A Finished Object!

It is Friday, and I have a fibrous finished object woohoo, three birds - one stone!  At the bottom of page are three buttons that will take you to the relevant FO and fibre related parties that I sometimes take part in.

I have at last taken some photos to share with you, of my Hitchhiker Shawl that I first talked about, what seems like eons ago.  I have finally found a great photo taking spot in my tiny entrance hall.  It is painted white and has good light first thing in the morning.  Now I have a proper tripod I can actually take photos of myself in there without behaving like a contortionist.  So with no further ado, I present one finished Hitchhiker.

One of the advantages of the yarn I used, is that it has so many colours in it, that is bound to work with something!

I used my lovely iKnit blocking wires to get the sharp and pointy teeth that you can see below.

Oh, and here is a shot that shows my new tripod, as I realised that I hadn't actually shown it to you yet, just it's effects.

I think this shawl will be mainly used a scarf in Winter, due to it's high wool content.

Essentially this was a nice, fun and mindless knit.  It was easy to grasp hold of the concept of how it was constructed, and then after a couple of points I no longer needed the pattern.

I'm pretty sure I will knit this pattern again at some point as it is great knit club knitting.  Maybe next time I'll try a semi-solid yarn.

What? Is it Friday Already??

Well apparently this week sped up significantly towards the end of it.  I'm sure it is only Tuesday or something.  Must be the drugs....now why am I here?  Oh yes, crafting!!

I have a finished knitted object to share, and I'll let you into a little secret - I rather like it.  Do you remember last year when I knitted this:

It was a Christmas present for my mother in law.  It was hard to give it up because I loved it so much, but the look on her face made my separation anxiety disappear.  Then I went back to visit Artist's Palette, where I got the original yarn and they had this yarn in the sale section, just in a slightly different shade.  The yarn is discontinued and is called Gleam Lite.

The top yarn was used for the original shawl.  The bottom yarn was the yarn I got for myself.  I simply duplicated everything about the first project, casting on 68 stitches and using a 3.5mm needle.  As before, I used the Wakefield Scarf pattern, which is free from Interweave.

The only thing I would recommend with this pattern is keeping track of which line of the 12 row lace repeat you are on.  The pattern is so simple it is easy to get lost, as the only differences are at the beginning and ends of the rows.  

 The results of this repeated endeavour are as wonderful as the original.

The drape of this gorgeous pure silk yarn is just fabulous.  I think my gauge has changed since the first one, or maybe I just blocked the shawl harder this time.

I think that the shawl is wider and the pattern more visible.  I think it must have been just a harder block.

Because this is larger, this shawl will be useful to take on holiday as it will fold up small but offer some form of warmth on a cooler evening.  It will also be useful as a scarf on occasions in the Winter when I want to dress up a bit.

I am really happy to have my own version of this scarf.  I can imagine knitting it again in the future, but with different yarn next time!

I am hooking up to my usual Friday linky parties.  Please click on at least one of the buttons listed below and check out some different crafters and bloggers.  They are really worth a look.

My Recovery Sweater is Finished....

.... and sadly it is very very big indeed!  I am sad, and stupid.

I am stupid because although I swatched, I didn't wash and block the swatch.  This was a very silly omission indeed because Rowan Lenpur apparently stretches a bit, quite a considerable bit actually.

Do you see how I'm standing all hunched up in the above picture?  That is pretty much the only position I can stand in that keeps this tunic actually on both shoulders at the same time.  As soon as I move, I'm halfway out of it.

I have worn it out and about a couple of times and pretty much everyone agrees that this tunic is far too big, probably in the realms of 4 sizes too big.  This is a shame, because I like this tunic a lot.  The yarn is gorgeous and soft and I really really want to wear it.

I'm afraid there is only one thing for it, this Recovery Sweater, will have to become a Do-over Sweater.

In other news, I have posted out the Giveaway Winners' Packages to Irina and Sarah. I am sad to see my lovely goodies go, but comforting me during my separation anxiety, I was contacted to say I'd won one of the giveaways I had entered.  I won the prize from Go Knit In Your Hat.  I won a skein of lovely looking yarn and a sock pattern.

This is a lovely prize for me, as I rarely get yarn from outside Europe because of the costs involved (customs I'm looking at you here!).  I will share my booty with you as soon as it arrives. In the meantime in the absence of any cheerful news in my Finished Objects post, please click on one of the buttons below to see what else has been finished this week!

A Winner and Some FOs

So the names have gone into the randomiser and a winner has been chosen.  Numbers were allocated according to the order the comments were left in.

Above is the screenshot of the randomiser and according to my list, the winner is Heather Woollove.  So I will be in touch and hopefully the owlet will be winging it's way to you as soon as I have an address.   Thank you so much to everyone who took part, it's wonderful to know that many of you would have donated whether you got a little present or not, so this is my way of saying thank you, well at least to Heather!

Now the prize giving is out of the way I have a couple of finished objects to share with you.  I have a couple of things to share with you, firstly a cute baby jacket.  Do you remember way back when I first talked about it?  The knit was finished a couple of weeks ago but I had to wait for buttons and then for the garment to be sent to the relevant baby.  So I present to you the Maile Sweater for Baby B!

I love how it has blocked out.  The lace raglans are fabulous!

It's such a clever idea, to put the decreases in the lace pattern.  I really love those little yellow buttons too.

The lace pattern round the bottom of the cardigan is a nice touch and they balance out the raglans.

The yarn bloomed beautiful once wet for the blocking.  It really is lovely stuff, this King Cole Merino Blend 4 ply.  I recommend it highly.

I think in future, I would slip the edge stitches to firm up the button band, as it was a bit stretchy and wobbly.  Other than that, I was pretty happy with the pattern.  It has created a really sweet cardigan.

I also have some BROWN socks to share with you.  Despite the boring colour, I have to confess, I really like these socks.

The stitch pattern on the ankle was a bit of pain to do, which is why the leg is so short, but I think the socks look sweet that length.  The stitch pattern may have been a pain, but it is really pretty.

As always, this type of sock is really comfortable.  I have worn these socks so much since they were finished.

I still think the toes and the heel look funny close up, but they fit amazingly well.

I really do highly recommend this type of sock construction.  I don't think I'll be doing this stitch pattern in a hurry again though!

All in all, a very stylish sock!

If you are interested in all things fibre based, be it yarn, cotton or silk, check out at least ONE of the buttons below, because there are so many talented bloggers wanting to show off their pretties!  I bet you get inspired.

FO: Annis Shawl

I got my Annis shawl off the blocking boards yesterday.  I do love how wetting and stretching knitted fabric can transform this:

Into this:

Doesn't it drape beautifully?  I really love Malabrigo yarn and this laceweight yarn is stunning.  I have tried on the shawlette and I like it a lot.

However, I do have lots of this kind of scarf/shawl type thing, so I have decided to be good and put it into my 2011 gift stash.  I do have someone sort of in mind for this item, so I know it will go to a good home.

As you can see from this photo, the nupps didn't really work very well on this pattern.  I think I might not have blocked it in the most effective way.  I won't write nupps off completely, based on how this one item looks, but I will be more inclined to replace them with beads in future.

Over all, this project was quick and quite simple (if you exclude the nupps) and the yarn was wonderful.  I would knit the Annis pattern again, but maybe I'd go up a needle size.  I had lots of yarn left, and I don't think the shawl is as big as it should have been.  Basically I was lazy and didn't swatch.  If the gauge had been correct then I think it would have been more of a shawlette, than a scarf.

So another lesson rammed home - practice what you preach CC, SWATCH, SWATCH, SWATCH!!!!

I have decided to link up to several places this week.  Click on each button to see a range of gorgeous projects and interesting blogs.