Restful Rainbow Shawl

Lion Brand's Shawl in a Ball is exactly the kind of yarn that appeals to me when I'm standing there in the craft store. The promise that I can make a  whole shawl with one skein of yarn? Yes, please!  

When Hobby Lobby had it on clearance, I grabbed all of the different colorways. This one is Restful Rainbow and it's the least subdued of my choices. 

Whether or not you can get a full shawl out of one five hundred yard skein is open to interpretation. This is definitely a shawl and if I'd used a lacy stitch pattern it would have come out bigger. Two skeins would open up a lot more options.

I like the effect of gradient yarn but if there's been knots in the skein (there weren't!) this could have ended completely differently. 

Things to Love About a Troublesome Shawl

There are things to like about this shawl. I love the colors and the combination of stockinette and garter stitch ridges, which are the same thing I did on the previous Wildstreak Shawl but look better on this one.

I absolutely love the combination of k2p2 ribbing and garter stitch ridges that keep it from flipping up at the bottom like the last one did.

What I don't love is that there were so many knots in the skeins that I now have eighteen ends to weave in. I also don't love that the loosely spun yarn was looking worn while I was still knitting.

I will not buy more loosely spun yarn no matter how cheap it is.

Caramel Me Away Shawl

I needed something mindless on my needles so a few days ago I cast on with a cake of self striping acrylic from my Hobby Lobby clearance stash. The plan was to knit a garter stitch triangle until I ran out of yarn and just look at how well that plan worked out for me!

I like this one a lot more than I thought I would. It took the tiniest bit of fiddling to keep the stripe pattern consistent because when I bought the yarn I didn't know there was a trick to selecting the cakes to ensure that the colors would end at the same point. To fix my mistake, I wound up using yarn from the outside of  the second skein to make the narrow reddish band wide enough, then going back to the inside of the skein to continue with the dark brown.

This was just what I needed as an antidote to those blue lace socks.

I used two skeins of Yarn Bee Sugarwheel in the "caramel me away" colorway, not quite 700 yards of worsted weight acrylic. Now I'm torn between using my other two cakes to make the exact same shawl in a different colorway or doing something different, like basketweave.

Halfway Home, a Second Time

I could honestly see myself knitting this Halfway Home shawl over and over. The first one I knit was supposed to be for the prayer shawl ministry at my late Aunt's church, but I fell in love with it and kept it for myself. 

I hate to say it, but I love this second attempt even more. I am not keeping it for myself, no matter how much squishier and denser and warmer the slightly thicker yarn (Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn) made it. What I do wish is that I'd bought more of this yarn when they had that amazing clearance sale last year. It was dirt cheap and I really enjoyed knitting with it.

There are at least a dozen shawls with similar construction in my Ravelry queue, so I'm not making much of a sacrifice by giving this shawl up.

Fireside Shawl

I had plenty of yarn left over after knitting the Campside shawl, enough to knit a second one. 

There's no pattern for this one. I made a triangular top down shawl, switched to k3p3 ribbing when I thought there was enough yarn left for a wide band of it, then kept knitting until I was down to what I thought was enough yarn for casting off.

Campside Shawl

As soon as I stumbled across the pattern for Campside, I could picture which stash yarn would be the absolutely perfect color. I bought this subtly variegated orange yarn years ago and at the time it was a huge splurge so I was afraid to actually cast on with it. 

Pattern: Campside (free download)

Yarn: Bon Prix Ornaghifilati 

The yarn itself was a huge disappointment. Expensive acrylic from the yarn shop should not be harder on my hands than a particularly bad skein of Red Heart Super Saver, especially not when it claims to be blended with wool and alpaca.

The pattern, on the other hand, is fantastic. The eyelets get denser as you knit your way towards the border and there's a really neat ribbed edging along the bottom. Aside from the name, that edging is what drew me to the shawl in the first place. I made mine wider than the inch and a half that the pattern calls for because I like the look of it so much.

Can I start making all of my shawls with ribbed edging now?

Gramma's Hug

Some knitting projects are just a dream from beginning to end. My Gramma's Hug shawl almost fell into that category. I spent a happy evening casting on and getting through the first few rows...then I hit that little patch of simple lace and everything went straight to hell. 

On my second try, I used stitch markers every seven stitches and managed to keep myself on track. There's no reason I shouldn't have been able to do that lace without so much extra help, but sometimes things happen. It was like my Cathedral Window Shawl. I cast that one on while my middle son was in  the NICU and I was sleep deprived and heavily medicated and the first half came out just fine. It was after he was a bit older and I didn't have any excuses that I couldn't manage to knit the same lace pattern for the second half.

Pattern: Gramma's Hug (a free Ravelry download)

Yarn: Hobby Lobby I Love This Chunky, Sand Dunes, 3 skeins 

Even with the false start, it only took me five evenings from start to finish. My own shawl is narrower than the pattern specifications because I substituted acrylic which just doesn't stretch and block the same way wool does. I substitute acrylic all the time, unless it's a lace pattern that will need blocking to look right, and I've never realized that it changes the potential size so dramatically.  Now I'm wondering if this particular designer blocks more aggressively than others, or if I've just never paid attention.

I used almost three skeins of I Love This Chunky from the Hobby Lobby clearance incident and it's thick and squishy and doesn't split or snag or do anything else that makes me unhappy. I wish  I'd bought a ton more of it while it was $1.24 a skein but I'd never worked with it before and didn't know how much I really would love it.

In addition to loving the yarn and the color and just about everything else, I love the shaping. Instead of increasing every other row like just about every other triangular shawl I've ever knit, this one has increases every row which makes a much longer, sharper angle.

The Shawl Knitting Bug

I currently have four hundred and some shawl patterns in my Ravelry queue and at least a dozen books of shawl patterns and I couldn't even guess how many magazines with shawl patterns in them. When that bug bit me, it bit hard. 

A new project generally starts with something along the lines of "Oh, that's cute and I've got some halfway suitable yarn and an empty circular needle...." 

This time I found the pattern, Gramma's Hug, and wasn't sure I had four hundred yards of bulky. I've got larger amounts of bulky, stealing a couple of skeins would sabotage future projects. (This  whole shawl knitting challenge is an extremely elaborate game of yarn chicken.)  Then there was the Hobby Lobby yarn clearance and I picked up four skeins of I Love This Chunky and it could not be more perfect for this shawl. There should be just enough yardage.

I knit my way through an entire skein on Monday night while watching stupid old horror movies. The increases are making the point of the shawl extra pointy and I tried a Russian join for the first time.

That little narrow band of lace that you can barely see in the picture? We'll talk about that later...

Licorice Allsorts Shawl

No Pattern

Yarn: Yarn Bee First Love, Too Cute 

In the skein, I absolutely loved this color combination. The more I knit the more I started to question it...then I decided that it reminded me of that pink and black candy. I don't know if I've ever eaten licorice allsorts, but that somehow doesn't stop them from being a childhood memory.

I used three skein of Yarn Bee First Love (from the Hobby Lobby incident) and did my own thing. I knew that I wanted to experiment with a center cable and slightly wider than usual borders. That part worked out and I'll definitely play with it again.

Where I ran into trouble was with the bottom edge. I knew going in that I was going to be playing yarn chicken and didn't start the garter stitch row as soon as I should have. It curls far too much and because the yarn is acrylic I'm probably going to have to live with it.

The yarn itself is very fluffy and fragile. Think Lion Brand Homespun but it's smoother and not as forgiving. Every little fingernail snag shows in the finished shawl. I also learned a valuable lesson about self striping yarns and triangular shawls. The longer the rows get, the less the stripes work. At one edge I wasn't getting any black it all.

I have three more skeins of First Love in a different colorway and I think I'll use those for a rectangular shawl.

Reyna Shawl

The pattern for Reyna describes it as the perfect answer to that single skein of variegated sock yarn that's been sitting in your stash for months.  In my case it was two damaged skeins that had been improperly stored for a decade and this pattern really was the solution I'd been waiting for. 

Isn't it pretty? 

 Pattern: Reyna

Yarn: Knitpicks Stroll 

I came so close to throwing away this yarn so many times. It was dusty and had breaks in it and even I thought it was beyond salvaging, but this light little piece of lace makes me glad I didn't give in and do what was reasonable.

Knitting With a Pattern

Last week, I showed you a shawl that I was knitting without a pattern because I wanted to let the yarn do its thing. I'm still knitting on that one, but it doesn't require much concentration so I wanted to start a second one to work on when I have time to actually focus on what I'm knitting.

This time I got excited by a pattern, Campside by Alicia Plummer, and knew exactly which yarn would be perfect for it. The pattern is easier to follow than I thought it would be, so I think a third shawl may be in the immediate works. Because sometimes I do have time to think about elaborate lace...

Shadowy Stripes Shawl

Here's my eighth shawl of  the year, Shadowy Stripes...

 Yarn: Loops and Threads Madrid, Slate  

No Pattern

Back in November I bought some sale yarn at Michaels that looked like it would make fun shawls. One skein became Hufflepuff Lace  and another became this shawl. I think I'm done knitting from big 350 yard skeins for now because they're so awkward to deal with. The yarn wanted to slither off in big tangly loops.

This skein had three knots in it, so I didn't even get the advantage of not weaving in more than two ends. (For non-knitters, when I say a skein had "knots" it means that the yarn was broken and then knotted back together during the manufacturing project. It's not uncommon to find a knot in a skein, but three in the same skein is a lot.) Between the knots and the splitty yarn, this wasn't a very fun knit.

I do love those subtle black stripes.

Wailea Shawl

I am completely and totally smitten with my Wailea Shawl...

 Pattern: Wailea Shawl

Yarn: Knitpicks Hawthorne, Forest Park 

This is the first complex shawl I've knit in a while, and the first one that I couldn't get away without blocking. (For my non-knitting readers, blocking is when you get the finished shawl wet and then stretch it out so that the stitches are more defined. It's what transformed that shapeless lump I've been showing you for the last few weeks into an actual shawl.)

The pattern is free from the Crystal Palace Yarns website and was an absolute dream to follow. As much as I prefer charted patterns, this shawl made dealing with the written instructions worth it.

The yarn is Knitpicks Hawthorne in Forest Park. I used two skeins and added an extra ten rows of the bottom lace pattern so as little as possible would go to waste.

A Black Shawl

Casting on new projects is supposed to be fun, right? After so many weeks working on my last shawl, I've been kind of at a loss. I knew what I wanted to start next, but it's going to be a busy couple of weeks without much time to focus on charts and intricate patterns and nothing in my queue looks simple. 

So I'm  casting on for a shawl just like the one I made my daughter back in January. It looks like this yarn might stripe. If it does, I'll switch the garter stitch and lace pattern when the color changes. If it doesn't, I'll figure out a new plan. 

And next time I'll remember to start a new project before finishing what I'm currently working on. 

Scrunched up Lace Knitting

The rows are getting longer and the lace pattern is getting more complex....although it's still very simple lace. At this point, I can't stretch out the whole shawl to show it off because the project is longer than the needles.

Yarn: Knitpicks Hawthorne, Forest Park

Pattern: Wailea Shawl 

Before it's finished and blocked, lace has a habit of scrunching up into a completely unsightly lump. It will come of the needles and stretch into shape and look the way it should...but I'm not there yet.
That yellow yarn running through the stitches? It's a lifeline. I'm trying to learn from my mistakes.

Socks start looking like socks as soon as you've got a toe or a cuff.

Yarn: Patons Kroy, Turquoise Stripes 

It's Hard to Know When to Quit

Four hundred yards in, it's become extremely obvious that this shawl is not working. I'm not going to name the pattern I was using because it's got 10,000 projects on Ravelry and that makes it pretty obvious that I'm the one who can't follow the instructions to increase in the feather and fan section. 

I thought it would be okay if the eyelets didn't line up after the increases, but they lined up on one half of the shawl and not the other.... That made it pretty much impossible to think of it at a "design element." So I pulled the entire thing off of the needles and unravelled it to the end of the first lace section, sure that I could finish it off in garter stitch.

Guys, I had close to 300 live stitches just sitting there with no needle and picked them all back up without disaster! I don't even try to mess with things like that.

This is a lot of hours of knitting and I could finish it off in garter stitch but I love this yarn and want it to be something better and the past few months have been all about making better knitting decisions. So I'm starting over with a completely different pattern.

(Putting in a lifeline between the stockinette section and the feather and fan would have meant I could save the shawl and finished it as originally planned, but as much as I appreciate the concept of lifelines, I'm rarely motivated enough to thread one in when I should.)

I've picked out another pattern that I think will be absolutely gorgeous, so I'm not feeling too bad about the lost hours.

Close to You

Just look at the colors transitioning through that garter stitch! And look at the edging! For what started as a skein of "what was I thinking?" yarn, this stuff made a gorgeous little shawl. The pattern is called Close to You and it's a free download over on Ravelry.  It's almost entirely garter stitch and there are only two lines out of every twelve where you have to count just a little bit. Days and days of knitting time without looking at a pattern, which is what I needed for this project.  

Pattern: Close to You (free Ravelry Download) 

Yarn: Knitpicks Chroma Fingering (Sandstone)  

I've almost never ordered a Knitpicks yarn I didn't like. Chroma Fingering is one of those rare exceptions (but to be fair my skeins have been sitting in my stash for years and the current version may be completely different.)  I ordered it during one of the big yarn sales a few years back and originally thought I'd use it for socks, but when I cast on for a pair the yarn unspun with every stitch. It's a loosely spun single ply and my skein ranged from thick and fluffy to thin and tight. (Some of  the reviews over on Ravelry say it's not appropriate for socks, but there are also lots of pairs in the finished project photos.)

It's much better for knitting shawls with, although I still felt I was babying  the yarn quite a bit to keep it from untwisting or splitting....but as soon as I finished this shawl I cast on a different one with a purple skein of Chroma, so I can't hate it too much. 

I went into this project knowing that I was playing yarn chicken and wound up spacing out the picots on the binding to make sure that I wouldn't run out. It was a middle of the row decision, but one that I'm happy with.

This one was a great stash diving project. I used up yarn that I'd given up on and made a project I'm thrilled with.

Old Shale Shawl

I am really having fun with these Caron Cakes, once I find a pattern that will work with the long color repeats. This one was always intended to be a feather and fan shawl, but my first try was garter stitch based and the fabric was too dense. I'll try that idea again with a lighter yarn. 

 Yarn: Caron Big Cakes, Nightberry

Pattern: Old Shale 

I didn't wind up using a pattern that I can link to, but it's a traditional stitch and very easy, assuming you either keep track of your counting better than I do or use stitch markers.

Cast on 60 stitches, or any multiple of twenty stitches, placing a stitch marker after each twenty stitches

Row 1: Knit
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: Knit one, (knit two together) three times, (yarn over knit one) six times, (knit two together) three times, knit one...which will put you at a stitch marker. Repeat until the end of the row. 
Row 4: Knit

Repeat until the shawl is as long as you want. One skein of Caron Big Cakes gave me a shawl that's about 15" x 60."

Early Morning Knitting

That old shale shawl is a few days from being finished so I decided I'd better cast on whatever the next shawl is going to be. Lately, it takes me a couple of tries to settle on what pattern and yarn combination I'll be happy with, so I wanted to get that out of the way while I still had a project to keep me busy in the evenings. 

So, early this morning, I cast on for Close to You. I think it's going to work! 

Late Night Scares and Shawl Knitting

Remember that shawl I showed you on Tuesday? It's a completely different shawl now...and yes, that's the second time in the past four shawls that I've completely changed my mind after days of knitting.

This version is much drapier and much closer to my original idea for the yarn. It's also easier to knit without looking at the pattern or counting rows too closely.

Have you heard about Veronica, that new horror movie on Netflix that's so scary people aren't able to make it more than halfway through?  My oldest son and I watched it late last night. Set in Spain in 1991, the movie begins with three girls holding a seance in the basement of their Catholic school while everyone else is up on the roof watching an eclipse. It's a horror movie, so you know that trying to contact Veronica's dead father with a ouija board that boasts "as seen on TV'' on its packaging isn't going to end well. 

We made it through the whole thing with no  nightmares to report, although the movie was much creepier than I expected it to be. And not, as I halfway expected, so yucky and gory that we turned it off instead of dealing with that. I've never, as an adult at least, turned off a movie because it was too scary. I have turned  them off because they were too gross -- and a couple of times I've sat through things I should have turned off and then wanted to scrub my brain with bleach.

You know how scary The Exorcist is supposed to be? This is that kind of scary...maybe. I didn't see that one until I was an adult and, while the book unsettled me, the movie didn't have much of an effect. Unlike Rosemary's Baby or the original Stepford Wives. Those kept me from sleeping.

If you're going to watch Veronica, actually look at what's happening on the screen. Some of the best scary parts are easy to miss. My son didn't see a couple of them at all and I only caught them myself because I was reading the subtitles and had my eyes at the right place at the right moment. Which kind of makes me wonder if some of the other not-great horror movies I've seen over the past few years would have been better if I'd been watching the screen instead of my needlework...