn. I have lots of yarn and I am making more.

I started spinning again. I had been on a hiatus since Oct for one reason or another. I plied the singles I had spun back in Oct but I haven't finished the yarn yet. Then I started spinning this Targhee top that I bought on clearance from Woodland Woolworks last spring. I needed the bright colors as it is dreary and gray outside. It also gets dark early so the colors are my way of brightening up the dark days of winter.

I also started another shawl. This is in a linen/silk blend from Colourmart. I had bought 3 cones in different colors a while ago. I am making the Dancing Cranes pattern from Elann.com. It is a simple lace pattern from one of the Barbara Walker treasuries called Japanese Feather. I designed and made a pair of socks with it years ago.

This stole is for a niece who is in India. I think the linen/silk will soften with time and also be cool for the hotter climate. The swatch (pictured above) has a nice crisp hand but is not as soft as I would like. I think I'll machine wash the stole to see if it softens up further before I deliver it.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

After blocking pics


I thought I'd add the after pictures also.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful

I don't know why I do these things. Sometimes I just get on a roll and want to finish a particular project. This one was one of them. I have been knitting the edging for days. The good news first: the stole is done and is blocking. The bad news: my hands hurt. The body of the stole was not a problem. It didn't hurt my hands. The edging did. You pick up sts all around the perimeter of the stole and knit the edging. I think the problem was the k3tog and sssk's that were part of the edging. Or maybe the 800 or so sts...

Anyway it is done. I am going to rest my hands for a few days by doing non-knitting things.

And last but not least, the beautiful: isn't it a lovely pattern? I am very pleased with the outcome.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

More on nupps

Colleen, thank you for the helpful suggestions on nupps. I tried doing the double wraps on some and all of the yarn overs. However, for me, the nupps turned out very sloppy. But your suggestion to tug on the nupp did the trick. For me, tugging on it after slipping the 6 loops over the first p1 made lovely even nupps.

All that experimenting resulted in nupps that looked very different from each other and the result was messy. So I ripped it out and started over.
Now I am happy with the resulting pattern. It is looking like lace. Yay! On with the remaining 10 repeats to finish the stole.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Nupps and beads

I started knitting an Estonian lace shawl. It has nupps which are like little buttons of yarn. You make a lot of new sts in one st on one row and knit or purl them all together in the next row. People find this to be a pain and often substitute beads for the nupps. Beads are also decorative, so why not?

That was also my plan when I started this shawl. I was going to put little fresh water pearls on the shawl. Well plan A failed because the holes in the beads were too small for two of the yarn thickness to go through. I can. Use them but I have to string them all on in the beginning, which I had not done. On to plan B, which was to try out a very simple method using a crochet hook. That worked but I didn't like the result. It made messy little nupps that looked more like bobbles. Bobbles stick out more and they wobble, whereas nupps don't. 

I resorted to making the nupps the traditional way. I simplified the p7tog part of it by purling 1, putting it back on the left needle and passing the other 6 loops over it before returning it to the right needle. 
Here's the shawl, or a tiny bit of it. There is a lot of knitting left in this one!

My daughter had an indigenous bead wrap on her wrist. I liked it so much, I got one just like it! Aren't they pretty? I have to see how long it will last. 
Back to knitting and nupping!