Gentille cowl ta-da!

My busy hands have completed a new project: the Gentille cowl!  Available for about $5.74 on Ravelry (click here), this pattern makes a great one-skein wonder!

"Gentille" cowl - a wearable knitted piece with great drape!

The yarn used was awfully hard to photograph properly, even in natural light, but if you’re wanting a pretty accurate representation of color, check the source: KnitPicks Hawthorne in Ladd’s Addition.  It’s essentially a blend of dark blues and purples with a pop of hot pink that has a tail end of bright orange.  Less brown than in my pictures here.  I think it’s gorgeous, but that’s not the only thing about this yarn I love: it may be 80% wool but it’s not scratchy at all, even after a whole day’s wear; it blocked beautifully; the drape is perfect.  This is my favorite yarn of the year so far, for sure.

Gentille cowl draped on a chairAs you can sort of see, there are two “sections” to this pattern: a garter stitch section and a lacy chevron section.  That constitutes 1 pattern repeat, and my 357 yd skein was perfect for 4 repeats total.  Here are closeups of the two “sections:”

Gentille cowl - garter stitch sectionGentille cowl - lacy chevron sectionI like the way the bright pinks/oranges make a sort of zig/zag pattern throughout.  This is called “pooling,” right?  Well, I really like the way it pooled here (I know sometimes it can be a mess)!

In conclusion, even though the pattern was pretty easy to remember, I don’t regret paying for it — I’m sure I’ll use it again someday.  This pattern mixed the mindless garter stitch with interesting [but not difficult] chevrons, and it looks more complicated than it actually was!  This is the sort of pattern you could churn out in a week for a gift, and I think anybody would love to receive one, don’t you?

Well, that’s all for today, but this isn’t the last you’ll see of the Gentille cowl!  Look out for a special knitting tip coming up soon!  As always, thanks for stopping by!

 

 

first FO of 2015: Desert Rose, ta-da!

I’d have posted earlier because it only took a day to make, but I had to block it first!

Desert Rose - crocheted by Hannah from Not Your Average Crochet

The pattern is by Ana Clerc and is actually called Desert Marigold — I just called it Desert Rose because I used a yarn colorway called Rose City. The pattern is available for $5.50 on Ravelry (click here).

The pattern is very simple — I’m a little mad at myself for paying for it when I could probably have gotten close by looking at the pictures, but I went ahead and paid because I didn’t want to sit around experimenting and guessing (is that paying to be lazy?).  In any case, it turned out beautiful and I’m very happy with it!

Desert Rose - lacy crochet cowl in a fingering weight yarn

The yarn is KnitPicks Hawthorne in Rose City, and I still have a good bit left.  Maybe I could make a baby hat?

It was good to get back to crochet after such a lot of knitting.  It went by so fast but I enjoyed every minute!

Desert Rose - crochet cowl in a lacy patternI’m stuck on fingring/sock weight yarns right now, because they make wearables drape so nicely!  I’ve already started another project that’s also in fingering weight yarn and it’s coming along — I’ll share soon!  So far 2015 has been very productive (I hope it lasts)!  Have you started on anything new yet this year?

Well, that’s all for now, thanks for stopping by!

 

 

 

finished The Northern Loop cowl

northernloopfinishedI love it!  It’s made with 2 full skeins of KnitPicks Billow in the shade Lichen and size 10.5 straight needles.  It includes a provisional cast on and a three needle bind of.  This was my first three needle bind off ever:

northernloopthreeneedlebindoffI think it turned out fine!  There’s a bit of a bump where I weaved in the ends at the spot where I changed from one skein to the other:

northernloopedgeBut it’s not too noticeable, especially when you have it on.  The two skeins gave me about 50 inches of cowl, and the yarn is SUPER SOFT.  I think the thick and thin bits make the cowl look somehow more handmade and maybe a little “rustic.”  Not sure if that’s the right word… What do you think?  Click here for the Ravelry page (the pattern is free).

Now there are only 4 WIPs left to finish.  I would like to finish one or two before moving on and starting something new, although I have lots of things I want to start now!  Do you find yourself with multitudes of WIPs, or are you a one-project-at-a-time kind of gal?

That’s all for today, I think.  I do have a crochet WIP to share but it can wait until it’s a bit further along.  I hope you have a wonderful day/night, and thanks for stopping by!

 

 

done with the move!

Well, mostly.  A couple of boxes are left to unpack, but all in all I’m very satisfied with our new house.  Zero loves it too!  Here she is sitting on the daybed with my CAL blanket:

zero2That’s her “what are you doing?” face.

zero1She loves the yard so much!  I’m so glad she’s finally happy.  We threw away a LOT of stuff so it’s nice and uncluttered and very roomy inside, as well!

Today is the first day I could post because today is our first day having Internet.  I know I’m spoiled because it was very difficult going without it!  I know I must have used a ton of data on my phone…

I was busy knitting and crocheting, too!  I started crocheting a shawl:

frogged(Yep, no sheets on the daybed at the point that was taken, and yep, I love to sit cross-legged/Indian style.)  As you can see I’m unraveling it to knit a scarf — the pattern was so hard for me to follow!  It’s cheche a la sauce and it was originally in French, so perhaps that was part of the problem.  The beginnings and ends of the rows don’t match up!  I must have been missing something but I could not figure it out, and after hours of re-working and re-working it, trying to get the edges correct, I gave up.  I think I’m giving up on that scarf, too, in favor of something that will take up all 3 balls of yarn I got for that project.

My knitting has much more to show for the effort.  I finished the Bajada scarf for my friend.  It took approximately 18 hours total of very focused knitting to complete, and because of that I don’t think I’ll be making another one (after all, I can whip up a crocheted scarf in an hour and a half).  I also had to write out the pattern row by row to keep track of everything and squinting at the small print in the booklet got old real quick.  It was worth it though:

bajada3It totals at 69 inches (175cm) long and 11.5 inches (29cm) tall at its widest point.

bajada4

bajada6As you can see, I need to purchase some blocking wires.  They’re just so expensive for little wires (at least on KnitPicks, where I got everything else for relatively cheap), and I keep meaning to just go to a hardware store and get some wires cut for me.  It just hasn’t happened yet.

bajada5I can’t wait for it to dry so that I can mail it to my friend!  I’ll be back up there in a couple of weeks for the yearly Renaissance Fair but I don’t want her to have to wait that long.  I hope she likes it!

The Northern Loop cowl has been my other knitting project.  I’ve been using KnitPicks’ Billow bulky yarn and it is so wonderful to work with!  So very soft, and what gorgeous colors they have available!  I’ll definitely be repurchasing this.  This could be dangerous…  Here’s a bit of my cowl:

northernloop2I’m loving it!  The only thing that was kinda iffy about the pattern was the provisional cast on, but I looked up a tutorial on YouTube and did it easily with a length of crochet chain:

northernloop1Not as bad as I thought it would be!  Grafting it together at the end might be difficult, but I’ll just look up another tutorial for that later.

Well, that’s all the catch-up I have that I can think of right now.  I’m still editing the site so if you see anything that looks crazy (like the site title overlapping with the menu bar or something), please let me know.  I’m unsure how it will look on tablets or really large screens, but I’m trying to learn to use rem spacing instead of pixels in my CSS coding, so hopefully it won’t be too bad.

Let me know what ya’ll have been up to while I’ve been away!  I’m trying to catch up with everyone’s news!  Thanks for stopping by!

yep, it worked; chunky circle scarf #2

In my last post I talked of how I was stressed, and how I was going to pull out a new crochet project.  Well I did, and it’s done.  It de-stressed me so much I couldn’t put it down.  Let me introduce to you the Chunky Circle Scarf 2:

chunky cowl 2 1It is a lovely, plush cowl (worked flat and seamed) from a free pattern (click here), and it took me about 2 1/4 skeins of KnitPicks Brava Bulky in the shade Tranquil.  I’ve actually already made one, but it was in January of 2012 so it was time for another!

The Tranquil shade appears very vibrant in these photos but you can see that the stitch pattern is very, very close to the Catharine wheel pattern from our recent crochet along:

chunky cowl 2 2So basically if you liked that stitch you can make this easily within a few short hours, and it’s definitely worth the multitudes of yarn it requires — it’s SO plush and kooshy — and the KnitPicks Brava Bulky is incredibly soft for an acrylic yarn.  I’d highly recommend it as it is also very decently priced!  By the way, the cowl is folded in half in the picture above so you see only 1/4 of it’s total size.

Most unfortunately I was planning to sell this cowl, but in the pattern the designer states that she’d prefer that the pattern is used for personal use only.  Well, it’ll make someone a great Christmas present!

chunky cowl 2 3I guess that’s all for today!  I’d better get to bed because tomorrow my parents are coming to help me give my new rented house a thorough cleaning before we start bringing in furniture, and I’ll need my energy!  Thanks for stopping by!