The Great Outdoors

This has been a pretty poor summer here in Sweden this year. We have more rain and clouds than sun most days. I am not a huge outdoors person really, I find most of the time it bores me to be out there. I would rather be inside knitting. I do feel a bit guilty when I don't want to go outside when I know I should do it at least for Biscuit.

Yesterday we finally had some sun! So we went outside. I took out some knitting and Biscuit played in the yard, did some drawing on paper and with chalk on his trampoline. It was pretty warm so I wasn't really excited about knitting a sweater right then. I had a oh yeah moment and got my spinning wheel and brought it out on the deck. Perfect project to do outside. Today wasn't as sunny but we went out anyway. Biscuit wanted to draw again and I took my spinning wheel out. I finished spinning an ounce of merino/cashmere top. Great way to get some spinning done and enjoy the outside at the same time.

Do you like taking your art outside or do you only do outside things?

Lace Knitting

I am working on the Craftsy.com class on Knitting Lace Shawls, by Mirriam Felton. It is a lovely class so far! My favorite has been the second lesson, an actual system for "lace math" that takes into account the biasing and defines it. Check it out!

My Frost Thread top is going great. I've been spending more time on Ravelry.com than knitting, getting support in the forums. Lots of lovely ladies there! The Frost Thread shoulders/armholes are great, I can definitely see this technique making it into my standard knitting, depending on how it fits. I'm spending my time knitting to figure out how to "work" the design. So far so good, though I can't articulate it!

I'm thinking about designing stitch patterns, or one at least, for the shawl I make for the class. I'll def post in progress photos!

Frost Thread

This was the fun operation of knitting with three needles to join the edges of the collar together. The color is best in this photo as compared to the others, more accurate. Don't you just love the Knit Picks harmony needle that my lovely boyfriend got me? This was somewhat like a three needle bind off, but you knit them together instead of binding off. I think the pattern would be improved to have one full round knit instead of stopping to do the shortrows before the round is over.

This is a beauty shot of the collar. Quite lovely! 

 The shoulder "seam" for the all in one cap sleeve. Looks great so far, a tiny booboo but I won't tell anyone while I'm wearing it, if you don't! I'm having to be really careful to make the correct M1 on each side of the markers. Slows me down a bit but the result is fabulous.

I just love challenging knitting!

I am working on this lovely pattern and it is challenging but fun, thus far. I learned 3 new increases! The pattern I am working on is Frost Thread by Veera Valimaki, which I found on Ravelry. I will have photos of progress tomorrow!!!

Oops, I Dyed it Again!

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I dyed again! It makes me so happy! I tried the hot pour method described in the Twisted Sisters Sock Book, and had great luck. I did 2 880 yard hanks of lace-weight merino, which took the dye like a dream. (Thank you Momma!) I used a base dye of pink in the water, and added to it chestnut, lilac, and teal. The skeins are each a bit different, and there is going to be a third done, which will also be different but I'm ok with that!

Rows and Rows of Short Rows

The dreaded short row has been the bane of my knitting for such a long time. I avoided making socks because of short rows. I have hated the way they looked in crescent shawls but love crescent shawls. One of the shawls I am working on now is Maluka, this shawl is done by making an edging then picking up stitches on one edge and knitting short rows to form it into a crescent. The pattern does the short rows in the typical way for crescent shawls by knitting past the center and slip stitch knit (ssk), turning slipping the first stitch, purling past the center again then purling 2 together (p2tog) and turning. This makes a bit of a hole where the gap is closed and seems to me to be a little messy in some patterns. Some designers incorporate this into their design so it is less noticeable, but sometimes it seems unavoidable. After looking at other project pages for this pattern I had read some people used wrap and turn (w&t). I have never really been able to get this to work for me so I knew that wasn't the way for me to do it. I found this project that pointed to another blog on japanese short rows, I had looked at this before but really didn't need it at the time.

Maluka - 7th shawl in 2012

This worked great! It was a bit more work in a way because I used safety pin markers to make the thread that needed picking up but really that just made it easier in the long run. I realized about half way through that I wasn't decreasing like the pattern wanted. I didn't want to rip it back again so I just continued. I love this technique I totally plan on doing it again for crescent shawls in the future.

Awesome Knitting Link

http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/increases

This is a great tut on different increases and what they look like/how to do them. I'm putting this here for my benefit too-I don't want to lose it!