Beads--part four

No, I haven't gotten sick of beading yet.

I have this lovely skein of handspun. It was spun especially for me by Heidimonkey, made with long colour changes.

When wound up, it made a gorgeous cake of yarn. I went and got a tube of bright green beads, hoping they would show up well in the knitting.

The shawl is coming along well. Here's a preview of how it's coming together, though the beads (right there on the upper edge) hardly show in this photograph.

Ok, enough blogging. Back to knitting!

Beads--part three

And while we're disussing beads, (and we were,) I must bring up my Shipwreck, the longterm project with 1400 yards of yarn and 4600 beads.

Get this--it's done.  No really! I beaded and knit and beaded and knit and finally, I have a lovely new shawl.

This shawl is so epic that I went out and bought a black dress just to wear with it. And then today I bought another one!

I keep hoping I'll get to take it out for a real photo shoot. So watch out--there may be more photos.

Beads--part two

In 2007, I bought a skein of laceweight on impulse.

I fully intended to cast on as soon as possible, but at the time I had Christmas knitting to finish. And so finally the skein got tucked into a bin for safekeeping, and while always loved, never utilised.  

So this year, I've been making a fresh effort to use the wonderful yarns that I own. And I decided it was time to bring this yarn out of hibernation and into a project.

This one got paired with some dark iridescent purplish beads I've had for years, and the pattern Annis.

The results are a very light and airy shawl.

The yarn didn't have a tag, but the ravelry entry says it's 50g.  The shawl used 40g of yarn, and I had 39g leftover!

Beads, beads, and more beads-- part one

Hello blog!

Let me tell you, there has been a whole lotta beading going on!

Threatening Seas

I started with a lovely skein of blue 100% merino. This skein came from the Canon Hand Dyes Shakespeare Club. This was the November skein, inspired by the Tempest, entitled:

Though the seas threaten, they are merciful.

I paired it with a bead blend called "oceanic mix", and a pattern entitled Adelei.

The results were small and bunchy.

But as always with shawls, a good blocking pulled it into shape and brought out all its beauty.

Look! It's a shawl!

Sadly, the beads were such a good fit they hardly showed.

But I still love it.

Darn it!

Ember recently shared an interesting darning tutorial with me.

http://woolandchocolate.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/darning-tutorial/

And then, just this week, I found a nasty little hole in my man's Bugga! socks. It was in a weird spot, under the foot between the ball and the heel.  Not a usual spot for a hole. Which has me suspecting a feline culprit.

Would this sweetie attack a hand knit sock?

Now I've darned before. It usually involves putting in horizontal lines, then weaving in vertical lines and pretty much stitching the heck out of it. It seems to work, but it's not very pretty. So I attempted to follow the tutorial.

This is what the hole looked like as I was starting to stitch around the hole.

And this is with horizontal lines stitched in:

This is my first column of duplicate stitch:

And here is the inside and outside of the completed repair:

Well. It's not gorgeous, but it should hold!

PS--Hidden mostly out of sight inside that sock is the lovely darning egg my father made me.

Hats! Hats! Hats!

Okay, there's a lot of hats going on right now! I made another hat with Big Nom (on sale through the end of Jan!!!)

And I added beads to my archangel hat. This one is definitely my new favourite. I'm wearing it all the time, now that we've got real winter here.

Another Hat

Stripes! Clearly, I'm a stripey fan. I pay attention to the stripey yarns out there. They're not always easy to buy, either, and many of the stripey dyers sell out swiftly. Additionally, most of the stripey yarn that is available, though hard-to-get, is sock yarn.

So when I discovered stripey yarn in aran weight, I immediately had two skeins come home to me.

The yarn is Big Nom by Gritty Knits. I purchased it on the 6th. It arrived on the 9th. I started knitting it on the 11th and finished it on the 13th.

Just a basic hat with a turned hem and a picot edge. I used Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns for the numbers.

I want to say a little more about pompom makers, and why I like them better than using cardboard circles. The nifty feature of the pompom makers is that they fold out to allow really easy wrapping. Your hand just flows around and around, wrapping it stuffed full of yarn.

In contrast, with the cardboard maker, you need to pull the yarn through a little opening for every wrap.  The process is clumsier, and I usually run out of patience for the wrapping before it's really stuffed.  You can still make a lovely pompom with a cardboard circle, you just need to engage yourself in a lot more effort.

Archangel

What do you do with a Holy Grail skein of yarn?  You make sure you get it right.

To review, there was this skein of Malabrigo Rasta in the colourway Archangel that I admired from afar for months and months, until I finally brought it home to me.  Look at it:

So I found a pattern that is versatile and cute. You can wear it slouchy, or like a beanie. It used up the entire skein of yarn. In fact, I ran out of yarn with only 40 stitches remaining, so I ripped out the decreases, removed one row before the decreases, and finished it up so it all came out perfectly.  It was very cute.

Slouchy!

Not slouchy!

 Yes, very cute! But sadly, not on me.

The great thing about bulky is that it knits up so quickly that there's little regret in ripping the entire thing out and trying again. And this skein of yarn had to be a hat for ME. So the 2nd go was a pattern from Vogue Knitting, a tassled hat.

I knit it as directed on size 15 needles (HUGE needles!), except I changed the embellishments a little. I added a little i-cord as the hat transitions from top to tassle. And I braided the tails on the earflaps, and gave them a really long end.

The stitches are the size of cornnuts! Cornnuts are a crunchy/salty snack food that remind me of road trips and truck stops.

New favourite hat!!!

Crush

Last summer, I got a wild crush on a skein of yarn called Archangel. I've had crushes before, and I try to be careful not to indulge all my crushes. This particular skein was a super-bulky Malabrigo Rasta yarn, and I really didn't have any need or excuse to buy a super-bulky skein. I admired the skein online, but didn't buy.

When December rolled around and my crush on this yarn remained undiminished, I decided it had earned itself some validity and could be purchased. I even realised that Malabrigo carries colourways across the bases, and I could purchase Archangel in other bases, too.  But the photo that entranced me the most remained the super-bulky Rasta.

I did order, and got Archangel in Rasta, as well as a worsted skein in Rios. It's prettiest in Rasta, but the other skein is a beauty on its own.

I mentioned earlier that it's hard to find good grapey-purple yarn. So I just had to get that "Eggplanty" by Alisha Goes Around. Plus some sock needles, of course. My knitpicks size ones and twos have all broken in the cable.

Let's just take a closer look at that archangel, shall we?

The only thing that's stopping me from casting on is that I have lots of things in progress that are for other people.

Sigh.

I think it's love.

....and socks!

My son is fond of  handmade woolies, because he's fond of being warm. He also has feet that are challenging to fit. And it turns out his feet also don't get along well with cotton socks.  I've been working to find a good sock to make for him. My most recent attempt involved trying a brand new Cat Bordhi heel, the Sweet Tomato heel.

The first socks were made with Dream in Color Smooshy in the colour Black Parade.  As Black Parade is also an album he likes, this was a happy coincidence.

The first pair seemed to be a success, so I made a second pair following the same formula. This second pair is made from a new favourite yarn of mine, Dragonfly Fibers Djinn Sock in the colourway Starry Night.

These new heels are made with a series of wedges. I'm still getting used to them, but they seem to work for an effective heel for these socks.