Yucca Yucca Yucca

I started a new project on October 2nd. Its a lace shawl called Aeolian which you can find the free pattern for by following this link.

When I first saw this pattern I fell in love with it but I thought it would be a bit beyond my skill level because the charts looked very confusing, but now that I'm actually knitting it, it has turned out to be almost too easy. At least so far. The edge charts are the confusing ones so I'll let you know how I feel about them when I start them.

Aeolian Shawl; set up chart & 1 yucca chart

Aeolian Shawl: 6 yucca charts complete

The Aeolian is absolutely gorgeous when finished. I know this because I have been looking at all the completed shawls by the multitude of talented knitters on Ravelry. If you're a knitter and you're not a member you need to sign up right away.

The pattern calls for beads throughout the shawl but I'm knitting it from a four ply cotton that I think is too thick to bother beading. The cotton is showing beautiful stitch definition though so I think it will still be gorgeous when its finished.

I'm loving the pattern so much that I'm already planning my next one, which I intend to knit from my mongonlian cashmere (shown in picture below). Yesterday I went out and purchased just over 2000 beads so I can knit it when this one is finished. The beads are clear Czechoslovakian silverlined crystal seed beads. I bought them from Katie's Treasures for a very reasonable price.

Czech Silverlined Crystal
Size 8 seed bead



Bead on .75mm crochet hook



Tiny sample of knitting yarn with beads

Churning through the WIPs

I finished a project today. Its a crochet lace poncho that I found ages ago and hadn't gotten around to making. The pattern is free, you can find it on the Drops yarn website. I made it from Moda Vera Believe, an all natural fibre yarn from Spotlight which comprises of 49% wool, 30% soya and 21% mohair. Its incredibly soft and warm but the pattern is lacy enough that I think it would be suitable for a cool spring/summer evening as well as a mild winters day.

The pattern suggests buttons to fasten the opening of the poncho but I've decided to lace it up corset style with a wide satin ribbon. It's shown here with a shawl pin holding it closed as I haven't bought the ribbon yet.

Also I've been working on my friends birthday cape which is coming along beautifully. The baby alpaca yarn is knitting up so soft and silky, I think I'm going to have to buy a whole lot more of it for future projects.

I have finished charting an image for a baby's pram/cot blanket that a friend of mine asked me to make for her and I have to say it was a huge job and gave me quite a headache. Now that its finished though I'm keen to get it started as I havent knitted intarsia for a couple of years and I'm quite looking forward to it. No photo available of the chart unfortunately but I have an artists rendition of the original concept sketch for the design that I threw together and I'm prepared to show it to people. Please keep in mind that its a copyrighted image/design and all the usual rules apply; this means you may not reproduce it in any form without my express written permission.

Another lace update

I have started my friends birthday cape at least four times so far and each time I've made a mistake. Normally this wouldnt be too much of an issue because I can usually spot it and pick back down to it on a few stitches and fix the error. Unfortunately this pattern is a bit more complex than it looks at first glance so its difficult to figure out where mistakes are and even harder to imagine fixing them in my usual manner. Sooooo, its still sitting in the bag where I threw it in disgust the last time I messed it up and I really HAVE to get back to it soon because my friends birthday is in November and I really want to have it finished for her.

Since I threw the cape aside Ive been working rather diligently on my Victoria Shawl project and am pleased to be able to say that I'm exactly half way through the body of the shawl.

I have been a bit worried the last couple of weeks that it might not come out as big as the pattern says because I'm knitting it on 3mm needles and the pattern calls for 4.5mm. But now that I'm halfway I decided to dry block it and have a look-see and I'm no longer overly concerned. The border on this sucker is HUGE and to be honest looks like a wee bit of a challenge but I'm still majorly keen to get the shawl finished and I'm pretty sure it'll be fairly close to the measurements stated in the book.

Half a Victoria Shawl dry blocked

Extreme close up

Tomorrow I head up to the local TAFE to talk to some teachers about my suitability for a course I'm interested in doing next year so I wont have heaps of time to knit but I hope to spend a good part of Sunday knitting either the Victoria Shawl or re-starting my friends birthday cape. Wish me luck ;o)

Disasters in transit - moving right along

I am sad to report that my cap shawl has had an unfortunate frogging incident.

A few days ago I was taking it with me to my partners store where I intended to work on it while I kept him company for the day. I was moderately devastated upon arrival to discover that about 20 stitches had slipped off the needle and at least 9 rows of knitting had unravelled while in transit. With the pattern being so lacy it was impossible to pick up the unravelled rows (and believe me, I tried my hardest) so I decided to frog it and start it again on smaller needles at some later date. I did dry block it and take a photo of it to show how much I had done (you can see the damage in the lower mid to right corner of the pic). Here 'tis...

I have started knitting a new project (just cast on last night) its the lady's circular cape (Ravelry link) from VLT which I'm knitting from a divine baby alpaca 2ply (laceweight) in black for my closest friend as a birthday gift. The pattern calls for a 4.5mm needle but I'm using a 3.25mm instead to compensate for my super loose knitting tension and the fact that the yarn has very little halo. Fingers are crossed that it will turn out as pretty as the pic in the book...

Here is the pic from the book
Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby

I have also been asked to knit a baby blanket for a friends sister who is due to deliver in about 10 weeks. I know the lovely lady in question from Derby. The reason I mention this is because she had asked me to design a motif that included cats and quad skates. So I designed a cutesy little kitten curled up sleeping next to a roller skate and am going to knit the image using the intarsia knitting technique. Stay posted as I intend to put the charted image up here for download once its finished. Maybe.

Cap shawl addiction

Im totally in love with the circular shawl I'm knitting. The pattern (Ravelry link) is so simple and so pretty. I can see myself knitting half a dozen of the darn things. I have actually been knitting this with exception to everything else since I started it. Im already nearly finished the uncharted section and am so keen to get started on the next chart. Heres a quick photo update, although, its not a great photo but you can see the difference since the first photo I posted.