The Dramatic Stole Is On My Mind

It's kept me awake a couple of nights, fretting about it. My friend J. picked up some Lion Brand Incredible yarn in the Rainbow colorway when our local Hancock Fabrics closed up. She wanted a Dramatic Stole and she's exactly the right person to wear one. She's tall and carries herself beautifully. Drama becomes her.


I, being a knitter who is always looking for projects, said I knit a dramatic stole for her and we went to the new LYS and picked out some Blue Heron Rayon Loop in Blueberry, which is a very nice boucle. I haven't knitted much boucle, so this promised to be an interesting experience. And the colors are so luscious. Boucle knits up into a unique fabric in garter stitch. It's too loopy to knit into fancy stitches, as they won't show.


For a textural contrast, we chose Yarn Place Vivace (bamboo) in Purple Rain. Believe the promise of the yarn in the skein, as you pick it up and feel its soft slinkiness. It truly is soft and it has that wonderful heavy drape of rayon and silk. It also holds a stitch nicely.


So here's the total collection.


My first thought was symmetric stripes in random widths starting at the center back, sort of like the spreading zone in the middle of the Atlantic. I tried that, starting with the Vivace and following with the Rayon Loop, but it really didn't work. The Vivace needed more of a pattern and the gauges were just too different.

Even that little bit of knitting with bamboo yarn had kind of hooked me, so I'd gone back to my LYS and picked up three balls of SWTC Bamboo, which is DK weight, and restarted Faina's Scarf[1]. I got about halfway though it and had an idea for the Dramatic Stole. I decided to make lace panels in the Faina's Scarf pattern in Vivace and join them with garter-stitch panels in the Rayon Loop. I've knitted two lace panels. The panels are about 11" by 22", although I can change the size a fair amount.


Here's a close-up of one of the panels. I should point out that this pattern is copyright Fibertrends, so I won't be showing the whole thing in loving detail or anything.


And here's a close-up of the other.

Chevrons and diamonds, to summarize. You can probably just see that there's a chain selvedge on the side of the panel. I'm going to knit a Rayon Loop panel, picking up the selvedge stitches, to join these panels. There will be five lace panels and six boucle panels. Then I'll edge the whole thing with Incredible, in a knitted-on i-cord, and add the Incredible fringe. That should be dramatic enough, even for her.

[1] More about the Faina's Scarf soon. I need to take photos in good light because the yarn is all blues and lavender, which doesn't photograph well in poor light. The colors are beautiful and I want them to show up in all their glory.

Another New Scarf

I started another quick scarf, after buying three balls of SWTC Bamboo yarn from my LYS. This isn't a very good photo, partly because the yarn is very shiny (and soft) and partly because it's been cloudy here. These are also difficult colors for the digital camera. The yarn is variegated from a light lavender to a medium teal via light green blue. The colors are actually very pretty and not all faded out, the way they look in both these photos.


The colors are a little better here. The pattern is Faina's Scarf, from Fibertrends. This is at the end of the first chart, the increase at one end.


See the pretty seed stitch border? it's also got a slipped-stitch selvedge that is visible along the left side. While this is lace, it's not very lacy, which sounds contradictory, but isn't. I started this scarf once before in red Lion Brand Microspun, which is very nice yarn, but was way too heavy for this scarf. The Bamboo, which is DK weight, is really a bit too heavy, too, but it's a lot closer. The pattern wanted sport weight, but I didn't have anything really pretty in sport weight.

I'm actually almost done with the second body repeat, but it's too cloudy to get a better photo. As soon as it clears up I'll snap a photo to show it off in its true colors.

Off The Needles

Argosy Baby Blanket
Originally uploaded by Mary The Digital Knitter

Here's the Argosy Baby Blanket, just off the needles. I haven't woven the ends in yet and I'm still debating whether to run a crocheted edging around it because of the rolling, but it's essentially done.

Notice the subtle zig-zag color pattern in the body of the blanket. I like the pooling on the two corners, too.

Argosy Progress & Eye Candy

Argosy Progress

Here's my version of the Argosy Baby Blanket. I've completed 13 pattern repeats, giving me 169 squares (the number of squares is the number of repeats squared). The 14th repeat has 349 stitches per row. Why, yes, I am an engineer and I do math readily, particularly when I'm knitting and trying to figure out how much of the row I've finished.


I think I'm going to do three more pattern repeats and then start the decreases. I'm getting some curling on the edges and I may want to run a single crochet edge around the blanket to see if that'll control some of the curl, so I don't want to use up all my yarn.

This photo is just looking from the corner toward what's going to be the center, to show off the colors and texture.


Bright, isn't it?

Eye Candy

It's my understanding that the purpose of showing eye candy is to display recent acquisitions. This was a really big week in the acquisition department because I suddenly realized that the Weldon reprints from Interweave Press were getting close to being out of print and I only had the first six volumes. I'd put off buying the rest with the "I've got plenty of time" argument and all of a sudden I didn't. In a moment of blind panic, I bought them all, three from Amazon (slightly cheaper) and three from Interweave. That damned Interweave Press did it to me again; I ended up buying two more books I hadn't entirely intended to buy.

Two commenters here are nearly as much to blame as am I for my buying Vivian Høxbro's Domino Knitting but I have to take the sole responsibility for buying Slip-Stitch Knitting, by Roxana Bartlett. I also bought a book about mittens and some shawl and scarf patterns.

And I bought some yarn on eBay. The yarn on the left is New Zealand wool, which isn't very soft, but the rose colors are so pretty I decided that doesn't matter. The yarn on the right is rayon and has a beautiful drape. The beige yarn in front was a freebie from the seller.

Here's a photo of the rayon, showing that it's blue, aqua, and lavender. The dyer named it "Sea Lavender", which is a really good name, I think.


And here's a close-up to show the texture. The photo can either show all the colors or the texture, but not both at once.


Here's a photo of the New Zealand wool, showing the beautiful pinks, roses, and purples of the "Rose" colors. I wonder why New Zealand doesn't have mostly merino, the way Australia does. I mean, Oz is New Zealand's closest neighbor, just across the Tasman Sea. Maybe the two climates are different enough for it to matter. New Zealand has a climate more dominated by the ocean, since it's so narrow, being three major islands in a row[1], whereas Australia is a big blobby continent with one major island.

Or maybe it does have a lot of merino and the name "New Zealand wool" is used for the wool that isn't merino. They raise a lot of sheep for meat (a lot of lamb sold in the US is New Zealand lamb, for example) and the breeding stock has fleece, too. It's just that they're not merinos or BFLs or other fine-wool breeds, mostly.


This is an interesting skein of yarn, from Louet. It's 50% linen and 50% polyester and the wrapper suggests a 19-mm (US 35) needle. This one skein is enough to make 12-stitch-wide, 60-inch garter stitch scarf.


Here's a close-up to show that it's three strands of linen plied with a polyester chain that has little flowers every half inch or so. The shiny polyester is variegated, so the flowers are different colors. It's hard to see them, but there are pinkish-coral flowers, the same color as the linen but shiny, as well as the lavender blue, yellow, and green ones.


[1] Yes, I know about all the littleNew Zealand islands. I've even been to the Bay Of Islands. And I've seen a fair number of Australia's little islands, too. I'm overlooking them, since everyone else seems to.

Aarrgh!

In my previous posting, Photo Finish!, I asked for comments and then somehow managed to disable commenting. If I'd known what I was doing, I would never have done it. It's taken me two days to figure out how to fix it, in fact.

It is fixed now. Please re-read the posting and make comments. Please. I really want to hear what you think.

I don't know any knitters in person, so I don't get any feedback on my knitting. My dear husband is both honest and tactful, but he's mostly evaluating general appearance.

Speaking of dear husbands, mine brought an entire family of Iowans to our marriage and they're wonderful targets of opportunity for a knitter. He can knit, but hasn't done so since the '50s, when he learned. Still, it makes him very empathetic when I'm frogging away.

And, totally unrelated to knitting, you may remember reading about our going to the Honda dealer to look at mini-vans. Well, tomorrow the van modifiers are putting a modified Honda mini-van on a flat-bed and bringing it here (from the San Fernando Valley, 140 miles away) so we can look it over and drive it a bit. This van isn't the one we'd get, because it doesn't have the sunroof or the navigation system, but it is the right color (I told my husband he could have any color he wanted as long as it was red). The right one for us is going to be coming off the assembly line in three or four weeks and the modifiers want to claim it. I guess the next one won't be available for a couple of months.

We never did go look at the Toyota mini-vans. There's so much unanimity regarding the great ride of the Honda that we just didn't bother. Our current mini-van doesn't have the best handling qualities in the world and I've decided that's not going to happen with the new one.

This van is going to be hideously expensive. I keep telling myself that it's not that much per year if we keep it for ten years. After all, we bought the current van in '99, so it's not as if we do this very often. We bought my car in '96 and the convertible in '92 (we dropped a new engine and transaxle in it in '01, though).

And last, but not least, Vivian Høxbro's Domino Knitting showed up on my doorstep this morning. I was convinced by the comments I got here earlier that I really needed this book. I also bought Roxana Bartlett's Slip-Stitch Knitting and volumes 7, 8, and 9 of the Weldon reprints from Interweave Press. I'd bought the first six volumes of the Weldon series when they first came out and then, for some reason I don't remember, stopped getting them. I decided I'd better get the rest of the series now, before any more go out of print. I got volumes 10, 11, and 12 from Amazon for a slight discount and free shipping.

I'm not entirely sure I'll ever do much in mosaic/slip-stitch colorwork. I found the Mason-Dixon ball-band washcloth fairly attractive worked in a variegated yarn with a coordinating solid, so I thought I'd look further at the technique. I don't care for Fair Isle or intarsia. Most of you are probably too young to remember the Mary Maxim intarsia sweaters of the '50s, but if you do, you probably understand my aversion instinctively. As for Fair Isle, maybe it's just that I never liked the Duke of Windsor.

Photo Finish!

The feather and fan stole was finished this morning. When I went to bed last night, I had about five rows to go and I was sorely tempted to stay up and finish it, but I worried that I might screw it up through fatigue so I resisted. When I woke up this morning I came trotting out in my nightgown, stopping only for a diet Coke, and finished it off. Then I admired it like crazy, made my husband do the same, and haven't knitted another stitch all day.

Here it is. I couldn't photograph it stretched out and get a good photo, as the aspect ratio is just too high.


Here it is hanging up with the light coming through it so the lace pattern is more visible:


Here's a close-up of the pattern, so you can see how badly it needs blocking. Scruffy looking, isn't it?


And here's a photo of the garter stitch edge, with chain selvege:


And here's the 55-gram left-over yarn. This ball reminds me of an immature sugar cone pine cone.



The scarf took 133 gm fingering weight wool yarn, hand-dyed, from Pippi Knee Socks. I think the yarn really made it beautiful. The design is my own, five repeats of an eighteen-stitch feather and fan, with a five-stitch garter stitch edging and a chain selvedge on each side. There's an eight-row garter stitch border at each end and 72 repeats of the four-row pattern. It's knitted on a US 8 Denise circular needle (for convenience only; it's knitted flat).

Now I can go back to my Argosy Baby Blanket, designed by Vyvyan Neel. I've knitted a number of Argosy scarves and this is my first non-scarf Argosy. I guess this makes me an Argonaut, doesn't it.

I put my blanket aside, after knitting ten repeats of the pattern rows, to finish the stole. Here it is, in my new orange knitting bag (which Amazon is, for some odd reason, selling as a diaper bag--go figure).


Here are some closer photos to show the texture and colors better:


Not exactly the typical baby colors, is it? The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Rainbow and I bought eight skeins. One skein makes about seventy pattern squares for me. It's knitted on KnitPicks Options US 4 needles. Right now I've got a hundred squares in a triangle shape and the sides are about 33 in. long. The blanket is actually more diamond-shaped than rectangular. I'll keep increasing until I've used half the yarn or the triangle is 45 in. on the sides, I think.


This really shows the colors and texture well:


The colors aren't quite as good here, but the texture is very visible.


All packed up and ready to go. This is really a very nice knitting bag. I particularly like the long straps that allow me to sling it on my shoulder.:


I really like everything about this project. I like the new bag, the yarn, the colors, the pattern, the needles, and the fabric. Of course, I'm still on the increasing side of the pattern and I may not like the long rows that are coming, but the decreasing side should make up for that.

So, tell me what you think of both projects, please.

Another Baby, Another Blanket

I mentioned earlier that we had lunch on Sunday with my husband's college roommate and his wife. They have twin daughters, one of whom is just finishing her residency in surgery and is expecting her first child in November, much to their great delight. The other twin has three children, so our friends have gotten pretty good at being grandparents, but you know how it is, grandparents are always thrilled to have another grandbaby to spoil. Both of their daughters live in the Los Angeles area, so they see each other a lot, too.

As a knitter, I immediately jumped on this wonderful opportunity to knit something useful for the new baby. I haven't mentioned this to our friends yet, but I just bought the yarn from one of my favorite eBay sellers, Yarnbow, and it should arrive by the weekend. I picked Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport, which is Superwash wool, in color 601, Rainbow.


Isn't that just great yarn for a baby blanket? The pale pastel "baby" colors really show the dirt quickly but this yarn won't. Babies are adorable but they can be kind of messy, so this is important. The yarn is machine washable, too. Blankets that can only be washed by hand are right up there with little outfits that have to be ironed for impracticality. New mothers have it hard enough without adding silliness like that.

The pattern I'm using is the Argosy Baby Blanket by Vyvyan Neel, a very talented designer and an exceedingly nice person. If you look at some of the other patterns in the Argosy series, you'll get an idea of how this blanket is going to look in this yarn. The pattern calls for six skeins of Blue Sky Cotton 100%, which has 150 yd per skein and a gauge of 4 stitches per inch on US 9 (5.5 mm) needles. I'm using eight skeins of sport weight yarn with 200 yd per skein and a gauge of 6 stitches per inch on US 4 (3.5 mm) needles. I think it'll work out just fine, if only because the pattern calls for increasing until half the yarn is used and then decreasing. My blanket may not be exactly the same size as the pattern calls for, 54" x 47", but it won't be a lot smaller.

This baby blanket may take precedence over the Argosy baby blanket I'm knitting from the Great Adirondack Superwash merino in Bahama Mama, even though this baby is due in November and the other baby is arriving in August. That's mostly because we'll probably be seeing our friends again in three or four weeks, so if I have it done by then I won't have to pack the blanket up and ship it. Another factor is that August isn't exactly the best time of year for using a wool blanket, particularly in the desert, meaning August is not exactly a hard deadline.

Found The Patterns I'd Seen

I went to my History file and keyed in skirt and up popped four sites. The third one was the one I wanted, the patterns for the little skirt and one-button bolero for my goddaughter. The pattern is from Tahki (see, I did remember correctly that it was one of the big companies) and it calls for eight or nine balls of DK cotton. I'm thinking that Elann might have a good version of this (like Sonata) for less than the Tahki.

Here's a picture, swiped from Jimmy Beans and uploaded (not linked):


Now isn't this just right for a college freshman? She's got almost waist-length hair and is very slender and graceful. I think this will look good over her swimsuit.

Come to think of it, I might have some DK cotton in my stash at the other house. Looking at my account history at Elann, I see that I probably do. Maybe I'll hold off on this project until June, when we go back up to the other house. There's a possibility that my cousin and his entire family, including the goddaughter, will be out here in SoCal around then and I can measure the kid. I know she's got an itty-bitty waist; she might have an itty-bitty bottom to go with it. I've got the little tees and shrugs to knit to do before I get to this, so I probably wouldn't start much before then anyway.

Knitters will be pleased to hear that when she opened the box full of scarves I sent in February one of her friends remarked "Wow, someone must really love you to knit so much for you!" The other girls agreed, so we know at least some of them understand why we knit for them.

Here's the baby alpaca scarf I sent her for St. Valentine's Day:

It's in faux ribbing stitch and is over eight inches wide and over seven feet long. I didn't put fringe on it because I wasn't sure if the yarn was strong enough to sustain it.

You'll have to tilt your head to see this one correctly:


Here are some of the others I sent:


I'm told she wore the red and silver one, here, on St. Valentine's Day.


Right now I've got one big scarf and another Moebius for her specifically, four eyelash scarves for the group, and two washcloths ditto. I'm going to try to do a couple more washcloths and get it sent off on Monday. Photos will be taken before the box is closed. Her birthday is on the 24th (the same as my mom's), so I'm going to try to get a couple of tops done for that.

Here are a few more photos that I should have posted earlier. The first is my Clapotis, done in hand-painted sock yarn. It's at least twice as long as this now, but I put it aside to knit scarves.


I like the way hand-painted sock and sport yarns look for scarves, so I bought some more, mostly on eBay. You might be able to tell that these sock yarns are Cherry Tree Hill (wide band) and Lorna's Laces (narrow band).


Yes, I do like blue and turquoise and purple, as well as red and pink and purple. How did you guess?

Baby Blanket Colors

No, I'm not having a baby, but I been asked to knit baby blankets for two different babies. One mother is our mobile dog groomer in Lancaster and the other is the daughter of a friend. Neither one wants a blanket in the typical baby colors, so I've recruited a hand dyer to help me out.

Here are the two colorways I've proposed to her:


These photos are taken indoors and outdoors, respectively. The yarn is Lion Brand Microspun and the colors on the left are lime, turquoise, purple, and fuchsia. The colors on the right are yellow, orange, tangerine, and lavender. I think the purple is a little too dark, but other than that I like these colors. However, Microspun is sport weight and that's just too small for me to knit an entire baby blanket from. I'd get bored and never finish it. The yarn we're using is a superwash worsted weight merino, so it's soft and machine washable. Both of these characteristics are important for babies.

The pattern I'm going to use is Argosy. As Vyvyan mentions, Kay (Mason-Dixon Knitting Kay) has knitted one already. Vyvyan is going to knit her own version and write up the pattern fairly soon. I really like this pattern and have already made several scarves in it.

I think this is going to be fun. I'll get back to you after I'm about halfway through the first one, though.