CMS/Colloquium knitting

I'm making good progress on the new iteration of the white lace shawl.  I'm mostly using the Ginkgo Crescent pattern, but modifying the increases at the beginning, since the reviews (and even the pattern itself) say that the beginning as written creates a "hump" that has to be blocked out aggressively - basically, it's not actually crescent shaped.  I'm using some of the increase scheme from the Seaflower Shawl pattern, but mostly just winging it. 

I worked on it in CMS and Colloquium on Thursday - next Thursday is the last one of the semester, so I'll see how far I get!

The white lace shawl: frogged and restarted

This is what the lilac leaf shawl looked like on Saturday morning.  I ran out of yarn the day before, having knitted (8.5 - half a row) pattern repeats, of the 15 called for in the pattern.  I think 12 repeats (or even 10) would have made a nice shawl, but 8 was just too short.  It pained me, but I frogged it.  Here is what it looked like on Sunday morning:

I used my kitchen scale to estimate that I had about 684 yards.  I started a new crescent shaped shawl on Sunday evening - here's what it looked like on Monday morning:

Deflect Socks finished!

I finished my Deflect socks this past week!  I really enjoyed working with this yarn.  The color is lovely, and it has good stitch definition for the cables.  The pattern was fun, too.  The only thing is, the socks are a bit long in the foot, because the pattern repeat is a bit long.  I put two full 36-round repeats on each foot, and they ended up just a bit long.  You can also stop after a half-repeat and just work even after that until the right length.  I honestly probably should have stopped after one and a half repeats, but I thought that that would make the second half of the foot look boring, so I didn't (I would have had 10-15 plain rows after the pattern if I had done that). 

Also, the toe instructions are kind of confusing and maybe not entirely right.  The way there is a purl column (but only one stitch wide) in between the decreases on the patterned side of the foot is a bit weird.

All in all though, a success!  I think I will enjoy wearing these socks.

pattern: Deflect socks from Knitty
yarn: Fibranatura Yummy, 100% superwash wool

A Wedding Quilt

Natalie, who is a member of my church choir and who used to be the director of religious education before she retired, was married yesterday to Bill, another member of our church. My choir buddy Carolyn and I decided to make a quilt for them.The stars are 12" finished, and we decided to offset them for more visual interest, so the blocks finished at 15". The quilt is about 60" by 90", which is either twin-sized or a generously sized two-person couch quilt. We ordered this lovely extra-wide batik for the backing:

 This's print might be my favorite:

We spray-basted, used warm and natural batting, and each of us quilted in the ditch around half of the stars. Then I decided it needed a bit more quilting, so I free-motioned a wavy line between each row and column of stars and then switched back to my walking foot and used clear thread in the top to quilt a square in each star, with the corners at the inside point of each flying goose unit. Then Carolyn machine bound and washed and dried it and dropped it off for me to label yesterday afternoon. I used my embroidery machine to stitch out a fancy frame on white fabric using the same blue thread we had used for most of the quilting and wrote the information inside the frame with a Pigma Micron archival permanent pen, and then stitched it on a back corner of the quilt.

 I am really happy with the way this turned out, and it was super fun to team sew/quilt it with Carolyn! I hope Natalie and Bill enjoy it!

Three Weeks of CMS/colloquium knitting

 I think I'm up to 8 or so pattern repeats, out of the 15 called for in the Lilac Leaf shawl pattern. I have not yet run out of yarn.I am certain that I do not have enough yarn to do the full 15 repeats, and if it is too short, I will have to frog and choose a triangular shawl pattern instead.

Filigree necklace

I started (and almost finished) this necklace in a jewelry class I took my senior year of high school.  I started with two different gauges of silver wire, and formed and soldered together the various filigree panels.  I threaded the beads (garnet and amethyst, if I remember correctly) on the finer wire and linked everything together.  Then the semester ended and I didn't have enough class time to finish.

The necklace sat in a ziploc bag in storage until this past Christmas, when I was going through some of my old stuff and found it.  The necklace was originally supposed to be long enough to just slip over the head without any sort of closure.  I can't see myself ever wearing a neclace that long, so I clipped some of it off and finished it with a clasp.  I'm happy with it!

CMS/Colloquium knitting

 I knitted another 24 rows on the Lilac Lace Shawl in CMS and colloquium last Thursday.  I'm beginning to worry about running out of yarn - I don't have much left, and it's not anywhere close to shawl length. I'm wondering if it was a mistake to add an extra pattern repeat. I guess it won't be the end of the world if I have to frog and start over.