Tag Archive | yarn

WIP Wednesday

I still haven’t taken good photos of my finished cowl (it’s been SO COLD the last two days…okay, I’ve just been lazy about it. Whatever.) so I thought I’d share a couple of WIP photos. Can you believe I only have four WIPs at the moment? Clearly there is something wrong with me. I got to the third color of my Color Me Happy cowl last night.

It’s hard to see, but there are a few rows of the solid purple up there. I think I’m going to love this once it’s done, but it’s an awful lot of stockinette right now. Maybe I need to go to a movie so I can knit on it in the dark.

And I made a swatch! It’s a little swatch but it’s a good start. This is for my Penny sweater with my birthday Malabrigo.

I’ve been waiting to start it because I’ve been trying to eat better and exercise lately, and I thought maybe I’d want a different size. But then I thought, Heck that, I want a pretty pink sweater and I can still wear it even if it’s a little big.

But here’s the best news of the day: I get to have a crafting weekend this weekend!!! One of my blogger friends is meeting a few friends at local hotel for the weekend, and she and I decided we needed to finally meet, so I got a room for myself and it’s going to be DELICIOUS. I won’t spend all weekend with them, because that might be too much, plus why wouldn’t I take advantage of a comfy quiet hotel room all to myself? But we’ll knit together and visit the best LYS and I’m super excited.

It’s also a little scary because I’m an introvert who hates meeting new people, but apparently I’m pushing myself lately. Last weekend I went to a birthday party where I only knew two people, and I had a blast. Maybe that was enough to nudge me toward the crafting weekend. Or maybe I was just drawn by the opportunity to have an extended period of time to myself. Either way, the room is booked and I just need to plan my projects. I’m pretty sure I need to a new cast-on! Sock or shawl??

Mermaid Sea Swell Shawl

Oct28

Remember months ago I wanted to make a mermaid shawl with five skeins of yarn and I tried to make this lace shawl and it just didn’t work for me? I remembered that yarn today and I might have found the perfect pattern on Ravelry.

Capture

This is the Sea Swell Shawl by Stephen West and it’s a gorgeous fade with five colors, which is exactly what I wanted, and it’s a semi-circular shape, which I wanted, and it even has a wave pattern, which I didn’t even KNOW I wanted! Plus after making my Dotted Rays, I’m excited to make another one of his patterns. That one was so fun and addictive, and so much squishy garter stitch. My only caveat is that for some reason I thought my mermaid shawl should have some delicate lace too. But mostly I think I can’t resist how perfect this is in every other way!

Sock It To Me Monday

Oct7

Today’s post is brought to you by Mildly Granola, who started the Sock it to Me Monday theme, and who introduced me to the Twizzler sock pattern! I completed the second Twizzler sock over the weekend, after struggling a bit with Second Sock Syndrome.

They have longer legs than usual, because I got carried away on the first sock and of course had to make them match. The feet are also a little too long, and honestly, I don’t even know if I did the toes the same. I stopped looking at the pattern ages ago, and by the time the toe of the second sock came around, I just did a barn toe and called it good. They look the same, though, don’t they? The yarn is from Mudpunch in a color called Peacock Notation, and it was great to knit with! Now let’s just hope they wash and wear well too.

This is a big deal

Sep27

I’m going to make a sweater! Whoa, right? No, I know, I’ve done this before. I’ve actually crocheted one sweater and knitted three. My first knitted sweater was a Harvest cardigan that came out HUGE but is super cozy to bum around in at home. My next two knitted sweaters were pullovers that actually fit the way I wanted. That cardigan I made with cotton; it was soft but still not a high-quality yarn. The pullovers were both made with acrylic yarn. I love them, but I decided that I’m ready for the big leagues now: I want to make a sweater out of GOOD yarn.

I’ve never bought a sweater quantity of good (i.e. non-acrylic) yarn before, instead choosing fun single skeins. So for my birthday earlier this month, I told the husband that I wanted a sweater quantity of yarn. He’s a smart man, so he gave me the money for it rather than trying to pick it out himself.

But what yarn? What pattern? What color? Well, the yarn itself wasn’t too hard: Malabrigo has been one of my very favorite yarns for years. For pattern, I wanted something interesting and pretty, a little more intricate than the basic pullovers I’ve made. It took a lot of browsing but I settled on Penny by tincanknits. And color? Well, at first I thought about a neutral. But then I thought, NAHHH! Let’s have fun!

This is six skeins of Malabrigo Arroyo in the glorious Fucsia, which might possibly be the most difficult color of yarn to photograph. Subtle, it is not! But it will make a gorgeous sweater and I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing some swatching this weekend!

Color Me Happy

Sep25

I have a new WIP! The reason why is a bit convoluted so bear with me. See, I agreed to test out some new circular needles, and I have one size. That’s actually how I ended up casting on the Spring Rain shawl, but then I realized that 24″ circs aren’t long enough for a shawl. I needed to put the shawl on a longer cord, but I needed to go to the LYS for that. Then when that was done, I needed a pattern for 24″ size 2.5 circs, and I thought a cowl would be perfect. I plugged all the necessary info in Ravelry and ended up choosing the Color Me Happy cowl.

Oh, what colors? No, not the pink and purple in the original, though I totally tried to find something similar in my stash. Instead, my stash threw out these three skeins and said they’d really like to work together.

6444a1bb-dd52-4c08-9fc0-a1375cfdc1e2 Won’t that be lovely? I purchased the pattern and got all ready to cast on with my little 2.5 circs…only to see that that size was needed for one section if you were doing a straight bottom edge instead of the kerchief style! For everything else, it recommended a size 4.

Well, to heck with that, I say, and I’m just going to use these darn needles and it’s going to be just fine!

Honestly, now that I’m this far into it, I think the size 4 would be too big and I wouldn’t like the loose drape anyway. Now I’m just eager to get to the point where I can join in the round and start zooming along!

Spring Rain

Sep23

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been working on my new shawl as much as I can, and I’m loving it so much. I don’t really even understand why, since it’s not even purple! But I’ve always loved the vivid green of MadTosh Seaglass, and I’m just so delighted with how well the yarns play together.

fullsizeoutput_237c The pattern is a nice mix of lace and garter stitch, switching it up so I don’t get tired of either. Okay, well, yeah, I get a little tired of the garter stitch, but it’s fine. Worth it to get back to the lace and the green!

I never thought I’d be so excited to knit something non-purple!

I went to a yarn store

Sep22

But I had a good reason, I swear! I’ve been working on my Spring Rain shawl with the Seaglass green and I’m obsessed with it. But I realized that the 24″ circular needles I started with weren’t going to be long enough for a full shawl. I have one pair of 2.5 interchangeable tips, and I found out that one of them is stripped and wouldn’t screw onto the cord. It just popped right off. Now, I couldn’t just STOP knitting that shawl, right? It simply wasn’t an option. First I tried to be good and went to Michael’s, because I’m rarely tempted by their yarn anymore. Sadly, size 2.5 is apparently not a common size, and they didn’t have it. I was going to have to go to a LYS.

I went to the closest LYS, which also happens to be the biggest, with two yarn stores combined in one huge brick building. So much yarn. I petted a lot of it, even carried a skein around for a while before putting it back. I was just there for ONE size of needles.

But.

One of the stores had a sale section. And in that sale section were needles! Addi needles, which I love! Well how about that?? They didn’t have the size I needed, but I found two other sizes that filled gaps in my needle inventory. Then I went straight to the ChiaoGoo circs, found the size I actually needed, and went to the counter, yarn free.

But.

They had a big display of new yarn up there, all spread out before the counter. Colorful new yarn, in bright pink and purple and green and blue and turquoise and it was all so PRETTY. And that’s how I ended up coming home from the yarn store like this.

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The yarn is March Hare, a worsted from Wonderland Yarns, in their new Luminous Collection. It’s super hard to photograph it well, especially since it’s pouring rain outside so I had to take the photo inside. But you can see their photos here, along with all the other gorgeous colors that I wish I had. It might be a cowl, or I might go a little mad and make a crazy colorful sweater with all of these.

Bright, right? I may be entirely Bonkers, but all the best people are!