Don’t call them resolutions

I’m not a believer in resolutions, but when it comes to my knitting, I do like to look back over the year, consider what I did and didn’t knit, and form some – let’s call them intentions for the coming year.

First, the numbers. I started 18 projects last year, and finished 15. Darn, I’d hoped to break even – unfortunately that means the WIP count went up, not down.

Of those 15 finished projects, 6 were shawls. I made a half-hearted attempt at 10 shawls in 2010 (which has now morphed into 11 shawls in 2011) – literally, knitting these 5:

Damson, Brandywine, Miralda’s Triangular Shawl, Citron, Daybreak (Ravelry links).

I also finished Girasole, which was begun in 2009:

Nothing wrong with any of those – I love both the knitting and the wearing of shawls. But here’s the thing – the remaining 9 finished projects were all small: a cowl, three hats, two pairs of mittens, two neckwarmer-scarves, and this tiny thing, possibly my favorite project of the year:

 Sea Lace necklace

I didn’t finish a single sweater (thankfully I started only one). There was no colorwork whatsoever. And looking over it all, there wasn’t much challenging knitting in 2010. I was coasting a little. So here are the intentions:

1. Finish a sweater or two – or more. These two are 80% done so I really should finish those first. Next on the list (unless something changes) are Shalder, the Lite Lopi Pullover, and Bruegel. None of them would require buying yarn.
2. Knit a little for needy strangers – I wrote about that here.
3. Knit some colorwork. I’m close to having yarns collected for a stranded colorwork shawl along the lines of Kaffe Fassett’s Persian Poppies or this one by Christel Seyfarth. This sweater is also calling to me, and I have the perfect yarn for it:
   
   
   
   Joyce Williams’ Olive Branch sweater, from Armenian Knitting. Were I to knit this, it would be the first one on Ravelry – that’s always kind of fun. On the back is a gnarled olive tree. For a more realistic project – the Caller Herrin’ hat is in my plans.
4. Knit some more of my handspun. Miralda’s Triangular Shawl and half a scarf were my only handspun projects last year. It’s satisfying to wear handspun handknits, plus you learn so much about your spinning from knitting with it.
5. Try some new techniques and a complicated design or two, for a challenge. I want to knit a two-end project, my first pair of gloves with fingers, and my Bohus Blue Shimmer cuffs. I'm knitting my first two-color brioche project (the Geveldak scarf) and it's a lot of fun - I'd like to do more of that. Plus there should be at least one complex lace pattern this year.
   
   

Oh my – long list. And I’ve totally ignored the fact that my first grandchild arrives in April, so baby knitting is also on the horizon.

The Perennial Question

Can she do it?

49 rows to go on Miralda’s Triangular Shawl. It doesn’t look promising, even though they get shorter and shorter. If I run out, here’s my option:

I’m knitting with my handspun for the first time, and that there is the remains (appropriate word) left on the second bobbin after plying all of the first one. I wound it off into a ball thinking I’d ply the rest of it from the two ball ends, but that didn’t go well – you can see why! “Energized” would be a kind word here.

(Furthermore, when I went over to the Ravelry pattern page to get the link for this post, I saw the errata for the first time. I wondered about that bit of asymmetry in the nupp diamond chart, but didn’t wonder hard enough to go looking for corrections.)

Wish me luck.

TGI Sunday

I’m in the home stretch of what’s been a month of difficult, brain-busting book indexing projects – still another week to go, though, and today’s my only day off for the foreseeable future. I started the day with coffee on the porch, listening to the quails talking to each other, and did a little gardening – I can’t stand the idea of spending much time inside, let alone in front of a computer screen, today, so I’m just going to show you the bit of knitting and spinning finished up this week.
First the Brandywine shawl. Rosemary Hill’s design is simple , quick and elegant, and better yet, most of the pattern sales go to Doctors Without Borders for Haiti relief efforts. She’s already sent them $10,500, just from the sales of this one pattern! If you haven’t already done so, go buy it and knit one for yourself or to give away. Our local knit group has finished a dozen or so total – we’re hoping to enter them to be displayed en masse in our county fair.

Mine is knitted in Habu Tsumugi silk – a laceweight tweedy raw silk. I have no other shawls in this kind of texture – love the way it looks and feels. The shawl is knitted from the lower point up and out to the top edge. It’s finished with an interesting purled i-cord bindoff that perfectly matches the weight of the slanting decrease lines and the K2tog that forms the last stitch of the side edgings:

Last night I finished plying the Corriedale wool I’ve been spinning this last couple of weeks – after coffee this morning I wound it off and washed the skein. It’s by far the most evenly spun and plied yarn I’ve managed to produce – I’m thrilled. The colors are gorgeous (the fiber was bought from Royale Hare). And I’ve got about 300 yards/150grams of nice worsted weight for some small project. Because it’s 3 colors, one after the other, I’m thinking I’ll wind it into a center-pull ball and knit stripes, alternating ends as the whim takes me.
What should I knit with it – got a brilliant idea for me? ETA: Ilga Leja's Haiti Scarf might be just the thing. Or how about a BSJ? I haven't knit one yet - is 300 yards enough?
Signing off to head back outdoors – with tea and knitting.

Resurfacing

Long time no see! I’ve been mired in book indexing work, and sick, and well…there hasn’t been time to blog.

There hasn’t been much knitting either. The two current shawl projects are both stalled. I started to bind off Brandywine, eager to block and wear it – and discovered an errant yarnover that I can’t live with:



It’s been sitting in time out ever since, but I’ve decided that designer Rosemary Hill is right – don’t ladder back and fix it, just bind off and sew it closed. Actually there’s another mistake you can see in the photo – but that one I’ll just live with.
Then there’s this one:



Miralda’s Triangular shawl, in my own handspun (Targhee from A Verb for Keeping Warm). Love the pattern, but there are some nupps that need repairing, and I don’t have the patience for it right now. Not loving the quality of my yarn – I think it’s overplied – but will stick with it anyway.

There has been a little bit of spinning. I reward myself for finishing work quotas and taxes and the like with spinning time. I recently finished this skein of Lisa Souza BFL (in Aww-tum):


and I’m working on this one:





This is some nameless wool/merino/nylon I was given in small quantities. The colors are related – a bit of the lavender runs through both the gray and the black, so I divided each color in half, and am spinning all of each color in turn. Hoping that they will come close to matching when plied, with some interesting marling at the transitions, and make a nice color-banded hat or something. I’m trying to teach myself to spin (and ply) a bit more softly.

I’ll be belting my wheel into the back seat of the car tomorrow – I’m off for a mini-retreat in the Sierras with a dozen friends from knit group. We’ve never done this before, but it’s going to be a great time!  Here’s what the cabin surroundings looked like a couple of days ago:



Looks like perfect knitting-and-spinning-by-the-fire weather to me - I’ll report next week! [ETA: no cell phone or Internet either. A true vacation!]  I hope to be bringing back the Pattern Roundup soon, and to have some Knitfinder news for you before long too.

Shawl number one

The first of “10 shawls in 2010” is done: Ysolda Teague’s wildly popular Damson (I think I’m the 759th person to post a finished one on Ravelry). Mine is knitted in Malabrigo Sock in Cordovan.

Lovely design – the two double increase lines on the back give it a horseshoe shape that stays on; the small size is very nice, and the contrast between garter-stitch and stockinette sections is really elegant, especially in a yarn with some sheen.

My next shawl wasn’t on my original list: it’s Rosemary Hill’s Brandywine. This is a Haiti relief pattern – $5 from every sale (more than 75%) goes straight to Doctors without Borders. More than 700 patterns have already sold – that’s $3500 donated so far. Can you help Rosemary get to her goal of 10,000 patterns sold?

I’m using Habu Tsumugi silk – a laceweight raw silk tweed.  I was hoping to finish it in time to wear it to Stitches West next weekend, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen. Here's an in-progress shot:

A cautionary tale

I'm not very good about swatching (understatement of the year). My last shawl of 2009 was Aestlight from Shetland Trader. Stated pattern gauge is 24 stitches/42 rows to 4" on a 4mm needle - but, and I quote, exact gauge is not crucial. The next time you see that phrase in a pattern, pause and reflect. Did I swatch? No. No fitting issues, why swatch?

I knit Aestlight in Sanguine Gryphon Little Traveller. I had one 560-yard skein, bought at Sock Summit last summer, in a beautiful green that reminds me of oxidized copper. No color name or number on the label. Aestlight is written for two sizes, and the larger requires 550 yards of yarn. You can see where this is going, right?

I cast on for the larger size with a 4mm needle and knitted merrily. About the time I began the sideways lace edging, I began to worry a bit about running out of yarn. At the halfway point of the edging, I realized I might be a gram or two short (thanks to my trusty gram scale). But I hoped for the best, and kept knitting anyway. What else was I going to do? Because of the way the shawl is constructed, I would have had to rip 50% of my work in order to switch back to a smaller size.

This is what I get for being cocky:

My finished shawl measures 68" wide instead of 52", and it's also 2" longer than the pattern dimension. My gauge was 16 stitches/4" instead of 24. I ran out of yarn with 11 edging rows to go. No hope of getting more, with no color name or number - so I headed for the yarn cupboard and pulled out half a dozen bits of green yarn in the right weight. Believe it or not, what you see above was the least jarring alternative.

I do love the finished product. Perfect size, nice drape at this gauge, and the color is gorgeous. No one has remarked on that funny-looking tail yet. I figure I'll just wear the shawl to Stitches West in February and wander around trying to find a better match.

10 Shawls in 2010?

I'm not one for knitting goals or resolutions (or resolutions in general, for that matter), but when I came across the 10 Shawls in 2010 group on Ravelry, I joined right away. Why not? I love shawls. I knit them anyway. One cannot own too many of them, in my opinion. There are already more than 150 shawl patterns in my Ravelry favorites. Last but not least, I wouldn't have to buy a single ball of yarn.

OK, so which 10 shall it be? Usually I decide what to knit on a whim, no long-term planning involved. So thinking about projects I'd like to knit as a group instead of one at a time is interesting. Why not try some different kinds of shawls, and avoid getting stuck in a rut? Minimum two that are all about color, not lace. One stranded colorwork shawl, and one that features texture. I notice I'm not as interested in fancy lacework as I used to be. Minimum one Estonian-style, one Faroese, and one Icelandic-style. A hap shawl would be nice too. I want to knit at least one from my own handspun, and one that's my own design. Oh, and one in hemp or linen.

Then it occurred to me to count up how many projects I actually knitted in 2009. Let's see: 2.9 shawls; 1 sweater; 1 mini-shawl; 1.9 pairs of socks; 1 cowl. Hmmm. Time to revise expectations - the ten shawls are more like a five-year plan.

Oh well, here's my preliminary pattern list anyway. Because lists are fun - imagiknitting galore! (Most of these links take you to Ravelry.) Click away!

Colorful shawls
Stephen West's Daybreak. Stripes, and a great semi-circular shape.


A stranded colorwork shawl like Pinnneguri's steeked Thistle, but with a different chart. Something like Christel Seyfarth's Bird shawl, or Kaffe Fassett poppies? In Shetland wool.

Ulmus from Through the Loops. Slip-stitch stripes plus a lacy border - color, texture, and lace all in one shawl.



Lacy shawls
Two by Ann Hanson: Artichaut from Twist Collective (this would be beautiful in the white hemp I have in stash) and Trevi
  

Miralda's Triangular shawl from Nancy Bush's Knitted Lace of Estonia.


Cobweb stole by Michele Rose Orne. Really like the unusual lace patterning in this one.


Myrtle leaf stole and Handsome Triangle from Victorian Lace Today. Myrtle leaf would be nice in hemp or linen; Handsome Triangle in silk.
  

Clothilde, by Kristen Hanley Cardozo


Echo Flower by Jenny Johnson Johnen, in pretty Estonian motifs


Litla Hyrna Huldu Simple Icelandic shawl with a pretty border. I've got a lot of unspun Icelandic in stash.


That's a lot of laciness after all.

Simple shawls
Ysolda Teague's Damson


Mara and Hannah Breetz's Storm Cloud Shawlette would both be great for my inexpert handspun.
  

Like hundreds of other knitters, I love Citron from Knitty, by Hilary Smith Callis.


Theory shawlette by Jennifer Lang - nice pattern for DK-weight yarn.



Shawls with texture
Gossamer Square from Elise Duvekot's Knit One Below. Unusual technique, two colors of Kidsilk Haze - interesting texture plus subtle colorplay.


Lily Chin's Reversible cabled rib shawl



That's eighteen right there, and there isn't a hap shawl, a Faroese, or one of my own design on the list. And I can't even cast on for  number one yet - first I have to knit an overdue Ice Queen, and I really should finish my Girasole. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it.

Knit tourism

I spent last week in Wisconsin - went to visit one of my daughters for Thanksgiving. She lives in Wausau, a smallish city that some locals claim is boring, uncool, in short Nowheresville. But I found plenty to see and do. I visited the LYS, Black Purl, on Black Friday:

The first thing I do in a new town is check out the LYS - it's one of my ways of taking the temperature of an unfamiliar place, kind of like checking out the coffeehouses or the bookstores. I loved Black Purl. How hip is that building? And the railroad tracks location? It looks like it belongs in San Francisco or NYC. I don't know how well you can see the edgy black-on-black decoration on the facade, but it's very cool. There's a better picture on the store website right here.

The store was packed with beautiful yarn; a big table in the front window was occupied by a bunch of knitters (including a young man) happily wielding their needles and chatting. I was wearing a new shawl finished for the trip (Aestlight, more on that in another post), and as I was paying for my yarns and magazine one of those knitters came up behind me and took it from my shoulders, threw it around hers, and went off to model it for her friends. (I did get it back.) Owner Beth Anne Paustian is a prolific designer too. You can see some of her patterns on her Ravelry designer page.

An afternoon visit with Knittin Brit Kim was another highlight of the trip. We managed to make our tea and hot chocolate last two hours while we yakked about knitting, spinning, and even some non-fiber-related topics. She's a local who loves her town; no disparaging words about Wausau from her! She also teaches classes at Black Purl occasionally.

Oh - and I got some knitting done. A beautiful Ice Queen for my daughter. I cast on on the plane heading east, and finished and blocked it the day before we flew home.

This one is done without beads and without the picot bindoffs, but it is still lovely, and just the thing for winter in Wisconsin. Designer Rosemary Hill gave me the yarn - my other daughter modeled the original Ice Queen for her. I still have to knit one for her - that's next on the list!