Still quiet here. But the quiet means that I’ve been knitting like crazy. The shawls for the book are now all complete. And I’m in the midst of blocking.
Naturally I have to sew in the ends of all the shawls before I block. No idea why I saved this for the end…… in many ways it makes a lot more sense to finish each shawl entirely as I go. On the other hand, getting 12 shawls ready for a book takes a long time. The first one was off the needles last summer. So if I had blocked it at that time, I’d probably have to reblock it now to get rid of the creases. Instead, I just seem to be having a never-ending blocking party right now. :-)
Here are four of the shawls that I was busy sewing in ends on this morning.
It will take me a while to get through the blocking for all the shawls (I can really only block one or maximum two at a time), but by the end of the month they will all be in the mail heading to Cooperative Press and the photoshoot. Super exciting!
I’ve been knitting like crazy on various secret projects (mainly for the book, honestly) and that’s why it’s been so quiet. I still have a few more things to do for the book, but now I have cast on for the 12th and final shawl – which means the end is in sight. :-)
I don’t have much to show for my efforts at the moment, but here is a sneak peek of one of the patterns in beautiful linen lace from Claudia Handpained yarns.
As I’m finishing up my cedar green shawl from the January post, I thought it was time to wind some new yarn. I have this lovely skein of Serenity Lace II from Zen Yarn Garden that’s been calling my name for a while now. So I brought out the swift to get started, and…..
Aaack! Do you see what I see?
The twine has disintegrated, and my swift is disabled.
Once I sorted out the various spokes and twine and what not, it turns out the fix is relatively simple. With some yarn to the rescue (leftover Eidos, as it happens), the swift was as good as new.
Phew. Now the yarn is wound, and I can get started on the fun stuff. Knitting it. :-)
Call of the Sirens was the first shawl that I designed using yarn from the Sanguine Gryphon. Several have followed over the years, but I’ve always had a soft spot for this one.
The Call of the Sirens lace stole draws on the Greek myths about the Sirens. The Sirens’ calls could bewitch sailors to make them forget who they were and and where they were going. Often the Sirens caused them to forget to navigate their ships and the ships would be wrecked against the rocky shore.
The edging of the stole show the waves, followed by the rocky shoreline. The center portion of the stole represents the braided hair of the beautiful Sirens.
I am now able to republish the pattern, and as such it is available for immediate PDF download here.
Way back last summer, Gryphon of the Sanguine Gryphon visited me at our cottage. While she was there we were chatting and knitting and chatting some more. Among other things we were chatting about my next book, and Gryphon graciously offered some yarn support. Some of that yarn was the lovely red Eidos seen in my last post.
Fast forward to October and Rhinebeck, and more particularly the week after Rhinebeck, and you’ll recall that the Sanguine Gryphon announced that it was splitting into two separate companies – the Verdant Gryphon and Cephalopod Yarns. Since both Gryphon and Sarah are such wonderful dyers, it seemed like a great idea to try to include yarn from both of their new companies in my upcoming book. Sarah and I started discussing green. I was looking for a nice cedar green for one of the shawls and Sarah asked me to take a picture of what I had in mind.
This is what I sent her as a starting point (and asked her ever so kindly to overlook the dead orange parts on my cedar trees).
And this is what she came up with.
Allowing for the poor lighting in the first shot, it’s absolutely perfect. So…… now that I’ve finished the red shawl in Eidos from the Verdany Gryphon, the next design is green Skinny Bugga! from Cephalopod Yarns. And given all the cold, white snow we have outdoors, green is just what I need to feel that spring is around the corner (who am I kidding? It will be another 3 months….. Still, if I can fool myself into thinking it’s soon, that’s wonderful).
The first shawl design of the year is completed. While we were snowed in yesterday, I managed to finish knitting one of the shawls for my upcoming book. I really do know that knitting faster does NOT generally prevent me from running out of yarn, but it seemed to work this time. When all was said and done, all that was left of my two skeins of Eidos was this:
Phew!
Well….. it is January, and we do live in Ottawa, so snow is to be expected.
Today, however, we are expecting a winter storm – apparently heavy snow (20 cm) followed by freezing rain. So the school buses are cancelled (to the delight of the children) and we are staying home today. We’ve already lost power once, but it came back reasonably quickly. I’m planning on staying in front of the fire place and finish up two of my knitting projects.
One is the red shawl in Eidos that I was talking about last time, and then the last pair of fingerless mittens from the Seven Fingerless Mittens collection is just about complete. Should be ready to release soon. Maybe I’ll be able to get some good pictures today, if it doesn’t snow too much.
Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2012 will be a wonderful year for all of you.
I ended the year with a lot of knitting, so it may take me a little while to catch up. At the end of November I released the sixth pattern in the Seven Fingerless Mittens collection – Zenwald.
Zenwald is designed to be knit with variegated sock yarn. The design itself is relatively simple in order to let the yarn shine. This particular version is knit in Shepherds Sock! from Lorna’s Laces, and is a deep forest green mixed with blacks.
They are a fun knit, and quite versatile. So much that when my son asked for some fingerless mittens for Christmas (four days before Christmas, to be exact), I knew just what to make. I did modify them a bit for him, since he’s only 8, and his hands are (naturally) a lot smaller than mine. On top of that, he requested “no fingers”, as in gauntlet style. So instead of knitting half-fingers like I did for mine, I just continued the hand a little longer, and then worked a few rows of garter stitch prior to bind-off.
I did manage to finish them on time – on Christmas eve, only minutes before our guests arrived. So….. perfect timing. They have been much appreciated and worn already. But then yesterday it got really cold (-23C), so he might have to wait for a while until he can wear them again.
Aside from that, the La Toupie KAL officially started on January 1. I’ve already seen a bunch of pretty pictures of shawls in progress and am looking forward to many more over time. :-)
Me, I started the year with a new design using Eidos from the Verdant Gryphon. Eidos is lovely as always, and the colour is one of my favourites – deep red (Charybdis, for those who really want to know). It’s one of the designs for the new book, so I can’t show too much.
The book is coming along slowly but surely, and more than half of the designs are complete and just waiting for the rest to join them.
Well, fingerless gloves, double-knitting and lace just about sums it up, I think. You’ll see more of everything in 2012. All the best!
I’ve always been fascinated by folklore and fairy tales. I grew up thinking there were trolls in every rock and little gnomes and fairies in the forests. Some were good and helpful, of course, and others not so much. Huldran, or Skogsrået as she’s more commonly known in Sweden, is a sort of temptress who lives in the woods. She’s the most beautiful woman you have ever seen, and she tempts men away from their families. As they follow her deeper and deeper into the woods they can get lost, and succumb to her beauty. She can wear them out during lovemaking and enchant them such that they never return to their families. No man seems to be able to tell the Huldra from a regular woman, except that she is extraordinarily attractive, but if you do manage to see her back, she’s supposed to have a tail. Or possibly a back that looks like a rotten tree trunk. The stories vary. Perhaps because the men who have seen her have not been focused on her back exactly. ;-)
When I was designing the Huldran shawl, I knew I wanted to have leafy motifs for the forest, representing how the Huldra was hiding between the trees. And I wanted a braided cable to remind us of beautiful, long, braided hair.
The yarn I picked was Serenity Silk from Zen Yarn Garden in a green colour called Queen Bee. Queen Bee has proven to be a pain to photograph, and no matter how I do it, it seems to sharpen the contrasts. In person, the yarn looks like an almost living green, shifting shades in subtle ways. In the pictures, the dark green is darker and the light green is lighter.
Anyhow, as I was designing the shawl, I kept thinking that it would be fun to add something extra. And the “extra” that the Huldra has is….. her tail. So I designed the shawl to have a Huldra tail peeking out on the bottom.
For the more conservative knitters, the shawl includes finishing instructions both with and without a tail. But I have to say, I really like the tail. The shawl can also be made bigger (with more yarn), or smaller, depending on your preferences.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the knit along, and would like to thank all the participants. I know you’re still working on it, since the last part of the pattern was released today. But nonetheless, thanks everyone for knitting along with me. Hope you’ve enjoyed it. I’d love to see pictures when you’re done. The progress pictures I’ve seen to date have been amazing. Keep ‘em coming. And…. hope to see you in the next KAL.
La Toupie is French for a spinning top. This whimsical design is a doubleknit triangular shawl, with spinning tops twirling out from the centre of the shawl.
The pattern will be released on Jan 1, 2012, and there will be a KAL starting on this date in the Knit & Knag Designs group on Ravelry. The pattern is $6.00 CDN until the KAL starts, at which point the price will increase to the regular pattern price of $8.00 CAD. Right now, the downloadable file contains the materials list and pictures. The pattern will be distributed on Jan 1, 2012,
The La Toupie shawl is a double-knit triangular shawl. The pattern allows you to adjust the size of the shawl.
The pattern includes detailed instructions on double-knitting. So it is an excellent way to learn a new technique. If you’re already a double-knitting expert, just enjoy the shawl.
Since it is double-knit, the shawl is fully reversible.
The red and gold sample is knit in Merino Silk 4 ply Sock from indigodragonfly, and the blue and silver sample is knit in Milky Way from Anzula.
2 x 430 yds (100 g) of fingering weight yarn (e.g. Merino Silk 4 ply Sock) in contrasting colours will give you a shawl with a width of 52 in 135 cm, and a height of 26 in 66.5 cm
2 x 500 yds (100 g) of light fingering weight yarn (e.g. Milky Way) in contrasting colours will give you a shawl with a width of 55 in 140 cm, and a height of 27.5 in 70 cm
More yarn will of course allow you to make the shawl even larger.
Recent Comments