Beautiful days in Florida lately.. yes it's hot too!! We are down one car so there is a lot of driving to and from work. I drop him off, drive home, drive myself to work, drive home and then pick him up and back home. The ac is fixed in the car and everyday seems to be so pretty that all the driving isn't that bad. I also get a little knitting time on Andrea's shawl. I completed the lace edging and border and started on the stripes. It's a little more stripy than I thought it would be.. I knit on....
Finished the edging lace last night and was excited about starting the lace border. I decided to go for the larger version after reading others say that their shawl turned out too small and I have enough yarn for the large so might as well use it. I had originally planned to knit the medium size. It took me a while to decide on whether or not to use a solid natural yarn for the lace border or the noro that I plan to use for the striped portion and as much as I like how the creamy color looks in the lace pattern I'm going to use the noro. I haven't been excited about knitting anything for a while, but this pattern has renewed my excitement for knitting again. I think I found my knitting mojo again! Thanks to ravelry I also found the perfect sock pattern for my schoppel-wool crazy zauberball yarn. It is the Burning Stripes sock pattern by Susan Luni. I just love the heal and hope to cast these on in the next couple of days and a carry-a-long project.
Last week on our way to the store we had to turn around because a little playground in the neighborhood was on fire...I felt bad seeing this because it seemed to be deliberately set and there are not very many playgrounds for the kids in this area. Now there is one less.
Finally finished my Coquille shawl. It took me longer than I anticipated probably do to less knitting time the past 2 weeks. We are down to one car working around two different work schedules which means a lot of driving. This is also the reason for no posts in a while.. I really had nothing new to show you as far as knitting goes. There was a lot of home and car repairs during that time not sure you want to hear about that.. hehe. Good thing is now I get to start a new project and I have pretty new yarn to work with. There is a pattern I have wanted to knit since I first saw it and that is Kristen Kapur's Andrea's Shawl. This shawl has a very unique construction that makes it pretty interesting to knit.. So here I go, I casted on and started working on the first step which is the bottom edging using some charcoal bamboo sock yarn. For the body I'm going to use my noro taiyo sock yarn. More pictures to come as I progress.
For now I leave you with some nice knitting music.. (^_^)
So as you can see I decided to continue knitting this shawl just because this is an enjoyable pattern to knit. As of today I'm at the halfway point and still having fun so much so I think I want to knit this again with a little heavier yarn. This pattern calls for a fingering yarn and the yarn I'm using is a lace weight yarn.
This past weekend I got the chance to drive to Tampa and stopped by the local yarn shop there. I haven't been to a yarn shop for awhile so it was a treat. I picked up these 2 beautiful yarns.. I just love the colors!! They also had these little fiber bags for $3.50 that looked fun so I had to get them. Now to find just the right patterns to show off these pretty yarns. (^_^) (click on the pic for a larger view)
My anthropoligie capelet # 2 is all finished. I added a wide crochet button closure at the neck and a large crochet button. The lace edging is called quill eyelet lace and is very similar to razor lace. If you like this edging it is from Knitting on the edge by Nicky Epstein. This capelet is for my daughter's birthday which passed already so I need to get it in the mail asap.
I started a new project last night and I think I'm going to scrap it. I know that it's not blocked and projects tend to look a lot different after they are blocked, but with every row I just keep thinking .. this just doesn't look very nice. I don't know if it is because of the thick and thin nature of the yarn or my knitting is crappy or maybe both. As fun as this is to knit I'm afraid to go any farther. This pattern is Coquille from Knitty fall 2010 and I have looked at others on ravelry knit with noro sekku that looked really nice. Guess I'll have to decide what to do.
Shoes can be fun... I love these and bought them with lots of coaxing from the man. I thought they were a bit of an extravagance and was going to pass them by but I'm so glad I didn't. I just love them. I originally saw them at Universal for twice the price which makes them so much better. Progress on my second anthorpologie capelet. I used 3 shades of blue. I kind of like it. Sometimes I get these ideas and after the fact I'm not sure if it worked out or not. This is the progress after a week of knitting. The lace on the sleeves is all that is left to knit and I have another idea for the closure. Lets see if that will work out. And I just love this yarn...Kauni wool 8/2 Effektgarn!!
Yay.. a finished project. My Anthropologie-inspired capelet made for Abby who just turned 5 in May. It wasn't the original project that I started to make for her but time seemed to slip away and I was only half finished after a month and a half so I decided to make something that would knit up a little faster, which it did. My mods: worsted weight yarn, size 7 needles and I casted on 61 stitches. I also added a border on the bottom and the sleeves. I purchased some fabric the other day to make 2 sundresses that I will hopefully get to work on today. The patterns are vintage and I had originally made them for her mother long ago. So glad I didn't throw them away. I looked at the patterns at Joann's fabrics the last time I was there and was shocked at the price. I could just purchase a dress for the price of just the pattern. That wouldn't even include the fabric and notions. The little buttons I picked up on sale a while ago and now found the perfect use for them . This year I seem to be playing catch up. Below is a another capelet. This one is for Abby's mom who's birthday was May 31st. This is the progress after 3 days of knitting on and off. The yarn is a lighter weight then the pattern calls for and I'm using needles to match the yarn gauge and not the pattern gauge. I casted on more stitches and will do more increases and hopefully it will work out. The good thing is that my daughter is just about my size and I can gauge the size by how it fits me. I'm graduating the color from dark to light and will add the same lace border as I did for the childs version. I like that lace pattern because it is very easy and it matched the number of stitches that I ended up with.
