Figuring stuff out

I've got to the back of my braided cable poncho and started the Celtic knit motif.

I found a photo when I was searching for a pattern and this is my attempt to recreate it.

I'm about halfway through the pattern and I think it's going to work out. Sometimes these things are a little trial and error but so far so good. I don't want to but I can rip out with the best. Lots of practice, me. 😉

I was going to have the back straight across but I've decided to make the point to match the front. The decision is purely practical - I don't know if I'll have enough yarn otherwise. I still need to make the border and certainly don't want to run out of yarn on that section. Being last year's purchase, I'm pretty sure I'd never find another skein in this batch. 

I'm off to finish another row or two…

Braids galore

I've started work on my first personal knitted item in quite a while. I've been tied up preparing and conducting classes and so haven't had much to share (except that in pulling material for my cotton spinning class, I found my long last tahkli spindle - yea!!). What spinning I've been doing has been for gifts that I don't want to post for fear the recipient will see it. So that's left me very little to post.

Now, however, I've got a really fun design project going on. It's a cabled poncho that is going to have a pointed front and a square or rounded back (haven't made up my mind just yet on that part. 

It will also have a wide-ish cabled edging around the outside to finish it off. 

I've used the chunky braided cable up the middle and a narrower stepped braided cable up either side of the middle braid. 

I am really pleased with the way it's laying out. 

This is actually the second version. I got about halfway to this size with my initial attempt and didn't like it at all. It didn't lay right and I just wasn't happy so out it all came and, using lessons learned, I came up with this. 

If you're wondering about the safety pin, I'm using it to keep track of which side of my braided cable I'm twisting. 

Finishing off

I've been working almost non-stop trying to get some baby things done for an old friend of mine. It's more knitting than I've done for ages but I'm thrilled with how they've come out. I won't post pics until I've given them to the parents but I will show you this:

One of the items just seemed unfinished and I couldn't figure out what it needed until I remembered this little lace edging that I'd done as parting my study course and realized it was perfect for this item. It's only about 1/2 inch wide and just perfect for this item. 

While I can't show it yet, suffice to say there will be some edging and some gathering and some rosette-ing going on. Still need about another foot but it goes quite quickly so shouldn't take too long. 

Lace makes everything g better!

All about the baby

People who work with me know that every baby gets something hand-knitted. The size or elaborateness is usually commiserate with how well I know the person. I always ask if they have something in mind (for one Christmas baby it was a little elf onsie costume with a pointy hat and boots with bells on the toes - so cute and what she dressed the baby in for Christmas Eve) but otherwise I get my choice. 

There is an upcoming baby for someone I worked with at a previous job who I like very very much and whose husband works at my current place of employment. It's her first and we know it's a girl and she wants pink and frilly and girly. So fun to knit a pink frilly girly something. 

And this is the something. 

It will be a blanket using the feather and fan stitch, one of the oldest recorded knit patterns and as frilly as they come!!

I'll also be doing a pink fluffy housecoat to go with it so I hope that will be pink and frilly and girly enough for her!

Rounding out the chapter

Just to round out the projects in chapter 2, these are the last 2 projects. I love the braid of the last one (the gold one) although it was a little tricky to move around the elements. 

In fact I made a booboo on the end of one of the trails but was too far down the road to go back and fix it. If it had been an actual project, I would have but it was fine for the sample. I would like to do a table runner using this edging. 

Put it in the list…

Success as a ratio, not an absolute

When the L.A.C.E. Group started their yardage club (you gain entry by working at least 2 yards of lace at the skill level you are able to work), I started a very simple, beginner lace piece because I was a beginner. There were some really basic things I was still not fluent with. After I'd worked about 2 feet of that edging, things clicked for me and I reached a new level of understanding of the craft. It was one of those moments when I realized that all of a sudden my hands were working stitches without my having to think through every movement and it was such a moment of freedom and triumph. It gave me courage to try something a little harder and a little more complicated.

That edging was, for the most part, completed back in 2012 but since the. I've continued to progress and try new things. Some of them worked and some of them didn't but I'm okay with that. I'm happy for success to be a ratio rather than an absolute. It's way more fun and exciting and fulfilling that way. 

This most recent project of working through this Torchon workbook has been just such another adventure. I'm gaining real fluency with moving from element to element and it's a freeing feeling. 

I was thinking the other day that lace is very much like snooker or pool. With each move you have to think about where each pair lands in the work so that it's in the right place to move to the next step. I'm finally starting to be able to see where the pairs need to be and why. 

That said, I have just 2 more samples to work to finish the second chapter - grounds- before I move on to spiders then Scansanavuan holes and then rose ground. One sample is ready to turn the corner and there's one more after that. 

Here are the last few samples that I completed. 

But I'm done for tonight and will be ready to work a few stitches before work tomorrow. Onwards and upwards!

Spinnin' Fool

I've had several spinning projects hanging around for several months. They're mostly well behaved but the last couple of weeks they've begun to mock me and have gotten gradually more irritating. So, for the peace of the house, I've been getting them cleared out.

I showed the 2 oz of lace weight that I finished up last week. That was fiber left over from a project that is now hanging out at the State Fair waiting for the judging to begin. I had another bunch of leftovers from that project, a silk/merino/angora blend that was probably just under 2oz. As with the other batch, I wanted to see how finely I could spin this. With the silk content helping, I discovered it was very fine indeed. I need to weigh the final skein but I ended up with more than 300 yds (before washing - probably around 270 after washing) of gorgeous bouncy fine lace weight yarn. 

Scrumptious!

What am I going to do with it?  It's going into a very special place in my stash reserved for the specialty lace weights in white that I've spin over the years. I have plans for a "white on white" project using these in their various shades of glorious whiteness. 

The other finished project?

Plump and squishy. Not sure yet but about 450 yards of heavy worsted softness. Probably a hat and mittens?  We'll see what the yarn decides to be.