Not Wisconsin

My sister's yard in Maryland. (Last time I posted a picture of it, the azeleas were blooming.)

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Just for fun:

Metro Scarf

Some months back, I had a great deal of fun fiddling with swatches, and trying different things out and developing a new stitch pattern. At least, it's new to me, and I haven't seen exactly the same thing anywhere else. My final swatch grew into a little scarf. And the little scarf has just made it's debut in the current issue of Knitcircus magazine (#9, Spring 2010).


photo courtesy of Knitcircus

With this issue, the magazine has gone from print to online publication. For a preview of all the patterns, plus some good articles and interviews (and some "free for a short time only" pattern downloads), just go to the Knitcircus home page, then click on the image of a little magazine with turning pages. Oh, and there's a killer cookie recipe from Bezzie, and book reviews and... well just go see.

Do Over

The first go around of the Rosebud shawl made it to about four inches deep. It looked really pretty with the motifs spaced very close together. But the way they lined up meant I had to shift markers around every six rows, and that got to be a drag. Also, I found that slipping the first stitch of every row on such an oblique angle made for edges that were too tight. So I started over.


The color is really more lavender than it looks here.

Not as lacy looking, but moves along much faster. I'll be knitting on an edging when I get the center section done. I'm trusting that will tame the bit of curl at the lower edge. It will be a while before I get to that point. Those rows keep getting longer and longer.

Looking Ahead

I'm almost done with the black and blue shawl/stole. Three more repeats of the edging pattern, wash, block, weave in ends. So I've started noodling around with ideas for the second.

Just for the heck of it, I've decided that I want a wide, shallow, blunt triangle-ish thing. So I've started at the bottom with twenty some stitches, and I'm increasing one stitch at each side every row. It seems to be getting wider a little faster than I had anticipated, but I'm going to keep going. This is stash yarn I want to use up. If it doesn't make it all the way to shawl size, I'll turn it into a scarf.



The motif I'm using is "Rosebud", maybe I'll name it "Citizen Kane."

When the Cats are Bored

they take it out on the paper products. The kitchen roll of paper towels has long since been moved to a shelf out of their reach, and only somewhat inconvenient for us. But some things aren't so easily relocated.



On a more constructive note, I just polished off the edging at the first end of the current shawl. I may actually have this puppy completed by the end of the month.



Guess it's time to start kicking around ideas for the second one. I have some sport weight acrylic I've been wanting to use up......

Re-Charting

I've decided to try an edging from Sharon Miller's Heirloom Knitting for the ends of the shawl in progress.



I sometimes find myself confused following Miller's charts, mostly because she uses a black dot for a knit stitch, and I tend to read this as a purl stitch. So I re-did the chart using "Knit Visualizer". I also added in the faggoting header which is clearly shown in the photo, but not included in Miller's chart. Theoretically, I could have just added this in as I went. How hard can it be to throw in an extra "yo, k2tog" every row? But I say, why add one more thing to remember if I can just put it down on paper? I'm easily enough confused as it is.

Now my only question is: work this in stockinette or garter? Stockinette would look nicer, but garter wouldn't curl. Decisions, decisions..... I think I'll start out with garter and see how it goes.