DIAMOND LACE CAPELET

Finally did it!

Diamond Lace Capelet

I posted my first for sale pattern on Ravelry! Have a couple more in the works to post.

As you know, I've been keeping the patterns I post for free downloading on Ravelry mainly because I was learning the craft ... and it is quite a tricky business to write a pattern for just one size, but to add small, medium, large, extra large, etc. is even trickier.

The Diamond Lace Capelet is my first for sale, and as everything, there is a bit of a story behind it. 

First, I wanted to knit something for a friend who lives in California who knits and already has a number of shawls. So another shawl was not the answer. Also nothing too warm, like what we more northern folk like to have especially in the fall and winter. A capelet seemed to be the best, but most of the patterns I saw had a high neck. I wanted something to rest on the shoulders and drape down.

Solitude Wool, a small company that creates artisan yarns from their own sheep and other small area farms, sells at a local farmers market. I've purchased yarn from her before, but on a recent visit, I picked up two skeins of their Border Leicester sport because it seemed the perfect color and weight for this capelet. 

Yarn in hand, I designed and knit the capelet. After it was done, I knit another of a different size using one skein of sport weight yarn that I'd purchased this summer from the Good Karma Farm in Belfast, Maine. I love the way they name their colors. This one is January Thaw--and it is a delicious yarn.

Capelet in Good Karma Yar's January Thaw

Sport weight yarn, 400 to 480 yards required depending on size, and you will be good to go!

Oh, and it took me less than a week to knit! So if you are looking for a relatively quick but lovely item to knit for that special someone (yourself included!), ...

Enjoy!

Reah Janise




 

CRESCENT SHAWL AND BUTTERFLIES

Crescent Hearts Shawl

Apologies for the hiatus, but some family matters required my attention.
Knitting projects, however, have not stopped. First up, I was flying to California for a conference and had thought I was more than prepared for knitting air time. I managed to complete the second of a pair of socks about midway and started on a lace shawl. I’d designed and knit one earlier and quickly given it to a departing colleague. I call it Crescent Hearts. The pattern is available on Ravelry.

Close up of lace pattern

To my dismay, I found that I’d not included stitch markers and had only 6 in my Knit Kit. Yikes!

While you can knit lace without stitch markers, I do not recommend it. It is far too easy to make errors and thus lose valuable time and energy, not to mention having to rip out lace. (Oh the horror!)

I remembered that a friend had made her own stitch markers from yarn. Seemed like a good idea to me, especially since I wanted to get this shawl moving. So, using the leftover sock yarn, I made 20 little slip knot stitch markers. (They work very well. You just need to make sure you don't knit them into your stitches.) The shawl was nearly finished by the time we returned home a few days later.

I like crescent shawls mainly because they are so-o-o much easier to design than triangle shawls and more interesting than rectangle shawls. Oh, and the yarn is made from soymilk: Pure Soysilk from South West Trading Company. It works up nicely and has a lovely luster.

By the way, the socks used a butterfly stitch. Since the yarn was already multicolored, I had looked for a stitch that would add just a touch of fun, and the butterfly was just that. The yarn was Berroco Sox. The pattern is available in my Ravelry store for free.

Until next time ... happy knitting!

Reah Janise

Butterfly Socks

Beads, Dots, and Pandas

Beaded Lace Shawl

Have been having lots of fun lately. First was working with beads. Hmmm. Not really sure I'd call it fun. More of an adventure actually. If you haven't worked with beads before and someone knits something for you with beads in it, be grateful, very grateful, very, very grateful.

Beaded lace closeup

The plan was to make a crescent shawl using Wandering Wool's Udaipur fingering, which is a lovely silvery blue color. I explained my plan to another knitter who suggested that it would work really well with beads. I had used beads with one other shawl, just a few that hung on the points of lace. For that pattern, I slipped the beads on the yarn before starting the shawl. Fortunately, the lace was the first to be knit and so the beads were soon off my yarn and onto the shawl. However, I really didn't want to do that with this shawl because there was going to be over a hundred beads and these were smaller than for the previous shawl.

So I used another technique for adding beads. I used what seemed like the smallest crochet hook ever to add the beads on while I knit. When I was ready to add the bead, I poked the crochet hook through the bead, hooked the stitch I wanted to add the bead to on the left-hand knitting needle, slid the bead down onto the stitch, and then slid the stitch back onto the left-hand needle and knit the stitch.Whew.

It took a while to get the hang of this technique, especially since the crochet hook was so teeny and I didn't always catch all of the yarn threads each time. The rows where I added beads took five times as long to complete than the rows without beads. But I like the end product. And now I'm thinking about what else I can knit with beads! Socks?

Oh, the shawl was a version of my favorite Annis shawl. But where the Annis shawl is finished off with stockinette, I used a simple 4-row lace pattern. Odd rows were purled. Row 2 was k2tog (right-slant decrease), yo. Row 4 was yo, ssk (left-slant decrease). 

Random Dots Socks

One adventure completed, I turned to another new experience. Polka dots.

I still consider myself a bit of a beginning when it comes to color work, but wanted to give it a try. So I set to work on knitting a pair of polka dotted socks. I used four stash yarns for the polka dots, all of which were multi-colored. I knit a sample dot and measured how much yarn it took, then pulled out 6 lengths per color and rolled them around a holder. 

I call the socks Random Dots because I didn't hold to a pattern for the dots.I mailed them to a friend who needed a little cheer.

Mochimochi Tiny Pandas

 
When I'm thinking of a larger project, I tend to start socks because I find them easy and relaxing to knit. So while I've been working on a pattern for a sweater for a niece, I started a pair of brown tweed cabled socks for a sweater for my niece. 

Meanwhile, I picked up the Mochimochi Tiny Panda kit that I'd purchased for $10 at VogueKnitting Live in New York in January. Just finished the third panda today. The first panda went to a friend who hasn't been feeling very well. These are absolutely adorable. Too tiny for a baby, but you can make them into pins or just have fun with them. And that's what these were. Fun. And easy. It takes only an hour to make one.

Purling off for now!

Reah Janise

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VOGUE KNITTING LIVE

Felted chess set @ Vogue KnittingLive

Knit garden @ Vogue KnittingLive

Ever been surrounded by hundreds of people who all harbor the same addiction? Well that's what I did over a week ago.

The addiction? Knitting. The place? New York City. The event? Vogue Knitting Live.

Classes, teachers, and a really great marketplace of yummy yarns, kits, and more. I'm terrible at taking pictures, so I just have a couple to share from some of the artists: an amazing chess set (love the dragon!) and a garden complete with fountain, flowers and birds.
I took three classes: one on steeking, which is something you absolutely need to know how to do if you want to do a Fair Isle cardigan or any kind of color work that you want to match up. The two part class on designing lace shawls and writing the pattern provided terrific information. I started a shawl that I plan to wear at a big event for my boss's 80th birthday gala. The last class was on designing drop and saddle shoulders. I learned when these are good to use and how to design them.

The Marketplace had many, many temptations, and I was reserved, but I still came away with some lovely cashmere, a few kits, and yarn for making a shawl and a couple of scarves.

Meanwhile, I've been knitting up a few things. I finished a sweater using Mountain Colors yarn, which I wore to the event. I wanted a simple sweater that I could just toss on. The color is so rich that it needed no embellishment, so I just did a cable up the front, back, and sleeves. At the conference, one of the teachers was wearing a cowl that matched her sweater. Aha! I had extra yarn, so as soon as I got home, I worked up a pattern and knit one. I used a triangle pattern using knit/purl. The cowl has been perfect since winter has been unusually cold this year.

Pink Tiger Socks

I also knit up a pair of socks. As I've mentioned before, socks are the best thing to take on a trip because they take up so little space. I finished one sock on the train home and started the second one, finishing it the next day. I call these my pink tiger socks. I used a lace pattern even though with a multi-colored yarn they are not easily seen. But I like how it moves the color lines. The yarn is Pinnacle Fingering from Wild Hare Fiber Studio. It has the greatest colors, even neon, for socks.

After Christmas I knit a pair of fingerless mitts for myself, but gave them to a friend. I had yarn left over from the cardigan I knit for my friend, so I knit another pair for myself--and am wearing them as I type this. Ahh, warm and cozy hands.

But I'm not finished. I bought a kit to make a felted cloche hat. I was so excited about it that I knit it up really quickly and set about felting it, but something went wrong. I somehow didn't felt it right and the hat didn't shrink. Undaunted, I made some adjustments and made it into a rolled band hat. Hat, cowl, and sweater are featured in this photo.

Hat, cowl and new sweater.

And now I've made a swatch for a scarf idea with one of the new yarns.

And the knit goes on,

Reah Janise 

SHAWL TIME

Last year I started knitting triangular shawlettes and absolutely adored working them. Then I came across a crescent shawl, where you start on the longest outside edge row and work your way smaller. I keep doing modifications to the original design (Annis shawl), and just this week completed another shawl that simply thrilled me.

Because of the way lace works up, you almost have to go on faith as to how the finished piece will look. I'd used a white sock yarn with  size 5 needles. I've seen some patterns using beads. Since I've never used beads before, it seemed like a good time to try, so I worked a sample to see how it would work. I got 36 crystal beads and used 30 of them.

By the way, when working with beads you have to string them on your skein before beginning a piece. This can make it a bit awkward because you are always having to shift them down the yarn until you are ready to place them.

I'd decided on replacing the stockinette portion of the Annis shawl with a trellis lace pattern (6 stitch pattern over 4 rows). I thought it would be open enough and also allow for relatively easy decreasing. The decreases were sometimes a bit tricky, and because of it I am not putting up the pattern.

Rather than nupps, which are worked over two rows, I experimented with bobbles.

The other change I made was to use a picot bind off. Cast on two stitches onto the left hand needle. Bind off four stitches. Place the remaining stitch onto the left needle. Repeat. This bind off takes time, but is well worth the lovely edging.

cheers,

Reah Janise

SUMMER PULLOVER TIME!

Climbing Mountains Lace Pullover

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I started on a summer lace pullover. A few years earlier, I'd knit a lace cardigan with white cotton yarn. My mother liked it so much that I gave her mine and then knit another for me. The cotton yarn was a worsted weight, so a little bulky.

Then last summer I knit my first triangle shawl using Wolle's Color Changing Cotton yarn. Her four-stranded cotton yarn was light, like a fingering or sock yarn, and I started thinking that it would make an ideal summer lace sweater, something to toss on over a tank top. I emailed her to see if she had any single-color yarns and ended up purchasing skeins in the color granite.

Summer is here and so despite lots of project ideas as gifts for people, I decided to tackle a project for myself. I found a lace pattern, called mountain peaks from the knittingfool.com website. I also use this website for determining how many skeins are needed for a project. I made a slight variation to the pattern.

It seemed that a drop shoulder pattern with a boat neck would be the easiest (no worry over figuring out lace decreases).

And now both sweater and pattern are done. And this is the first pattern where I've included sizes. Here's the link for the PDF on Scribd and another on Ravelry.

Enjoy!

Reah Janise