(Cotton) Wool Leaves

Tags

baby, blanket, brooklyntweed

There are babies, babies and more babies showing up around here! (I guess I’ve left the time of life where all my friends are getting married and entered the time when everyone is having babies?) This trend isn’t a problem for me, though, because I love making baby stuff.

This time around, I was knitting for the new baby girl of an old family friend I grew up with. I had some Blue Sky Alpacas worsted cotton in shell left over from the basketweave baby blanket that I made for the baby of this particular family friend’s sister. That is, these new baby girls are cousins, so I liked the idea of making their baby blankets out of the same yarn, but I wanted to use a different pattern.

I settled on Jared Flood’s Wool Leaves, which is written for Cascade Eco Wool held double. The Blue Sky Alpacas worsted cotton worked beautifully held double, and made quick work of the knitting. I love the graceful leaves in the pattern and (just like last time) I can’t get over how pretty the shell color is for a little baby girl blanket. I had a little bit less than 4 skeins of the yarn, which meant I had to stop knitting with one lace repeat still called for in the pattern, but the blanket looks great and is still a good size even without that last repeat. I also sent the 3 month Baby Sophisticate with bright pink buttons that I knit from the new pattern. Hopefully it will be the perfect size once the weather cools down in a few months!

My Charcoal Quill

Tags

brooklyntweed, lace, shawl

Here’s Quill (by Jared Flood) take two – a dark grey shawl just for me. I actually started knitting this shawl before I decided to knit the Quill Baby Blanket, but put it on hold to finish the blanket in time for the baby shower.

I was already well into the Old Shale lace when I decided this pattern would make a beautiful baby blanket in white, and I loved the pattern so much that I didn’t mind starting on another one right away. That meant a delay in finishing my own shawl, but it was well worth the wait.

This version is knit in the lovely Debbie Bliss Rialto Lace in (you guessed it!) color number 4 – Charcoal. I knit this one on size 3 needles and made the small size again. I used a little bit over 2 balls of yarn – each ball is 50 g and I used 103 g (approx. 878 yds).

I just love this pattern – the simplicity of the Old Shale lace and the beautiful knitted-on edging. The Rialto lace is so soft, and the finished shawl has a beautiful drape and sheen. I can’t recommend the pattern and yarn enough!

I was visited by an interloper during my photoshoot, so I recruited him for modeling. He didn’t really enjoy it.

Quill Heirloom Baby Blanket

Tags

alpaca, baby blanket, brooklyntweed, heirloom, lace

One of my best friends from high school is having a baby in about a month. They are not finding out if it’s a boy or a girl until the big day, so I was a little bit unsure about what to knit! While there are a lot of great gender-neutral patterns out there, I tend to like baby sweaters that fall in the “super-girly” or “little-man” camps. Once the wee one is here, I may make him or her a little outfit, but before that I wanted to get something ready for my friend’s shower.

Then it occurred to me that my friend has always had a love for the traditional. I started thinking that maybe I wanted to knit a beautiful heirloom baby blanket – one that could wrap up all of her future children as well – in a traditional pattern and in a beautiful natural colored yarn. Admittedly, this realization was probably brought on by the fact that I was knitting a Quill shawl (by Jared Flood of Brooklyntweed) for myself out of a gorgeous gray yarn (almost done, pictures soon!), and the pattern suggested that the shawl would work well as an heirloom baby blanket. So, I ran out to the local yarn shop and picked up a couple of balls of Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace, a lovely mix of alpaca and silk, and started knitting another Quill!

This is a beautiful pattern with the traditional structure of a Shetland Hap Shawl. I knit the smaller size, which ended up blocking out to about a 40 inch square. I love the Old Shale Lace pattern, which I happen to think looks like rows and rows of little tiaras (like the one Kate Middleton wore?), and the edging is just gorgeous – takes a while – but is just gorgeous! Here she is blocking.

The Silky Alpaca Lace worked really nicely with this pattern. I bought two balls initially, but had to run back to the store to get a third ball (the day I had to finish it for it to make it to the shower!) because I just didn’t have quite enough yarn to finish the edging! I weighed the third ball before and after, and determined that I used about 35 yards (out of 440 yds in the ball). Anyone need a mostly unused ball of Silky Alpaca Lace? :) It was all worth it in the end, though, because I think this blanket is beautiful. The fabric is light and delicate, but very warm thanks to the alpaca. We’re all excited for your arrival in the world, Baby O, and I’m so happy to contribute something to keep you warm and snug.

Winter Wheat Girasole

Tags

brooklyntweed, girasole, madelinetosh, shawl, yellow

It was a very busy fall so I didn’t get a whole lot of Christmas knitting done. My ruby red Juneberry Triangle for my grandma and this project were the extent of it actually! And what do you know? I knit another Brooklyntweed pattern for my other grandma (it’s all about the symmetry). I decided to knit my grandma the shawl version of Girasole and I wanted to work it in a very cheerful color – thus, yellow! When Emily visited a couple of months ago we went to Webs (yes, I actually live sort of close to the store now!!) and I fell in love with a beautiful golden Madelinetosh sock called Winter Wheat. Once the idea of knitting Girasole for my grandma formed in my head, the Madelinetosh sock was the only yarn that would suit.

Knitting the shawl version of the pattern was very different from the giant blanket I knit for Emily and Eric’s wedding a couple of years ago – mostly because you don’t have to lug around such a mass of fabric when you’re knitting the shawl as opposed to the blanket! I think I fell even more in love with the pattern this time around and I am resolved to make one for myself! The shawl was also a lot easier to block than the blanket (which ended up, like, 9 feet in diameter).

I think the sunflower pattern looks amazing in yellow and I’m so in love with how it turned out! The Madelinetosh sock was the perfect yarn for the shawl, and after blocking it has the most wonderful weight and feel. Love, love, love.

 

Hourglass Throw

Tags

anne hanson, blanket, brooklyntweed, cables, gray, knit picks

I mentioned in a previous post that after ticking a few things off of my summer to do list, I was able to think enough to pick up my needles again. I decided to get back into the game with another Brooklyntweed pattern – actually it’s an Anne Hanson pattern for Brooklyntweed’s “wool people vol. 1” – the hourglass throw.

The pattern calls for Brooklyntweed’s Shelter yarn, but I wanted to go with something washable and decided to use Knit Picks Swish Worsted in Cobblestone Heather.  The yarn is nice and lofty, so the cables really pop.  I tried out steam-blocking for the first time with this pattern and I can’t decide if I like it better than wet blocking or not – it’s easier for me to get the blocking wires in when the project is dry, but I don’t feel like the pattern opened up as much this way than with wet blocking.  Any opinions on wet versus steam?

The stitch pattern looks really complicated, but there isn’t actually that much cabling (only the small cables contained in each hourglass and the two on each side), so once I got the pattern memorized the knitting went pretty quickly.  I really like the little cables running up the side, and also the idea of ribbing on a blanket.

Believe it or not, this is actually the first blanket I’ve knitted that will be staying in my home!  I’ve knitted a few blankets for others, and pretty much enjoyed every pattern I tried, but once the blanket I was gifting was finished I never really felt like taking on the same pattern again.  Now I’ve knitted a new blanket pattern for the first time and it’s all mine!  Of course it had to be gray.  I knitted the medium size throw from the pattern, so it’s just big enough for me!

P.S. Sorry for the kind-of-dark-and-blurry photos – it’s been overcast here for daaayyys, but I really wanted to post about this project so I just decided to go for it!  Maybe I’ll update later if I get a chance to take some better pictures.

Fall . . .

Tags

brooklyntweed, mohair, red, shawl

Is the perfect time for renewed dedication to one’s knitting blog. I’ve been absent from here for a few months, and I’ve really missed it. The thing is, this summer I finished the research for my dissertation, wrote my dissertation and defended my dissertation. To say I was stressed out doesn’t quite capture it – I’m pretty sure my family was afraid I was losing it. In April I finished knitting a ruby red shawl for my grandma, and then had an unusual experience. I found the “stress” of planning a new project – choosing a pattern, finding the right yarn for the project, making sure I got the correct gauge – to be something I couldn’t handle until some of the other things I was juggling were completed. Which is sad, since knitting is so therapeutic! In any case, once I was able to tick a few things off of my to-do list I picked up my needles again, and now that this whole summer of stress is over I feel ready to start posting again. So why don’t we start off with the last project I finished before the summer?

When Sasha and I were visiting his family over last Christmas, we of course went yarn shopping and I scored some ruby red Wagtail Yarns Fine Kid Mohair. I originally planned to make the Willoughby scarf from Brooklyntweed’s Made in Brooklyn, but once I started knitting that pattern, I realized the mohair wasn’t the right yarn for it – the bobbles weren’t anywhere close to full enough! So I decided to save that pattern for later and use the Wagtail yarn for a different Brooklyntweed pattern – the Juneberry triangle shawl.

I’ve been wanting to try out this pattern for a while, and this yarn seemed like the perfect color for it. Since my grandma loves red, I decided to make this one for her.  The pattern has some complicated lace in it, with the pattern worked on both sides, not just the right side of the work.  There is also a wide knitted on edging that creates this beautiful sort of faux cable pattern (with a bobble!) and a pretty open lace edge.  I love knitted on edgings – they seem like the perfect way to finish anything like a shawl or blanket – and this is the loveliest I’ve ever worked.  I’ll definitely be using it again, maybe as a fancy edge to a simple garter stitch throw.

The mohair yarn worked nicely with the pattern, although it’s still not quite lofty enough to make big, full bobbles.  I like the sheen of the yarn and the color is perfect.  I hope grandma likes it!

Hemlock Ring Revealed!!

Tags

blanket, brooklyntweed, eco wool, hemlock ring blanket

I told you I would get back to the knitting!  Although, fair warning, this post does have some marriage content – only, it’s not my marriage but the marriage of our fair knitting matriarch, Melody!  I call her our knitting matriarch because she taught all of us girls how to knit something like 7(!) years ago.  And if she hadn’t, I would never have been able to make this to celebrate her recent marriage . . .

In retrospect, I’m starting to think she taught me completely out of self-interest!  : )  This blanket (called the Hemlock Ring Blanket on Ravelry)  is from Brooklyntweed‘s adaptation of a vintage doily pattern, and I’ll admit it – I wanted it to look exactly like the one he made (which is usually what I want after I see, oh, anything knitted by Jared).

I love knitting blankets in the round (and I don’t care if the non-knitters in my life don’t really understand the concept of a round blanket – they’re pretty), and this one was a particularly fun knit.  The flower motif in the center is so simple and beautiful, and I’ve always enjoyed knitting feather and fan.

Brooklyntweed has very helpfully charted the feather and fan pattern, indicating where he stopped in order to make his smaller lap blanket and extending it beyond for those who want a larger one.  The Rainey Sisters have also helpfully combined the whole thing into one pdf (the original doily pattern + Brooklytweed’s charts) here – so now I guess you have no excuse not to make one for yourself!  The edging is a bit time consuming (like all knitted on edgings, I guess), but I think it’s lovely – very light and pointy! : )

I used US size 8 needles and Cascade Eco Wool (most of two skeins).  Wonderful, soft, wooly smelling yarn!  I love knitting with it.  I worked the feather and fan section to the end of the chart given by Brooklyntweed – I might have liked to go a bit farther, but the amount of yarn I had left wouldn’t have made it another repeat.  After working the edging, though, I’m glad I stopped where I did – I think it ended up the perfect size for a nice, light-weight blanket.

Melody and Nik’s Hemlock ring ended up being almost 6 feet in diameter (at the tips of the feathers – or are those the fans? – in any case, at the widest point).  I’m not really sure how I convinced myself that blocking this would be as easy as blocking Girasole (I think it went something like – “they both have knitted on edgings that make points, so just pin out the points – easy peasy!”).  You may have noticed, though, that Hemlock Ring has quite a different shape than Girasole (thanks to the feather and fan), so it’s not really as simple as pinning out a circle.  Thanks to much pinning, pulling, re-pinning, staring at the floor to see if it looks right, and re-pinning again, I did finally get the thing into the right shape.

Isn’t the flower pretty?  Ah, symmetry, how I love you.  I liked the idea of making a blanket from a vintage doily pattern for Melody because it really seemed to fit her style, and I new she would love the natural color of the wool and the utter wooliness of the wool.  Cables are her thing (you should see the blanket she made for me and Sasha - rav link) and lace is mine, and one of my favorite things about knitted gifts is that you not only look for a pattern that you think the recipients will like, you look for something that represents you as well.  It seems especially important when knitting for another knitter!  : )

Congratulations Melody and Nik!  We’re all so happy for you!

Girasole

Tags

blanket, brooklyntweed, emily, girasole, wedding

The secret wedding present is revealed!  After not being able to discuss my knitting for a while, I’m so excited to share my experience with a wonderful pattern written by an amazing designer – Girasole by Jared Flood (aka Brooklyntweed).  Here’s the finished project all laid out and in the hands of Eric and Emily.  This pattern was wonderful, intuitive and I would knit it over and over again.  (Um, yes, I know it’s huge.  It’s actually about 9″ in diameter.  This could explain the issue discussed in the next paragraph.)

I honestly loved knitting this blanket, the whole project went smoothly, with the only issue being the amount of yarn I had.  I used the yarn the pattern called for – Cascade pastaza.  This yarn is a beautiful wool/llama mix with a delightful weight.  I ordered an extra skein of the yarn just to be safe (you don’t want to run out on such an important project) and reveled in my forethought (“what an experienced knitter I am, I ordered more than enough yarn and I’ll end up with extra for a hat or something”).  Well, it turned out that I was being slightly overconfident and I ran out of my extra yarn a little more than halfway through the knitted on edging.  Hmm . . . I’m slightly embarrassed to say that my heart was racing until I was able to log in to Webs and buy another hank.  Once it arrived, I quickly finished up the edging and then did a happy dance celebrating the completion of the most massive project I’ve ever attempted.  Oh, and not to give you a heart attack, but this is how much yarn I had left after casting off:

What follows is a picture essay on my project as it progressed (I took photos after completing each chart, which was sometimes at night, so I apologize for poor picture quality).

Chart A:

Chart B:

Chart C:

Chart D (we’re at 640 sts per round at this point folks!):

Chart E (oooh, it’s growing!):

Chart F:

Chart G (quite a mess of yarn at this point, huh?):

Starting the edging:

And now for the finale . . .

Goodbye Girasole!  I loved our time together, but now I want you to go and warm the household of one of my best friends, Emily, and my new friend, Eric.  Keep them warm throughout the years of their happy marriage (and also, try not to itch Emily too much).