Chapter 21 - Thinking Ahead
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| Katie's Shawl by Cozy Up Knits. |
BUT FIRST - CONTENT MEANT FOR CHAPTER 20
Finished Object! Katie's Shawl by Cozy Up Knits
I finished this shawl earlier this month with the intention of wearing it on our trip to visit the D.C. area kids. There are several mistakes and a big hack, but I loved wearing it and got many compliments!
I'm not going to tell you what the mistakes are. There are two identical ones. Put on your sleuthing hat and see if you can find them.
The shawl pattern has you start in one corner and steadily increase until it's twice the depth of mine, forming a trapezoid. It's nice versatile shape, but I like to make smaller shawls since we rarely get to drape yards of fabric around ourselves down here in the tropics.
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| Eyeball stitch detail. |
So...when I got to the halfway point in the pattern, I started steady decreases. The resulting shape is a nice, symmetrical triangle.
I really, really liked the yarn I used, particularly the Spun Right Round skeins (Classic Sock in Exploder and Tomato Soup). Speckled and spongy, it was fun to knit with. And I love the weight and drape of this shawl. It might be the yarn but I think it has more to do with the side-to-side knitting. Most of my shawls are knit from bottom-up or from top-down. I don't know, maybe it doesn't matter.
These yarns came from a fantastic Sarasota shop called A Good Yarn. I had to go to Sarasota to find some speckled skeins! Check out Chapter 14 to see my yarn haul from this amazing store.
AND NOW, ON TO NEW STUFF
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| My practice hat came out pretty well. |
My Daughter-in-Law's Request
Ruth asked me to knit her another hat, since the one I made her last year got some holes in it. I didn't get a chance to see exactly what had happened to the first hat, so I don't know whether I could have fixed it.
I decided to make my own pattern and knit up a practice hat to see how it came out (above). I liked it! So Ruth's hat looks like this:
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| Ruth likes her hats slouchy. |
The turquoise yarn is a pretty Lion Brand Heartland skein that matches the streaks in Ruth's hair. Colorway is Cuyhoga Valley. I'm going to write up the pattern and publish it on Ravelry!
Christmas in February
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| Starting sock #2. |
I started this project so I'd have something little to carry on my trip to D.C. I bought the yarn in January (see Chapter 19) and absolutely love it.
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| Sweet little pattern. |
Isn't is amazing how the yarn can be dyed to create such a pretty pattern?
Playing With Textures
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| Infinity scarf. |
Another D.C. trip project was this infinity scarf. I'm combining mesh with ribbing, but it wasn't until I had knit enough to do a test blocking that I became sold on the pattern. I didn't like that the ribbed parts were pulled in and tight compared to the mesh parts. As you can see from the photo above, after blocking, the ribbing expands to the same width as the mesh. I was relieved to achieve the look I had imagined. When this is finished, I'll write up the pattern and publish it as a freebie on Ravelry.
Garment Knitting - Third Time's a Charm I Hope
My friend Evelyn and I are going to the Blue Ridge Fiber Fest in Sparta, NC, this coming June! In keeping with the "festival sweater" trend, I thought I'd try to make one for the (hopefully) cool mountain evenings.
I've knit two sweaters and failed on both. The first one was Harvest by Tin Can Knits, and I didn't know my way around yarn back then, or sizing, or anything! It came out too small, and with tons of mistakes! I wore it a few times but ended up frogging it.
The second sweater was a short-sleeved pullover. In my effort to make it big, it was too big! Also the variegated yarn pooled in a noticeable and weird way, right in the front. I haven't frogged it but without some alteration it's not wearable.
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| New top-down cardigan. |
So I'm Trying Out the Seaside Pleated Cardigan by Marie Greene
I worked really hard to prep for this project before casting on. I read instructions and details carefully, measuring myself and really getting a good estimation of my size. Then, I actually swatched! I matched the width of the sample swatch perfectly, but was an inch longer on the length. To compensate I'll just try on as I go to make sure I get the proper length of the garment.
I'm using some Lion Brand Wool-Ease from my stash, because I want to find a pattern that works for me before I spend money on a sweater's quantity of merino.
One More Hat
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| Pretty fiesta colors! |
On a recent trip to JoAnn's Fabrics I saw this skein of Red Heart Colorscape (in Acapulco) and couldn't resist buying it. Not everyone likes the colorful and bright stuff, but I certainly do!
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| My hat pattern starts with a 1x1 twisted ribbing. |
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Thanks for your comment! It'll be posted as soon as I see that you're not selling something. ;)