Vedbaeck Shawl

I am still trying to catch up with finished objects from the back section of last year, so if you follow me on Instagram of watch the podcast you will have this FO and I apologise profusely for the delay in giving you some details.

I decided to knit the Vedbaeck Shawl by Karie Westermann almost as soon as the pattern came out. I put it in my favourites and then promptly got distracted. Then I was inspired by Sarah and Morgan on the FiberTrek podcast. They both knit one and they looked so warm and snuggly I had to join in with their Serendipitous Vedbaeck KAL. I looked at my stash and decided that I wanted to knit the shawl in some long treasured yarn. I got this yarn in November 2010! My sister-in-law offered to get it for me at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show, for Christmas, and I leapt at the chance. The yarn is Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift and I got 8 x 25g skeins, divided into 4 colours; Caspian, Mermaid, Peacock and Nighthawk. Spindrift is a 4-ply or fingering weight yarn and it's a woollen spun yarn.

I'd struggled to find the right project for this yarn and this shawl seemed a perfect match. As there were long sections of fairly simple knitting, the colour changes would become a feature rather than a distraction.

To stop the colour changes being too harsh and jarring I alternated 2 row stripes, three times, at the change over of the colours which helped ease in the changes.

This shawl is a lovely simple thing that allows your mind to wander, once you have the pattern set into your mind (which doesn't take too long).

It is also really simple to change the size of the shawl. This meant I could use up as much of my yarn as I liked. I wish I'd been able to use a bit more of my final skein but I wasn't sure how much the border stitches would use up.

I think I could have added in another repeat of the shawl body pattern, but I wasn't sure and I couldn't face ripping back if I was wrong. Besides, my shawl is a great size for me.

It's a wonderfully warm and woolly shawl that wraps me up in a fabulously cosy way.

The shawl ends right at my elbow, which means it won't get in my way. It also works well as a big swoopy shawl/scarf over my Winter coat. Now THAT is cosy. Spindrift is a wonderful robust yarn that is hard wearing but softens over time. After washing the shawl and wearing it for a while, I can't feel any prickle at all. This shawl will last for years, but if I'd done it in merino, whilst it would have been gloriously soft, it would have started pilling the first time it was worn.

I would happily knit this shawl again, as it was a very enjoyable experience. I might even be tempted to try the yarn that the pattern suggests, Snaelden 3-Ply. That yarn is blended from Faroese and Falkland fleeces to get the best of both worlds, softness with strength. I am very tempted by that combination!

Pebble Beach Shawlette in Kettle Yarns Co Islington

When I went to Fibre East in the Summer (doesn't that seem like forever ago?) the very first purchase I made was from Kettle Yarns Co. I intended to buy yarn to make Pebble Beach Shawlette by Helen Stewart of Curious Handmade and wanted to get the recommended yarn Westminster. However, I fell in love with a skein of Islington instead.

This skein is 400m of 55% Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) and 45% Silk in the colourway Old Smoke. It is glorious yarn and I decided it would still work wonderfully with Helen's pattern. I actually cast this project on fairly soon after blogging about the event and I can't believe I haven't shown you the results of this knitting endeavour. I think I might have been waiting to take "good" photos, but as I decided to stop waiting for that to happen I will share the "not so good" photos of the project. It should give you a good idea of how lovely the yarn is and how good the pattern is.

The pattern, like all of Helen's, is excellent. Everything is laid out clearly and explained carefully. There is a checkbox system where you can mark off what you have knit and it tells you have far you have come in your shawl knitting (I love that Helen does that).

The knitting was a fun and enjoyable experience, but before I go started the yarn didn't play ball. It was a NIGHTMARE to wind. It took hours to wind this one skein of yarn. It wasn't secured very well and it had managed to get all knotted up. I may have had a little moan on Twitter about this, and found several other people had the same experience I was having. The yarn is worth all the untangling, however, it would have been much better if I'd not had to spend and entire afternoon on the job.

You can see how beautiful the yarn is in the above photo. It has an amazing sheen to it. It also drapes incredibly well.

It is so soft to the touch I would normally fear that pilling would be instant, but as I've worn this time and again, since it was finished in September, there has been no sign of wear. I think this is down to the multiple plies and the BFL content, which is a strong and pill resistant fibre, that is also soft and silky to the touch.

I loved knitting this shawl. I loved the process from the moment I cast on. I have worn it a lot. It's a great neutral colour and it has definitely made me think about getting more neutral knits in my wardrobe, as they are so versatile.

It really does go with everything. It is soft and warm around my neck and the eyelets make the yarn stretch to a decent size, so that it covers some of my lower cut tops. The shawlette feels and looks dressy, but it is casual enough to wear every day.

I really am delighted with this project. I will probably make another version of this pattern, but maybe that one will be in a less neutral colour.

Cool Clavicle Cover

Since starting to listen to, and watch podcasts, I have been exposed to a new section of the knitting pattern design community. I think podcasters are led to design in the same way that bloggers are. They tell their audience about something they have designed for themselves and people start asking if they are going to release it as a pattern. The next thing they know, they are a designer! Megan Williams is such a podcaster, part of the Stockinette Zombies duo, Amy Spinler being the other part. In July, Megan released a new shawlette pattern, Cool Clavicle Cover. It looked like something I would enjoy knitting and it was one of my favourite shapes, an elongated semi-circle.

A few months later, I pulled out this skein of SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in the Tea Party colourway and started working on the shawlette. This was the first time I have used this particular yarn and it is very smooth and soft. It felt amazing next to the skin and I couldn't bring myself to put it on my feet, despite knowing it was more than tough enough to stand up to being socks.

The cast on and top edge of this shawl is really unusual and very imaginative. This method of cast on and top edge seem to remove the problem of a top edge bulge that sometimes occurs with this shape of shawl. It creates a soft and smooth top edge, which you sometimes don't get with a garter stitch top edge.

There are several sections of the shawl, done in the same stitch pattern, that breaks up any pooling or flashing you might get with a hand dyed variegated yarn. The main sections are divided with an interesting "chain stitch" that I'd not seen before. These sections help break up your knitting and help keep it fresh and interesting. These two different types of stitch keep you thinking enough without forcing you to be glued to a pattern, as they are easily memorisable.

I did go wrong at the beginning because I forgot that the stitch counts given in the pattern, are for the stitches BETWEEN the stitch markers! And yes, I did rip out those sections before realising that the stitch count I had was actually correct. Other than my user error, the pattern was fun to do and the shawlette is great.

The shawl really is a good clavicle cover. It sits nicely around my shoulders, but still can cover up my upper arms nicely.

It is also a good size to use as a scarf. When it's worn that way, you really get the benefit of how smooth and soft this yarn is.

I wet blocked the shawlette using blocking wires and it made all the edges nice and smooth. I think it would be hard to duplicate this effect without using a LOT of pins.

I think this shawlette would work really well being sized up, by using two skeins of sock yarn, or even using a longer skein of 3-ply weight yarn (heavy lace). It's the sort of thing that would work well with a skein like my Posh Yarn Miranda Heavy Lace in Smooth Criminal.

You can see the different yarn choices used with the pattern here. I think a precious variegated sock yarn would be shown off well with the pattern, and I'm pretty sure I will knit it again.

I think you can tell I really love my new shawlette and have worn it a lot already, and just as importantly, I enjoyed knitting it. I also know I will buy more of the SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock as it is lovely stuff and robust too. I may even be tempted to put it on my feet.

Mayura Shawl in Wollmeise Pure

Mayura by CrystalRose is an unusual shawl that I loved knitting, despite a few hiccups. It's so different from the usual semi-circular shawls that are available and I knew it would look great with the yarn I had. The yarn I had was Wollmeise Pure in the colours, Turkis (the blue) and Sanguinella (the dark orange).  Oh, how I love this yarn. It's soft and bouncy and beautifully colourful. It's a sock weight yarn in 100% superwash merino and each skein is 150g, 525m in length. They are very generous skeins.

© Matt Lord, from the pattern by CrystalRose

I had originally decided to add these two skeins to one I already had in stash, and make up a stole in three colours. Then I saw the above photo for this pattern and knew it was too much of a coincidence to pass over the match in colour choice.

The pattern is written to be either knit with the main colour being done in either stocking stitch or garter stitch. I love garter stitch shawls so that made the decision for me.  I really liked the the shape of the start of this top down shawl, with the nice curve to sit around the back of the neck.

I would like to say that you should watch out for the colours the pattern assigned to the main colour and the contrast colour. The contrast colour is the one that actually uses the most amount of yarn, in this case the Sanguinella (orange).  I ended up going wrong by mixing up the colours I should have been knitting and had to rip back around 12 rows, which frustrated me a little.

The pattern uses mitred squares to add to the chevron shaping and to perform increases in a very clever way. I really like the shape it gives the stripes of colour.

When knitting the mitred squares, I decided to change the way I picked up the edges to attach the squares to the body of the shawl. You pick up one of the bottom edges on the right side and the other bottom edge on the wrong side of the shawl. In the pattern you pick up and knit on both sides of the shawl, instead I picked up and knit on the right side and picked up and purled on the wrong side. This meant both the ridges of picked up stitches were on the wrong side of the fabric. The front of the shawl looks like the photo below.

You can see what the picked up stitches ridges look like on the wrong side of the shawl, below. I'm glad that I kept the appearance of the edges of the mitred squares balanced and hidden.

The way the shawl is structured meant that there were sections that were mindless knitting, livened up by the chevrons and the colour changes. This is interspersed by the interesting sections of the mitred squares. It was a great shawl for reading whilst knitting for long sections and then it was thinking knitting for a time. It made for a nice balanced knit.

The bind off is crocheted. I would recommend removing the stitch markers on the row before the bind off.  As it was not specified on the pattern what size crochet hook to use, I decided to use a 3mm hook. Using this size, I was struggling to get the hook into the stitches on the needle, so I swapped out the needle tip to a 2.75mm. For information, I used a 3.5mm needle to knit the pattern, which was the one recommended.

Now this is blocked, I can say with confidence, if I ever cast on a project that uses a chained bind off, someone remind me that blocking it nearly killed me. It took a gazillion pins and far too long hunched over the blocking boards. Not fun, but it had to be finished once started. It was worth all the effort though because it made the shawl look great, now it is blocked properly.

There were several errors in this pattern that I had to tell the designer about and there were a few places where there could have been clearer instructions. I think this was because it was a complicated concept and there have been so few people who have knitted this so far. I think I was the first person other than the designer and the test knitters to make this shawl. I think in the future I might try to avoid patterns with so few finished projects, because I prefer someone else find out all the errors, before I have to.

Still, I can't help but be really happy with the finished shawl. It hits me right where I want, just below my elbows so I'm kept nicely wrapped up. With a shawl pin, it's almost a poncho! It gives a nice level of coverage, being sock weight knit in garter stitch. It's light, but has a little more warmth than a stocking stitch shawl. I think it will be perfect for cooler weather and for wearing indoors in Winter as an extra layer instead of a cardigan.

Despite the errors, this shawl can't help but make me smile, with it's lovely yarn, vivid colours and fun design. But I'm still never using a crochet bind off EVER again!

PS writing this post has made me want more Wollmeise, so I have just been to buy some more to replace the yarn I've just used. That's really not helping me use all my stash up!

Antarktis in Countess Ablaze Geeks Like Rainbows Too Handspun Yarn

If you follow me on Instagram, Twitter or my Facebook Page you will have seen a photo yesterday. It was a photo I was sooooo proud of. It's really hard to take photographs of yourself on a timer, even when you are healthy, so to get a few half way decent shots is something that makes me happy. When I get a photo that is good, I jump around inside my head whooping for joy. I don't do it outside my head because my body would scream in rebellion, but inside my head is fine.  The photo in question is this one:

I love this photo because it shows the wonderful gradient effect of this handspun yarn. The yarn was spun from Countess Ablaze Superwash Merino in the Geeks Like Rainbows Too colourway. I talked all about the spinning here. I am so pleased I chose this pattern. It is perfect for this yarn. Antarktis by Janina Kallio was a pattern I first saw on the We Are Yarn podcast. Amanda (the host) had used the pattern and I think she used handspun yarn. It stuck in my head so that when I saw this yarn I knew it would work. The pattern is knit on the bias and uses garter stitch and basic eyelet lace in panels to increase the amount of shawl you get for your yarn.

Look how much shawl you get for 400m of yarn! One of the instructions in the pattern is to "block like you mean it", which really made me smile, and I took the instruction to heart. This shawl can be worn around my shoulders and actually feels like it can keep me warm. Most shawls that use a single skein of sock weight yarn are usually more like scarves than shawls.

In fact, I've been using it quite a bit since finishing it because it is the perfect size to just cover the tops of my arms when it's a little cooler in the morning and evening.

The pattern starts with the tip and it increases faster on one edge than the other to give the bias shape. The top edge of the shawl is nicely elastic as there is a yarn over inserted on one side, which is dropped on the other. This elasticity makes it easier to block firmly.  You can see this edge at the bottom of the shawl in the photo below.

When starting this pattern, you should remember to actually read through to the end, like the pattern tells you to, AND make sure you understand those instruction or you will go wrong , like I did.  I missed out a whole section that needed repeating. I had to rip back a couple of hours work. So my recommendation is to read the pattern, and make notes so you remember what you learnt when reading it, so you don't mess up a few days later!

Once I'd got myself back on track, I stuck to the pattern as written, except for the bottom section of the shawl. I added an extra garter stitch panel between the last two eyelet sections of the shawl. In the pattern, the bottom panel follows the previous one without break. When I reached the start of the last section I knew I had a lot of yarn left over and wanted to use as much of this lovely gradient as possible, so I inserted the extra panel.

I think that the extra panel is more aesthetically pleasing, and I think with this particular yarn it was preferable to add more of the hot pink, to help balance the colours better.

I could not be happier with this shawl. It's a very useful size but it is nice and light and it drapes beautifully. It can be used as a shawl or as a scarf, which means it will get used all year round. This makes me extra happy because these colours lift my heart so much. It is almost impossible to keep a straight face when looking at this shawl. It just makes me want to smile whenever I see it. I've been smiling a lot!

PS Thank you for indulging me in my need to share many of the photos I took of this lovely project. I wanted to post them all, but I felt that would be over-egging the pudding just a little bit too much!

More Gradient Gorgeousness

Well, there was quite a positive response to the blog post concerning my Countess Ablaze spinning, I thought I'd give everyone a quick update.

I have actually started knitting Antarktis with this gradient yarn. I should warn you with this pattern, it tells you to read the pattern all the way through before beginning. Make sure you not only read it, but understand it. I didn't and got waaaaay off track and had to rip a good thirty rows out.

However, I'm nearly back to where I was before the ripping incident, and this is what it is beginning to look like.

It doesn't look like much so far, but I have high hopes!

Simene Stole in Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace

Do you remember way back in January I reviewed Scrumptious Collection Volume 3, the new pattern book for Fyberspates Scrumptious yarns? I told you how much I loved the Simene Stole by Melanie Edgar and in April I cast on that pattern, using yarn I bought especially to knit it (which is actually quite rare for me, I normally buy yarn and then find a pattern to fit). The yarn I chose was Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace in Teal. I have knit three other shawls in this yarn and haven't kept any of them. I adore this yarn and desperately wanted a shawl that I could keep. The yarn is 55% merino and 45% silk. It has a wonderful mix of warmth, strength and gleam.

After deciding I wanted to knit this pattern I found that the shawl took quite some time to finish. It was something I was happy to pick up and put down in between other projects to keep things entertaining. It is knit in two halves, starting from the ends and working in. This allows the ends to be an interesting shape, with plenty of stretch.

I love the way it blocked out. The pattern is really quite simple, once you have done the first section of the shawl. The main chart is really easy to read in relation to the knitted fabric. This means the lace is just interesting enough to keep your brain engaged without being overwhelming, or too taxing! It was just the right level of tang for me.

Joining the two halves of the stole in the middle creates a really interesting mirror image. It forms diamonds out of the chevron lace. The centre stitches are grafted together. My first attempt of grafting went a little awry, and I didn't realise until I'd spent a couple of hours on it, slowly and carefully working towards the end. I nearly cried when I saw the wonkiness.

It's only one stitch out but I knew it would drive me crazy so I put it away for a week, or so, until I got over my sadness and frustration. I know ripping it out and working on it again was the right thing to do. Those lovely diamonds wouldn't have been created if I hadn't fixed it.

In order to make sure it lined up I marked the centre stitch at the top of each lace chevron peak, on both halves of the stole, and made sure as I worked across to join up those marked stitches on either side. It took a while (again) to graft it, but the result made it worth it.  I initially learnt how to graft years ago by using Woolly Wormhead's tutorials, which are excellent. She goes into a great amount of detail on the different kinds of stitches to graft, so it's well worth a look.  Now I understand the principles of grafting I just need a gentle reminder of the pattern of the needle movement. I use the post on the Wise Hilda blog that gives a quick memory aid.

I actually made the stole bigger than the pattern states. I added an extra chart repeat on both halves to use up more yarn and create something bigger. I an ample woman so I wanted to make sure the stole would wrap round me properly. I think it was the right call.

It's a good length for me, but I think someone more petite would be fine with the  recommended repeats. In fact, the extra length meant I couldn't block the shawl in the house. Luckily it is Summer and we have actually been having nice weather. I decided to block the shawl out in the garden.

It was dry in about an hour! I used my blocking wires along the straight edges and then simply pinned the top of the three peaks on each end.

I absolutely adore this stole. It is exactly as I envisioned it. It drapes so beautifully, that I play with it constantly!

This is going to be perfect for wearing as a scarf as well as stole.

Because it quite wide and long, it can be worn doubled up around the neck, nice and snug. As there is quite a lot of fabric it should trap lots of air and actually be really warm in cooler weather.

This stole is all that I hoped it would be. It makes me so happy when I see it and the size means it will wrap around me enough to keep me warm, but it's light weight means it will compress easily to fit in a bag or suitcase for going away.

I cannot express quite how much I love this project. It was fun, and still challenging enough to keep me interested. It was easy to spot when I'd gone wrong and the yarn was a dream to knit with. I also know I will use this stole a lot. This is the second pattern I've knit from this pattern collection and I love both of them. I'm sure there will be other things from it I will get round to knitting too as it really is a good value buy for such wonderful designs.