It seems crazy that I didn’t even have a chance to post this one as a WIP, but I’m on a knitting roll at the moment.

I cast Damson on the day after I finished my vine yoke, and three days later I had this beautiful shawl.

It’s going to be a Christmas gift for my mother, who has blue eyes, so I think it will look great.

I used a thicker yarn (technically a DK, but I have my doubts about that) and slightly larger needles.

Obviously, as yet unblocked, as it rained all day yesterday and I knew it wouldn’t dry inside. Today, it’s already blowing a gale outside, so we’ll see if it (and vine yoke) get blocked today.

Now, I should be working on Pants’ mystery gift, but I’m itching to cast on Lorelei.

Goldenrod! It’s a colour straight out of a Robert Jordan novel, isn’t it? It’s also one of my favourite colours at the moment.

We launched this colourway a few months ago as part of our lace club (I’m so behind on showing off the projects from the club!) and now here it is in some of our other yarn bases, ready to be added to the store.

l-r: bamboo merino sock, silk merino lace, merino baby alpaca worsted. YUM!

And here’s one I prepared earlier, our yummy bamboo merino sock, in delicious squishy garter stitch (a possible new design that I’m very excited about).

As my lace item for March, I chose Ishbel, by the ever talented Ysolda Teague. I knit it almost entirely while flying from London-Abu Dhabi and Abu Dhabi-Sydney (note to self: Etihad = worst airline EVER).

This is actually the first time I’ve knit a pattern of hers and I found it to be very well written, easy to understand and the resulting shawl is just gorgeous. The yarn I used is by Mayhem and Chaos, their lovely, firmly spun sock yarn in Tainted Love, a fantastically moody reddy black. I ran out during a brief lull in the rain yesterday and snapped this shot of it blocked:

I made the largest size of the shawl in the thickest yarn (the lace weight size in sock yarn) because I like a substantial shawl and because I had two skeins. The resulting shawl is generously sized (150 x 75cm unblocked, 160 x 80 blocked or, almost as long across the top as our queen sized bed) and used 140g of yarn.

In the end, I got jack of the horrid yarn and cast off the shawl with 12 repeats (up from the prescribed 8). I came home from our neighbourfriend’s NYE party, ostensibly to have a wee nap, but really to work on my shawl. I wanted it off the needles for the new year.

As of right now, it’s sitting in a heap beside the computer, awaiting blocking, which should magically turn it into the wondershawloflove. That’s the plan, anyway.

The new year was rung in, we walked back across the street and up the stairs with corona buckets on our heads, so I’m calling 2008 a resounding success.

I’ve never really been one for making New Years resolutions, but I figure it’s time to start. So, this year, I intend to make 12 pairs of socks, 12 lacy things (shawls, scarves, cowls, etc) and 12 upper body garments (cardigans, jumpers, shrugs, capelets, vests, etc). In theory, one of each per month, but we’ll see how it goes. I’d love to end the year with 36 finished items.

To be quite frank, I don’t wear my hand knit socks all that often, I like wearing them, but my handwashing tends to languish in the bottom of the laundry pile, so I’m hoping to get some gift socks knit this year.

Ok, I’m fast becoming obsessed with triangular shawls. So easy, so quick and so much fun to knit.

I blocked the happy starry canopy. Heaps of people take photos of their shawls draped over trees, but I think it kind of looks crap when I do it. Oh, well!

Pattern: Forest Canopy, by Susan Lawrence
Yarn: Dream in Color Starry in Happy Forest
Needles: 5mm/US8 knit picks options
Ravelry Link

NEW SHAWL STARTED!!! In possibly the most horrid, overpriced yarn ever (but I’ll get to that later).

Shetland Triangle by Evelyn A. Clark, made in Sundara Fingering Silky Merino.

8 repeats done so far, which is the prescribed number, but I’m going to keep going until I’ve either used all of the yarn or it’s too huge.

I noticed, as I finished knitting for the day, that I was using a 4.5mm tip to knit and a 4mm tip to purl. Oops. I got gauge using them, but I’ve now swapped over to two 4.5 tips.

Finished! Finally!

The final tally is 291 stitches before starting the edging lace, or 6 extra repeats. I did a lot of calculations and weighings, ending up with less than 2g of yarn.

I’m pretty happy with it, the colour is stunning and the shawl shape is easy to use (I wore the blue one on Christmas evening, with my shiny new shawl pin).

Now, to block the bloody thing!

Knitting fail. Or perhaps more correctly, time allocation fail.

Yesterday was even more hectic than the day before and I just didn’t get my shawl finished. I possibly could have knit on into the night, but I was buggered and had over-imbibed and thought it wasn’t the best idea (as it was, I dropped my sock sack containing the shawl on the walk home from our last party).

I managed to complete 13 repeats, so today I can just have a lazy one and do two more repeats and the border section.

It’s definitely doable in three days, just not the busiest three days of the year. I finished the blue one in three, and I believe I could finish the shoulder shawl as it’s written in two.

I’ll try again at some point, when I’m no longer completely burnt out by the pattern.

Next up: Shetland Triangle!

Well, yesterday was a whitewash, I should have known. I didn’t even pick up the needles until we jumped into the truck to pick up my grandparents and take them to my parents’ place, so I didn’t get much done at all.

I’ve done 11 and a bit repeats (up to 209 stitches), which would pretty much have me finished, if I were doing the pattern as written, but I’m WAY behind on my 15 repeats + border plan.

Today, I haven’t even started, either. Breakfast with A’s sister, then we bbqed a leg of pork for his parents for lunch, along with a ton of homemade dips and snackies. We now have almost three hours to play with pressies and knit before we head off to our last Christmas engagement tonight.

Oh, and look what the Scottish side of the family sent me for Christmas! It’s a hand made in Scotland pewter shawl pin!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

By the time we called ‘down tools’ last night, I had done 8.5 repeats and had a stitch count of 175.

The pattern instructs you to begin the border pattern when your stitch count is 195 (each repeat adds 16), meaning that I’m very, very close (1.5 repeats) to where I should be starting to wind down. I am, however, intending to make mine five repeats longer (more if I have enough wool).

If I were making the original shawl, I could definitely be done in two days.

As it is, this is yesterday’s progress. It’s currently 11am here and I’ve spent the last 3 1/2 hours in the kitchen, baking and preparing for this year’s Christmas extravaganza.

I’m about to have a little rest and then do a bit more knitting as we run around picking up grandparents and taking them to my parents’ place, and other last minute stuff.

I really think I’m on track for finishing this in three days, even though I didn’t reach my day 1 goal of 10 repeats.

Also, sorry about the hideous photo, it’s overcast here and I don’t think the upstairs veranda (where I laid my shawl) has been washed in a while. I’ll maybe get to that after Christmas! The KP needle tip is in the photo for scale.

Oh, and Glaedelig Jul to any other Danes who might be reading this. I hope you win the Ris a la Mande prize!

I blocked out my Forest Canopy.

It went from 38 inches across and 18 inches down the middle, unblocked, and ended up being 56 inches across and 32 inches down. I could have blocked it more severely, but I was happy with the size.

I added four lace repeats and still had yarn left over.

Pattern: Forest Canopy Shawl by Susan Lawrence
Yarn: Dream in Color Starry in Romeo Blue
Needles: KP Options tips in 5mm/US8
Ravelry Link

I wasn’t that keen on the pattern until it was blocked. The fact that I knit the entire thing in three days with less than a skein of yarn was a bonus.

So, I cast on a new one, out of the same yarn in a different colourway, Happy Forest. I knit a woodland shawl out of this colourway in Baby earlier in the year, wore it to Scotland and gave it to the gentleman’s cousin, so this is my replacement.

We’ve loads of driving and fussing around in the next few days, so I’m challenging myself to finish the shawl (+5 repeats) in three days.

Day one, about 4.45pm, and I’ve *just* completed the 7th repeat. I want to do 15, but each one gets wider and slower, so we’ll see how I go.