Blue-green Beauty!

No doubt about it, I love knitting shawls!  I also love wearing shawls, and giving shawls as gifts.  Luckily, I have access to an unending supply of shawl patterns through Ravelry, and an unending supply of yarn through local and online sources!  One of my favorite designers, Bev from Boo Knits, recently hosted her annual fall mystery knit along, and, as usual, the Boo Knits Ravelry forum was a hotbed of chatter and beautiful photos of all manner of Gothic Angels!  It never ceases to amaze me how different the same design can look when knit from different yarns and colorways, not to mention different bead choices.  Some knitters choose to have a contrast between the shawl and the beads, while others, in which group I belong, choose to make the shawl and beads more monochromatic.  As usual, Miyuki beads are my choice, although this time I used round beads rather than my usual triangle choice.  I was shocked to find that at least ten or twenty of the beads would not fit on my cro-tat hook for placement on the shawl.  When I use the Miyuki triangle beads, I find that virtually 100% of them fit on the cro-tat hook.  I have also come to realize that I prefer the triangle beads over the round, and doubt that I will ever again use the round beads.  There is just something so special about the triangles and the way they shimmer like drops of dew on the silk of the shawls.

This shawl is quite a beauty.  Gothic Angel is an allover lace design, graced with approximately eight hundred beads.  I chose to knit mine from a gorgeous yarn from the indie dyer DyeDianaDye, an Etsy seller living near Atlanta, Georgia.  This particular yarn is her FlaxenSilk(lace), which is a beautiful combo of 65/35 silk/linen, and the color is an amazing blue-green which positively shimmers in the light.  I will probably be keeping this one for myself, as greens are one of my favorite colors, but one never knows when the gifting spirit may strike!

Be sure to check out all of the stunning Gothic Angels on Ravelry!

Hot off the Needles

Here is my latest shawl, a gorgeous Boo Knits design, called Just Be You.  Bev of Boo Knits is one of my absolute favorite shawl designers, and this shawl is a perfect example of her brilliant lacy designs.  I used the recommended yarn from Lichtfaden Yarns, another favorite of mine.  Sabine, the creative dyer behind the gorgeousness that is Lichtfaden, outdid herself with the Pure Silk Meridian I used, in the colorway By The Sea.  It is difficult to see in the photo, but there is a sublime shading in this yarn of – you guessed it – the blues and greens of a beautiful sea somewhere! 😉

Since discovering Miyuki Triangle beads about five years ago, I use no others on my shawls.  They are perfect for lace and fingering weight yarns, and never disappoint.  The quality control of these beautiful beads is superb.  In the (literally) thousands of beads I have added to shawls over the past five years, I have had exactly two that were misformed and unable to be used.  TWO!  Out of THOUSANDS!  They are, of course, not cheap, but usually the beads for a shawl do not end up being more than $15.00, and sometimes they are more in the $5.00 – $10.00 range.  The shimmer they add to a shawl is absolutely priceless.  I tend to choose beads that blend with the color of my yarn, although I have seen some beautiful shawls that utilized contrasting beads to fabulous effect as well.  The way the beads shimmer on the fabric reminds me of stars twinkling in the night sky, and the weight of the beads lends a nice feel to the shawls.  These days I rarely knit a shawl that does not contain beads, but occasionally I do.  In fact, I am currently working on one – it is called Dorothea, and I am knitting it with some lovely yarn from Berroco called Fiora.  Details in another post!

 

Shubui Yarns

Since the weather is finally warming up and we are having a hint of what will be, I, for one, am enjoying picking out lighter weight yarns for spring/summer projects.  This month, I would like you to consider trying some Shibui Yarn.

Shibui Yarn is a company based in Portland, Oregon.  The name stems from the Japanese word for ‘elegant with a touch of bitterness’, and the “About” page on the Shibui website states that they try to bring that sentiment to all of their products.  Hmmmm…….Although I admit to not quite being sure exactly where that leaves us, I will say that I am a fan of the Shibui yarns.  The company offers a nice variety of yarns, from baby alpaca, to linen, to silk, to blends of silk, merino, and cashmere.  Shibui has had a booth at the Stitches event in the past, and I enjoyed seeing and feeling all of the various textures found in the line.  The colors tend to be somewhat muted and subdued, although the summer weight yarns have more brights.  I would definitely recommend checking out their yarns in person, as they are quite unique.

I recently picked up some Kavo, which is an 85% cotton, 15% silk blend, in a 224 yard skein.  I thought it would be lovely for a lightweight summer scarf.  Kavo has a cotton core with a silk wrap, and comes in a nice variety of colors, from brights to neutrals, to darks.  It is considered a DK weight yarn, and will work well with a US 4, US5, or US 6 needle.  Shown below is my Kavo in the colorway “Poppy”.  It is made in Italy, and should be hand washed and laid flat to dry.

For more information on the Shibui line, check out www.shibuiknits.com.  Happy Knitting!

Yes, You Need to Check Out This Designer!

I know that many of you may already be familiar with Scottish knitter/designer Ysolda Teague, but in light of her most recent shawl design, I think that she bears a second look!  (And third, fourth, etc.!)  Ysolda has several books to her credit, most familiar being her Little Red in the City, perhaps, or her Whimsical Little Knits series, and many ‘single offering’ patterns, which can be found, where else? on Ravelry!  

Today, though, I would like to direct your attention to her latest shawl pattern, ‘Follow Your Arrow’.  This pattern was released in the form of a Knit-Along (KAL) on Ravelry January 13^th – February 10^th, 2014.  As any of my knitting friends is already aware, I am a fan of the KAL in pretty much any shape or form.  The Follow Your Arrow KAL is no exception. While a typical KAL features one new clue a week, spread over a period of three to six weeks, the Follow Your Arrow KAL added a fun twist to the mix.  Instead of just one clue, knitters could choose from one of two clues each week, Version A or Version B, in the fashion of the children’s books “Choose Your Own Adventure”, where a child reads one chapter and then chooses which next chapter to jump to, thus influencing the outcome of the story in a unique way.  In the same way, the Follow Your Arrow shawls, while using the same basic pattern, have very different outcomes.  There was a single-color option as well as a two-color option.  And, of course, some knitters chose to use even more than two colors, which resulted in an even different project outcome than imagined by the designer.  I encourage you to check out all of the wonderful outcomes found as a result of knitting the Follow Your Arrow pattern.  As of this writing, there are 798 finished projects shared on the ‘Finished Arrows!’ thread in the special forum for this project, “Follow Your Arrow KAL Group” on Ravelry, with a random drawing being held to award several skeins of beautiful yarn to the winners of said drawing who posted a picture of their finished project before the specified deadline.  (See, participation brings rewards!  LOL I have personally won several such random drawings for participation in different forums on Ravelry, so I know that prizes really ARE awarded!)

In addition to being an innovative knitter/designer, Ysolda is also a prolific blogger, so be sure to check out her words of knitting wisdom at www.ysolda.com .  If you are a fan, you can participate in her Ravelry Forum, titled, unsurprisingly, “Ysolda”, and chat with other avid Ysolda fans about past, present, and future Ysolda designs.  Should you have questions about a specific project, you will find that, in addition to the usual other forum participants who have knit the project before you, Ysolda herself answers your questions.  You can also be her friend on Ravelry when you visit her profile page ‘Ysolda’ and click on the ‘add to my friends’ button.  That way, you will be sure to see all of her latest knitting projects.  Happy Knitting! 

Hark, A Cowl!

I absolutely love cowls.  Some might call them infinity scarves.  Whatever the name, the enjoyment is the same.  They are warm, they are practical (can’t be blown off your neck in a gust of Chicago Wind), and they are just so much fun to knit!  (Well, they are fun to knit after the initial cast on of usually at least 250 stitches and the join that you have worked so hard not to twist!)  My January Endeavor in the cowl category is Willa, a pattern from Quince & Co.  The original probably called for a Quince & Co. yarn, but I used one of my very most favorite yarns of all time:  Madelinetosh Merino Light (sometimes referred to as Tosh Merino Light, or TML).  The original cowl also only called for two colors, but I chose three, because a dear knitting friend knit hers in three colors, and I just loved it!  (Another dear knitting friend only used two, and hers was gorgeous as well, but her ‘center’ color was nice and variegated, so it gave the impression of more than just two colors.)  Of course, I didn’t want to be obnoxious and choose the exact same colors (well, I WANTED to, but I didn’t feel that I could), so I chose three shades of purple.  (My friend’s cowl that I covet was knit in a TML grey, cream, and a fabulous acid green called “Grasshopper”.)  Technically, Tern might be considered to be grey, but it skews purple to me.  The other two shades are Clematis (deepest purple) and Logwood.  It still needs to be blocked (and I detest blocking), but I wanted to show the colors – YUM!  

 

 

The first shot is on a bed of that crap lovely white stuff we so fondly call snow in these parts, and the second shot is my cowl doing a Slinky imitation down my front staircase, for both outdoor and indoor light.  I am thinking that I must find a striped shawl pattern so that I can put these three stars together again, because I really love the way they play together.  However, I don’t have a huge amount of the  Clematis left, and that is the shade that kind of makes the other two ‘pop’, I think!  I will have to check out Jimmy Beans to see about ordering another skein…….sometimes your favorite Madelinetosh becomes extinct and you must find another to take its place….

So get on out there, find a cowl pattern, and knit one up!  You won’t be sorry that you did. ❤

Gradient Yarn, My Favorite!

I may have written before about how I love gradient yarns, but good things always bear repeating, don’t they?  And, besides, I have some beautiful new yarn to show you all, so then I’m excused for repeating myself, yes?  Gradient yarns come in all weights and colors and fibers.  My newest one happens to be of pure silk, in laceweight, and it comes from Lichtfaden, an independent dyer in Germany.  To see an assortment of yarns from this shop, please copy and paste this address (for some reason, it seems I am unable to link properly): https://www.etsy.com/shop/lichtfaden    The colorway is a one-of-a-kind called Tender Limeblossom, and works its way from a lovely pale green, to darker green, to a gorgeous blue, and, finally into a pale greyed violet.   This photo really does not even begin to do justice to the subtleties of color I am looking at in person, but it’s the best I can do on this very grey Chicago day in January.

I am thinking that this beautiful yarn will become a beautiful shawl very soon!  Which yarns inspire you? ❤

Yarn Porn, I Mean, Yarn Organization

The other day I had the idea to sort my stash into bins by color.  Until this point, all of my beautiful skeins had been residing in a dark closet corner, nestled in assorted shopping bags, with a few Vera Bradleys thrown in for good measure…….Because I’m a religious Ravelry stasher, I knew that my stash numbered in the mid-five hundred skein range, but that number had only marginal meaning for me, as I truly believed that “I don’t really have THAT much yarn.”  YES, I really believed that!!!!!

My eighteen year old son was home on Christmas break from college, and wanted some bins to organize his closet, and I thought, “Well, I could pick up a few clear plastic bins for my yarn.”  Accordingly, Tom and I hopped on over to our local Target and picked up some bins – three big blue ones for him, and six clear plastic ones for me.  “Surely,” I thought, “I will need no more than six bins.”

You know what comes next.  My son organized his closet with his lovely blue bins, and I proceeded to take out all of my various bags of yarn from the closet.  Oh, and there were a few bags stacked around my sewing machine in the basement.  And I proceeded to sort yarns by color.  I decided that the groupings would be green, purple, pink, orange, blue (although I really thought I would have only a few skeins of blue, as blue is not one of my favorite colors), and ‘neutral’, which meant greys, browns, creams, and black.  After a little bit, I started working up a sweat, green yarn was piled about a foot beyond the top of the ‘green bin’, and my son suggested that I start putting overflow colors in front of their respective bins.

And I had to make another trip to Target.  I picked up six more bins, thinking that I could use the extra ones for some additional organization projects around the house.  (I am getting ready to sell my house, and I want it to look extra spiffy for the prospective buyers.)  This is what is now sitting in my emptied-out fourth bedroom:

Yep, count ’em.  TWELVE BINS OF YARN!!!!!!  Well, technically that is not correct.  One of the bins is currently housing in-progress (or, let’s be honest, Probably Never To Be Finished) projects, and the second ‘neutral’ bin really has hardly anything in it.  The second pink bin also has lots of room for more skeins……..But, let’s face it, I HAVE A LOT OF YARN!  I have decided that it is not yet time to worry about where all of these bins will go when I move into a much smaller space.  If necessary, I could put a piece of wood over the top and have a really nice big diningroom table, don’t you think? 😉

And, just for fun, here’s a peek into the top of all of my bins, by color:

Guess I’d better pick up some needles and get to work! ❤  God, I hope my kids don’t see this……you know those bumper stickers that so cheerfully say, “I’m spending my kids’ inheritance”………..do you think they might be a little bit peeved with me?

Happy 2014!

It is so hard to believe that we are now in the year 2014.  When I was born (a VEEERY long time ago, mid-last century if you must know), there was a movie which debuted in 1968 called “2001, A Space Odyssey”, and, I confess, it was nearly impossible to imagine the year 2001, being so far in the future as it was.  Now, of course, the dawn of 2001 is thirteen years behind us, and a mere memory for most.  A new calendar year always brings with it the thought of fresh starts and new beginnings, and 2014 is no different from the rest.  In 2013 I had a goal of completing twelve shawls in twelve months, and I am very happy to report that I accomplished my goal.  (And here is a link to the page where they are all displayed:  http://www.ravelry.com/projects/grannyjannie?set=12-shawls-2013&view=thumbnail)  But I forgot to blog about it all, so here is my twelfth shawl of 2013. from the lovely pattern ‘Windward’, designed by Heidi Kirrmaier.  You can find more of her designs here:  http://www.ravelry.com/designers/heidi-kirrmaier  But this is my version, which I so cleverly called ‘Green Windward’, knit in the incomparable Madelinetosh Sock yarn, in the colorway ‘Grey Garden’:

Windward is a very interestingly constructed, asymetrical shawl.  I, of course, made it much more difficult than it really was, and spent quite a bit of time tinking and re-doing Sections D and E.  Please do not be confused there, as I was.  I kept thinking that the reverse stockinette section had the stockinette-looking side on the right side of the shawl, but, of course, the stockinette-looking side belonged on the wrong side of the shawl (duh – it’s called REVERSE stockinette!!!), thus my confusion.  I kept re-casting on the same ninety stitches in an effort to make the reverse stockinette section look like  stockinette!  That is what I get for mostly knitting lace projects and not being very familiar with reverse stockinette and which side of it is the right side, but that’s a musing for another post.

But back to new beginnings and fresh starts……I have not yet decided what my knitting goal for 2014 will be.  However, I HAVE decided what my knitting goal for 2014 will NOT be:  I will not be knitting a shawl a month in 2014.  It felt a bit too much like pressure, and knitting, for me, is the antithesis of pressure.  Among other things, it’s about falling in love with a yarn and then deciding what to use it for; it’s about falling in love with a pattern and then finding the perfect yarn with which to knit it; it’s about the friendship that surrounds me when knitting with my fabulous Knitting Divas; it’s about curling up in my favorite chair with my knitting needles in hand while watching the lastest episode of Downton Abbey.  It is NOT about pressure!  Pressure can maybe be in another part of my life, if at all.  But I will NOT tolerate it in my knitting life.  And neither should you. ❤

Random Acts of Kindness

Yesterday, someone reached out through cyberspace and brought a smile to my face.  The sheer surprise of it was a treat in and of itself, but the kindness behind it is the lasting part. We can all use a reminder that the world is really a wonderful place, and that it is filled with kind and good-hearted people.  And we all have the power to bring joy to others through the smallest gestures and deeds.  Please, go out today and say a kind word (sincere, of course) to a stranger.  Pay for the coffee of the guy behind you in the Starbuck’s driveup.  Rake leaves for an elderly neighbor.  Anything that moves you.  The world will be a little sunnier for it, and your heart will be, too. ❤

Baby, it’s Cold Outside!

As we get closer and closer to the ‘official’ first day of Winter (okay, I know it’s not until next month, but humor me here), the temperatures in Chicago dip lower and lower, today hitting a blustery forty five degrees.  I am so happy that I’ve got a few new shawls to cuddle with!  I neglected to write when I’d finished my Sweet Spirit, and now that I’ve finished my Flowers for Morticia, I thought I should at least show a peek or two at my latest knit offerings and tell a little bit about them.  Both are designs from Boo Knits, a wonderful, wonderful designer of lacy, gorgeous shawls.  The brain behind Boo Knits belongs to Bev, a knitter from Across the Pond.  Yes, she resides in England, where she sits comfortably with her gorgeous yarns and knitting needles, dreaming up yet more lacy concoctions for our knitting pleasure.

I first discovered Boo Knits a little over two years ago, when I was just beginning my journey into lace knitting, and I am still totally in love with Bev’s shawls.  At last count, she has produced twenty five stunning designs, and I know that as we speak, she is designing even more lovelies to tempt us to take up our lace weight yarns and US 5 needles. 🙂  To date, I have only knit six shawls from Boo Knits designs, but I hope to get to each and every single one of her beauties before I take off for that Great Knitting Shop in the Sky.

Sweet Spirit is my rendition of Boo Knits’ Kindred Spirit pattern.  I used a gorgeous yarn from Lichtfaden in the Kidsilk Cobweb base, colorway ‘Rose Bouquet’.  The small stripes of contrast are in Sundara Yarn Lace Silky Merino in the colorway ‘Sweetheart’.  I also cannot say enough about these beautiful yarns.  I don’t recall if I’ve properly rhapsodized about yarns from the wonderful shop of Lichtfaden on this blog yet, but if I have not, consider me chastized.  Lichtfaden yarns can be found on Etsy, and they have a wonderful group on Ravelry as well.  The yarns are hand dyed in small batches in Germany, and the colorways are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen.  It’s not all that easy to get your hands on this yarn, as the shop ‘updates’ on Sundays at a very specific time, and usually all of the beautiful yarn has been purchased within a half hour of being offered.  Sundara Yarns work a little bit differently.  You can visit the website at http://www.sundarayarn.com and check out current offerings.  Sundara offers two special colorways in different bases each month, and on occasion, ‘leftovers’ from previous months.  Sundara silk yarn is absolutely heavenly to the touch.  My wish is that every knitter get to knit with both Lichtfaden and Sundara yarns in her or his lifetime.  Truly a special treat.

Here are the yarns for my Sweet Spirit:

And here is the finished shawl:

Of course, I raved on about how Boo Knits shawls are lacey, and this one is basically garter stitch!  This is the only one of Bev’s designs that does not utilize lace, but she released this design earlier this summer so that those of us in her wonderful Ravelry group who’d just completed lacy things could take a little mindless break.  🙂  She’s good that way.

Here is my Flowers for Morticia, which is from the Boo Knits design Morticia, knit in Lichtfaden’s Pure Silk Lace yarn, colorway ‘The White Lady’s Flowers’, which was dyed specially for Boo Knits Morticia knit-along.  I think I might have mentioned before how much I enjoy a good knit along (or KAL for the uninformed).  I have participated in three mystery knit alongs with the Boo group in the past few years, and never once have I been disappointed in the outcome.  That is something that I cannot say for other designers.  There have been a few very disappointing KALs for me the past several years, but that is the chance you take when you embark upon a project with only the barest of information.  A mystery KAL is just that – a mystery.  You basically might know the shape of the piece you will be creating, but nothing more.  Oh, and you are told what size needles and what type and how much yarn you will need.  I would never hesitate to recommend a Boo Knits mystery KAL (or MKAL).  The camaraderie within the Ravelry group is awesome.  If you have questions along the way, you have the designer there to answer them, as well as other helpful knitters in the group.  It is truly a wonderful knitting experience, and that is what my Flowers for Morticia came out of!

Oh, Boo Knits designs often include beads, which you may or may not want to include in your project. I always choose to add them, and Morticia contained a whopping amount – I actually cannot recall the exact number, but it was close to one thousand!  Here’s a closeup of the shawl’s edge, dripping with beads:

Look for the Boo Knits designs on Ravelry (www.ravelry.com), and come find her group as well.  It contains knitters from around the world, all with a love of lace.  It’s a very happy place.  🙂

I should give a mention to the beads I used for the Morticia shawl – they can be found at Fire Mountain Gems (www.firemountaingems.com), and are Miyuki Triangle beads.  They come in many different colors, and they are absolutely wonderful!  Not an unusable one in the bunch.  They are not terribly expensive, being around $4.25 for about 300 beads.  Customer service is amazing – I order the beads on a Tuesday, and they are in my mailbox by Thursday!  I believe that Fire mountain Gems are based somewhere in Oregon.

So don’t be sad that the cold weather is coming!  Whip out a shawl and be happy that you knit! 🙂