Finishing Time - Sea Silk Scarf

Once I heard about a gorgeous yarn called Sea Silk that is part silk, part seacell, with incredible drape and shine that even smelled a bit like the sea, I had to try it. The fact that it's dyed by Handmaiden means that it comes in the most incredible colorways too. I now have several skeins but here is the first project I've finished with it.


The pattern is called Montego Bay and it really goes hand in hand with Sea Silk. It's just a simple lace mesh with fringe but it's just a perfect showcase for the yarn. One nice twist is that it's knit with straight ends but once finished it hangs as tapered points. The pattern calls for braided fringe and I did attempt it, but after the first braid I didn't want to do any more! I made my scarf a bit wider by casting on 47 stitches to start.
Raveled here



The colorway here is called Cosmic Dawn - quite an interesting combination!

Look! Something Shiny!

On my last trip to my local knitting shop I was happily browsing away in my favorite section -- the beautiful handpainted sock yarns. There was a new batch of Malabrigo and fun new fruit-striped Lorna's Laces and much more. Ahhhhh.... so lovely.

But meanwhile my mother was canvassing the entire store and finding all kinds of different yarns. Finally I met up with her hovering over a silky, luscious scarf. Oooooohhh..... it's soooo pretty.

The yarn was 100% silk and had sequins in it too. The sample scarf was in a gorgeous navy blue like a shimmery river that sucked us both in. We looked at the price tag and said yikes! But we were too far gone and a skein of navy went home with mum while I chose a moss green.

The name of the yarn is "Disco Lights" by Tili Tomas.

Other projects got swept aside and I set out to find the perfect pattern for it. I did take the simple pattern that the sample had been knit with, but simple knitting and I don't always mesh. Even though I was pretty sure that as a scarf you'd never see much pattern (100% silk is so drapey), I wanted it to keep me interested as I knit. I ended up choosing the Ariel Scarf (free pattern) and think it worked out great.

The yarn was a little bit tricky to work with. The sequins are on a thread that is just carried along with the silk. So you always have to make sure that you're catching both strands as you knit. Also I had to adjust how I held the yarn since at the beginning the sequins were getting pushed back and bunched as I was feeding the yarn out. I had to hold it with very little tension.

But in the end I have a luscious, sparkly, silky stream of scarf of my own.

It's such a difference from the merino sock yarns and heavier cottons I've been using lately, but I am glad we got swept away by it.

Raveled here

Mmmmmmmalabrigo!

Yummy.
I'm loving knitting with Malabrigo Merino Worsted! It's so soft. I love the subtle changes in the mostly-solids (though the wild colors are fun too!) I also appreciate the nice sized 210-yard hanks and the price isn't bad at all.
I chose the Burgundy colorway to make a nice hat/scarf/mitten set. I have the hat and scarf and maybe when I can decide on a mitten pattern I'll get to work on that too.



For the scarf I did something a bit different - a lace triangle. The pattern is called 198 yds. of Heaven but I actually used even less - a measly 147 yards (a guess, based on weight). It's certainly not a shawl, but I was only meaning to make a scarf to wrap around my neck. After blocking it measured 31" wide. Small but perfectly useful and it feels so nice to wear next my skin.

Raveled here. The pattern is free and suitable for a beginner (charted or written out) but it's only on Ravelry.



The hat was a more challenging pattern. It's the Laurel from the Made in Brooklyn pattern booklet. It's meant to be a tam but um, I don't think I could pull that look off. I just wanted a regular beanie-type hat but I really liked the cabled and bobbled pattern. I ended up modifying it a bit - I did 5 repeats instead of 6 (to reduce the width) and removed 4 rows and redid the ending (to reduce the height). My previous attempts to tinker with a pattern were NOT promising but this one came out great! The pattern had 4 different cables, bobbles, a very very busy chart and tons of errata. Do not attempt this without checking those!
Raveled here

Swatch and Frog, Swatch and Frog

I have two skeins of a highly variegated yarn that I'm determined to knit up. But I'm having the hardest time finding a pattern that works with it. Really, I've knit it in six different patterns now and I'm just crossing my fingers that this time it will work. Or I might get a foot into the scarf and decide to frog it yet again. (Frogging is what knitters call ripping out the stitches. Fortunately the yarn is 100% reusable in most cases).



The yarn is Koigu KPPPM. In two skeins there are 350 yards, enough for a long skinny scarf but pretty scant for a triangle shawl. So I'm limiting myself to patterns I can do as a scarf.

I first tried the Woodland Shawl pattern. I thought the yarn was too busy and went with a semi-solid instead (my Rust Woodland which worked wonderfully).


Next up I tried the super popular pattern Clapotis. I got a ways in and confirmed that I really dislike the look of those dropped stitches. The columns of yarn lines just look... unfinished to me.


No picture for this one, but I started and stopped a Lacy Baktus scarf. A narrow triangle, mostly garter stitch worked side to side. The garter stitch made the color variations look even more frenzied and a bit sloppy. Not the one.

Then I started doing little swatches. I tried out a stitch pattern I truly enjoyed knitting, the herringbone in my Herringbone Neck Warmer. Actually, I thought this looked great but the fabric is dense and it wouldn't be a drapey scarf. I needed to go back to a lace pattern.


So I tried my faithful backup - Feather & Fan. Amazingly, this did nothing for the pattern OR the yarn.


Really this was getting ridiculous. I thought of another stitch I enjoyed - the budding lace section of my Swallowtail Shawl. A bit tricky since the pattern is written as a triangle not a rectangle, but with a bit of math I worked out how I could do it. My swatch was sort of promising...

And here it is 37-stitches wide. The rust will be taken out so I can knit on the edging of the Swallowtail pattern. If it works out I think it will be so interesting, if not, frog frog frog.

More Koigu knitting - Woodland Scarf

This is the third scarf I've knit with Koigu yarn and it won't be my last! This time I'm using their KPM yarn which is the mostly-solid version of their sock-weight yarn. It has just enough variation in it to not be a solid.

I had the pattern in mind first and went to yarn shop looking for something that would work well with it. I didn't want it to be too busy or else it would distract from the lace pattern but a completely even solid wasn't want I wanted either. This Koigu was a perfect balance. Plus I loved the rusty color and knew I enjoyed knitting with the yarn.

The pattern is called Woodland Shawl, though I knit the scarf-width version. This was my first time doing a lace pattern that is patterned on both sides. Meaning there weren't those simple "purl each second row" instructions. The wrong side follows the lace pattern too. For the first repeat I thought it all seemed a bit too complicated but then I got to see how interesting the back was turning out. After a few repeats I had the whole thing memorized and could easily put it down and then later pick it up and jump right in. By the end it was truly enjoyable and it's a pattern I could see myself making again, definitely.

These early pictures show the stitch pattern really nicely, even though these were unblocked. Now I'm interested in finding more of these patterned on both sides designs! They are worth the extra work I think.

Raveled here.

Another Koigu Scarf - Berrylicious

It's hard to go wrong with any of the Koigu KPPPM yarn colors. I went to a local yarn shop with the idea of getting some purple Koigu. Oy, there were at least a dozen options! I ended up falling for this more-pink-than-purple colorway. So pretty!



I had a bit of trouble finding a pattern I loved to use it for. I started a drop-stitch pattern but didn't enjoy it. Too fiddly and slow for me. Then I wore my first shawl, the Feather & Fan Comfort Shawl and I was reminded of how much I loved the finished product AND the knitting itself.
I had wanted to avoid repeating patterns since I'm still pretty new to knitting and love learning new techniques and stitches, but the Feather & Fan was calling to me.
This scarf version is a 4 row repeat - knit, purl, pattern, knit. Easy! So I didn't really learn anything new but I did enjoy it thoroughly. :)



Love love love my blocking wires! Really this scarf didn't NEED blocking but it's never a bad thing. It smoothed and shaped the ends and added a whole lot of length.
Raveled here

Autumn Scarf

Yes more knitting. I'm actually doing very little sewing lately as I've found knitting to be so much easier to pick-up-and-put-down. Plus it's fall and there's more to watch on TV so I can knit and watch. But I do have two quilting projects I will finish in November!

This scarf was knit with Koigu's KPPPM yarn and it's lovely to knit with. Plus Koigu comes in every color under the sun - from slightly varigated solids to tonal stripes to wild rainbows! Really, the prettiest part of a yarn store may be the Koigu section - it's a riot of color.
Here's a few skeins of Koigu, including the 2 that created this scarf:


The pattern is called Sock-it-to-me and is from the 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders book. Yes there are definitely some fluff and silly things in there but there is also a ton of good projects you'd actually make. Good book.



I got through this scarf in just two weeks! I was really pushing to finish it though since I wanted to wear it to our family portrait day last weekend. I hope it photographed well!
Raveled here

Mittens and Hats

Brrrr! Suddenly it got very cold here and I had to admit that just throwing on a hoodie on myself and the kids wasn't going to cut it anymore. I dug out our box of mittens/gloves/scarves and then scavenged around to see if coats from last year would fit the boys this winter. It looks like we are OK on coats, but Nate only had one mitten. I found a pair of Nate's old mittens that would be fine for Ben but I have vivid memories of wrestling Nate's fingers into them and thought we could do with a easier pair.
Some new mittens were definitely in order!

Now I've been bitten by the knitting bug but no way could I have finished 2 knit pairs in one evening like I did sewing up these fleece pairs:


Fortunately I still had the mitten pattern pieces I used last year when I made mittens/scarf/hat sets for all the toddlers. The pattern is free, but there is some work involved scaling the pattern to the right size for the user. It was great to just be able to cut and sew! For Ben's I just basically winged it. No thumbs on his. I used up all of the blue making Nate's pair and didn't have a good other color for Ben's. So I ended up using this luscious smooth minkee. I used white fleece for the inside to make sure it would be warm enough. (Of course white wouldn't have stayed clean for long on the outside!) These were pretty quick jobs but definitely functional. :)

Then back to the saga of the pumpkin hat. Sigh. I really had a lot of problems with this. My first hat was too big and stretched even bigger. I also didn't love the rolled edge (especially with the stretchiness.) I ended up taking out some bottom rows and knitting a ribbed bottom instead. However, it is too big for Ben and almost too big for Nate! So it's officially Nate's hat now. I started knitting another, making it a bit smaller, for Ben. I finished it and tried it on him (bad idea to wait to the end to do this!) and it was too small now!! My notes for the first hat were wrong and I knit the 2nd one with a much smaller gauge resulting in too small a hat. Argh! I had to put it away for about a week I was so frustrated with it.

But the cold weather made me determined to pick it up again. I undid the bottom, knitted up more rows, put a nice garter stitch edge on and bound off. I was as usual, so very very close to running out of yarn! But it finally FITS him now. (Of course, he still hates wearing hats!) I have a bit more green yarn (no more orange) that I may use to make ties for this still. We'll see.



I shared this project before but I'm really only calling it complete now that I found the perfect button for my hat!


And this won't really be a cold-weather scarf but the fall colors definitely make me want to get it done NOW! It's knit with lovely Koigu KPPPM yarn which is sock weight meaning it isn't a fast knit, though it is fun and pretty easy. I love love love the colors on display here. Only a few more feet to go! ;)