Fingering yarn for a shawl

 I almost always have a shawl in mind when I buy yarn.  However, this purchase was purely inspired by the fact that I adored the yarn in the picture.  Harps and Thistles was closing out some hand dyed yarn and had only a few skeins left.  The yarn was dyed by someone local to the shop.  It is Baby Alpaca/Linen/Tussah Silk.  And it is as pretty in person as it was in the photo.  I bought four colors:  Queen of the Damned, Missy Z, The Shortcut, and Lemon Tart.  I envision this as my spring project in 2022.  

Some of the patterns that I envision this yarn in are:

Olive Pink

Concatenation

Botanique

The Big Easy by Melanie Berg

Christmas in the City by Tammy Gore

Church Mouse's Magic Three Yarn Scarf and Wrap

 I have looked at this pattern for years.  I purchased the recipe years ago and it is stored in Drop Box.  It might also be in my library on Ravelry?  I am working on a shawl that was a knit along with Casapinka this fall that is hard to pick up when the phone rings or I have a few extra minutes.  I keep making mistakes and ripping out.  I needed a mindless project to sit on my desk.  And this is exactly that.  It calls for three yarns.  One variegated, one mohair, and a bulky that calls for at gauge for size 10 needles.  So I raided my stash and found the following:

The red is 

The variegated is:

And the yellow is 

I cast on the recommended 190 stitches.  The wrap is knit from end to end rather than across.

I ended up setting this project aside in the spring to work on other projects and just pulled it out again in September 2022.  After finishing I decided to add fringe.  Then I decided I needed decent scissors to cut the fringe ....to even it up.  I really like the looks of this shawl.  I'll add a photo as soon as I find someone to take the photo even though I am still waiting on the new scissors to make final fringe trim.

How to avoid ladders on your sock when you knit with double pointed needles

 I remember having someone explain how to avoid these pesky ladders many years ago.  But I could not remember the explanation.  So today I looked on-line and it came back to me.  The secret is to make sure that the two needles that you are working with are behind the needle you just finished using.  It is also helpful to move a few stitches every round or two so the joins are mot in the same place all of the time.

I took the below from a You Tube presentation found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uCe9s0FA34

up and down and the old needle is in the front allowing one to have the needles now being worked on to be very close in the back.

In this process, one tugs on the second stitch knitted on the new needle rather than the first stitch.

Casapinka's newest MKAL: Snark-O-meter

Last year at this time, I started Casapinka's MKAL:  the Sharon Show.  And I had so much fun knitting it! And then I LOVED the finished item as well.  Then when everyone was knitting Botanique, I again joined the MKAL!  And I also like that finished project as well!  So this summer when Casapinka announced her newest MKAL I decided to join in the fun even though I do not love the name:  Snark-O-Meter.  

So the first step is to find the right yarn for the project.  My stash did not yield four skeins of fingering yarn that made me want to jump into the project.  And dog gone it.....Miss Babs had a kit that I LOVED!  But when it arrived it was darker than I had imagined when I saw it on her site.  And I just could not envision knitting those colors on a beautiful fall day...or for that matter mid August either.  So I decided that I would just miss this MKAL.  But then I found a kit that I could not resist.  I bought it from The Yarn Club.  

Three of the skeins are autumn and Indigo and the fourth is Knerd String 4-ply fingering.

And the blue is a different brand:

And then II began to agonize (my favorite thing to do with knitting!) over which set I would use.  Finally

I chose to go with the original set and it is turning out quite well.  the yarn is Miss Babs Yummy 2-ply and the colors are 

I like it so far. These knit alongs are fun to knit on as they are never boring.

I finally finished the shawl in February 2022.  I LOVE IT!  Oh, my!  It is so soft and fun to wear.  Here are a couple of photos to show it off:

Concatenation Shawl

 I can not remember how I happened onto this pattern now.  But it was from the website of Expression Fiber Arts.  It was not a Ravelry find.  I had bought yarn during my quest for the perfect yarn for Botanique.  And I had fallen in love with the variegated color  on Emma's site: 10 questions

So I called the Yarn Club (a store that had a great selection of Emma's Super Silky and the store that had been a favorite for Dar for many years.  And they helped me choose colors to go with 10 questions.

I chose, Wish you were Beer, 

And a beautiful deep teal and a nice very light color ....almost whte/beige

But then I ended up using a different color way for the Botanique which I also loved.  So I decided to do the Concatenation shawl in these colors and I am loving this pattern and color way!

I finished this shawl the last week in March 2022.  I had a problem that I added to my blog post dated Sunday, March 27, 2022.  I will take photos and add to this site when I block it this afternoon.

I took the shawl off the blocking table yesterday and wore it to the Meet and Greet for the Guyan Lady's golf for 2022 season.  I have a glitch at the end of the shawl that shows in the photo of the blocking process.  I must have failed to knit two together on the last section.

And here is the finished product.  You can see that the glitch at the end does not detract:

Kristin

 

Kristin sent such a wonderful photo to our knitting group from Iceland that I wanted to save it.

As one of the group commented, her gorgeous hand knits are so wonderful that we almost didn't notice

the volcano!

Botanique

Here is my finished Botanique

Casapinka designed a new knit along early 2021 called Botanique.  Because I had so much fun with the Sharon Show, I decided to buy the yarn and knit along.  But somehow there wasn't as much hoopla this time and no one in our group was knitting it, I lost interest.  But I have cast on this past week and am ready to start.  I bought Emma's yarn in the super silky the Floridian Zest color way.   It is 80% super wash Merino and 20% Silk.  There are 400 grams in each skein.  I am knitting on size 5 needles.

The kit suggests using the colors in this order:  Cally Girl, Floridian Zest, Hot Tamale, Tangerine Mist.

Hmmm....the colors are not in that order in photo below.  The order below is Floridian Zest, Tangerine Mist, Hot Tamale, and Cally Girl.

I found a photo that showed a way to wear the shawl when it is finished that I like a lot:

I am using size 5 needles which is what the pattern calls for.  Here are the labels:

I put few scraps of the yarn in a tote in my bedroom closet that says summer yarn

The Cupid Shawl

Again at one of the Vogue Knitting Live events this year, Rebecca Glazier of Wild West Dye introduced her new Cupid Shawl.  So it is my new mindless project.  The yarn is scrumptious!  Honestly it feels wonderful as I knit!  Rebecca uses non-superwash and natural dyes!  It is fingering weight on side 4 needles.  And I bought it as a kit from her site.  Rebecca sends just the amount of yarn that you need....it is generous. A bit left over. And exactly these colors.

 

Color Courage

 After one of the Vogue Knitting Live events in 2020, I bought a shawl called Color Courage from Lakeside Yarn.   The shawl was designed by Cynthia Cushing

 What was of interest to me with this shawl is that it starts out as a triangle shawl and then about half way through changes into a less pointed, more crescent shape with longer span from tip to tip.  So it was the construction that I wanted to try.  I finished it over the weekend and blocked it today.  I will post a photo tomorrow.  The verdict is still out about how I feel about this shape.  However, in general I find triangle shawls hard to wear.  And yet I often like the beginning of the triangle shawl.  

The yarn is sensible sock knit on size 5 needles.  I have stored the written pattern the came with the kit in the kitchen file.  It was a very mindless knitted product.

In February 2024, I realized that I had never posted a photo of the finished product.  So today I am posting Color Courage.  

Incan spice yarn

I started a project with Incan Spice yarn that I bought in Lexington from the store that was going out of business a few years ago.  Mitzi and I had transported several dogs and cats and we treated ourselves to a stop in the knitting store.  I love this yarn!  I love the colors.  It is fingering weight and has a bit of silk in it as well as baby alpaca and extra fine merino.  The yarn is a bit splitty and I am finding it too hard to work with in the pattern that I have chosen.  So I am going to put the project up until I choose something else.  If the project I am working on right now works out ok, I may do a shawl that is similar in shape.  Where one begins with a triangular shawl but then switches to a longer and less deep shape.  The pattern that I am using is Color Courage that I bought from the shop owner of Lakeside Yarn.  I will just add my own stripes and patterns to the basic shape.  I am going to put the project in a small basket on top of the bookcase in my bedroom.