In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun…
“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun, you find the fun, and snap, the job’s a game.” -Marry Poppins (film) “A Spoon Full of Sugar”
Naming patterns is, by far, the most challenging part of writing patterns for me.
It’s always the last piece I get to, and I’ll often use some sort of characteristic of the shawl as a sort of working title, or short hand, while I’m knitting.
So, I’ve been trying to publish a pattern for every letter of the alphabet.
A: Anwar. also A-ha, Arrowhead Stole, and Asymmetrical Bluebells.
B: Baby’s Magic Blankie and Birds of a Feather.
C: Climbing Trellis. (the first pattern I ever published)
E: Eirwen.
F: nothing yet!
G: Gene Tierney, Ghosts & Mirrors, Gothic Spires, and Gratia.
H: nicht!
J: nada!
K: Kora.
L: Lapidarius.
M: Mayur also Mrs. Peacock, Mirror World and Malus domestica.
N: zip!
O: zilch!
Q: squat!
R: diddly-squat!
S: Spider Silk and Stereotypical.
T: Tumbling Deco.
U: naught!
V: nein!
W: Wafian.
X: Xylia.
Y: Yuki.
Z: Zodiac le Plume.
9 more letters to go! After I finish the alphabet I’ll need to find a new challenge to help me name my patterns.
I know it’s a little thing, and ultimately having a pattern named after every letter of the alphabet doesn’t mean anything, but sometimes having a challenge that’s a little bit silly is a great motivator.
I’ve been knitting sweaters(!!!)
sweaters?!?! what?!?!
yep.
sweaters (plural)
the first is almost done. I just need to finish off the armholes and weave in the ends.
I’m debating about the color though, they’re really not my colors, and it’s doing some funky pooling so… keep the colors? or dye it?
I’m working on the yoke of the second sweater, maybe I’ll finish the yoke this evening?
Love this color though, it’s a beautiful jewely green. The yarn is JaggerSpun’s Zephyr (which I loooooove). They call the color “peacock.”
I’m still plugging along on this shawl. It feels like I’ve been working on this project forever. But I’m oh-so-slowly making progress.
I’m making myself knit at least 2 rows a day on this project, one patterned row and one plain row, which is progress, but the rows have gotten reeeeaaaallllyyyy long.
I’m also working on some charts & written instructions, but I know if I don’t finish this shawl before casting on something new, this shawl will never get done…
Lets Talk Yarn…
This is an excerpt from Shawls to Play With, a shawl collection that is more than the individual patterns, it’s about bringing more freedom to your knitting.
LETS TALK YARN
You’re at a yarn shop, wandering around looking at an amazing array of colors and fibers. A skein catches your eye, you pick it off the shelf, and fall in love. Madly, madly in love. Repeat.
Before you know it, your basket is full, you’ve checked out, and are on your way home with your haul, including a skein or two of lace weight that you didn’t mean to pick up, but that were too pretty to resist. Those skeins hang around your stash, until you finally do a yarn cleanse and pass them along to a lace knitting friend.
Sound familiar? A substantial portion of my stash is lace weight yarn passed along from friends who realized they would never, ever, knit with it. I’m happy to take beautiful yarn off your hands. But I’d be even happier spreading the lace weight love.
I get it. tiny yarn + tiny needles + big shawl + crazy lace = eep!
However, lace shawls are divine. They’re light, airy, drapey, ethereal, and well worth the headache.
But I concede, sometimes they’re a headache.
One of the most straight forward ways to reduce some of the headache of lace is to scale the project up. Many scale their lace projects up by using sock or fingering weight yarns. This does make the project less intimidating, however, most easily accessible thick yarns (especially sock yarns), are designed for durability instead of for drape. This makes them great for sturdy socks, but not so great for drapey shawls. When you use sock yarns for lace shawls, you’re exchanging the drape of lace yarns for the durability of sock yarns.
There’s nothing wrong with fingering weight yarns for lace shawls. It’s been done many times with great success. However, you will never get an ethereal shawl out of sock yarn.
Sock yarn just isn’t ethereal.
Instead I would suggest holding multiple strands of lace weight yarn together.
By holding multiple strands of lace weight together, you keep the drapey properties of lace yarn, while simultaneously being able to go up needle sizes. Of course not all of the properties of lace weight yarn scale up one hundred percent, but many of them do.
The shawls in this collection are perfect for…
…that special skein you’ve been hoarding
We all have very special skeins of yarn that we have no idea what to do with.
Maybe it comes with special memories.
Maybe it’s too variegated.
Maybe it’s not quite your color but is still breathtaking.
These shawls are for the skein that won’t play second fiddle to an intricate lace pattern.
No complex stitch patterns to steal the show, just an expanse of stockinette and strategically placed increases, so these patterns let the yarn shine.
…combining colors or mixing fibers & textures
Holding multiple strands together lets you easily mix colors. Or fibers.
And because the yarn is the star of these patterns there’s no lacework to obscure.
It means you can concentrate on your colors and textures and fibers.
Mix colors, or textures, or both.
The possibilities and combinations are limitless.
This was an excerpt from Shawls to Play With.
