a project for a friend

September 16, 2013 by 9 Comments

My friend Tara, for whom I made this hat, met me for lunch the other day at a cafe near the local yarn shop.  She went with me after we ate to just browse through the yarn, and ended up purchasing some yarn and a pattern booklet for me to make her a second item!  The yarn is K’acha from Mirasol Yarn (of merino, alpaca, and silk) in shade 1201:

yarn for tara

What a lovely color for fall!  The yarn is listed on Ravelry as being DK weight but it seems more like a heavy worsted as I’m working.  Anyway, Tara bought 4 skeins to be sure there was enough for the whole project.

The shawl/scarf is called “bajada,” it is knit on size 8 straight needles, and is more crescent shaped than triangle shaped.

I would like a similarly shaped shawl/scarf myself, but I don’t think it’ll be another one of these — this pattern is so hard!  You have to have your eyes glued to the booklet instructions — every row of small print contains a different combination of “stitch pattern A” and “stitch pattern B” so you have to pay careful attention!  In fact, I couldn’t keep track of it all in my head so I wrote out the combinations for each row (as well as reminders to increase every 4th row) on notebook paper and am checking them off as I go.  I think that’s what makes it hard (that and the time it’s taken to get where I am), because the stitches themselves aren’t too crazy.  The weirdest stitch so far has been purling 2 through the back loops.  Here’s what I’ve done:

bajada1

Not very impressive yet, as it’s such a small amount of the finished product, but I’m proud of it nonetheless for all the time and effort it is taking.  When it is blocked the lacy edges will appear more obviously, I assume.  There have been a couple of scary points where I’ve had less stitches after a row than I should, and having to go back to fix it is terrifying — I’m not at all sure that I’m undoing some of the stitches properly!  Looks OK so far, though.

Well, that’s all for today.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

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finished a fun shawl!

September 7, 2013 by 12 Comments

A little over a week ago I posted some pictures of projects on Ravelry that I would like to knit.  Well, I made one!  It’s the lace mess shawl.

lace mess shawl 2

This is actually the first time I’ve ever blocked anything.  Ever.  I’ve had the blocking mats and pins (from KnitPicks) for a while now, but have never needed to use them.  With this project, it specifically calls for blocking, and since I intend to sell it, I figured it would be a good idea.  Being inexperienced in blocking, I am of the hope that misting the shawl with a spray bottle of water will be good enough — I didn’t want to soak it and roll it in a towel because I don’t have any clean towels (I need to go to the laundromat… ugh).  Do you think misting it with water will suffice?  We’ll see soon enough, but I’d rather not have to do it twice.

lace mess shawl 1

There’s not a row by row pattern — the instructions just tell you how to make the bare bones of the shawl and it lets you put in the holes at your discretion.  It was neat not having to follow a pattern, but because of this I did end up making the shawl rather larger than the original appears to be on the pattern’s Ravelry page.  Not that that’s a problem.  It was a fun pattern, and quick too, because it called for bulky yarn and very large needles.  I would certainly not mind making another of these.

I think the yarn used is Lion Brand Jiffy, but it had been sitting in my stash bin for a long time without labels so I’m not positive.

I almost forgot — the edging has little picots where the pins are, made by implementing the knitted cast on, which I’d never attempted before.  They don’t look like very distinctive picots on my shawl, whereas pictures of other people’s shawls on Ravelry do seem to have more pronounced picots.  The instructions in the pattern seemed detailed enough, and I double checked with a video on YouTube to be sure I was doing it right, and I think I was, but they still look almost nonexistent.  Any ideas on why this might be?

Thanks for stopping by, and please leave your opinion on using a spray bottle for blocking and the proper method to make picots with the knitted cast on!  Thanks so much!

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new KnitPicks items

September 1, 2013 by 7 Comments

I took advantage of the sale KnitPicks had last week, offering a free skein of their new Wool of the Andes Superwash with any order.  I got the bluish-grey shade, Cadet:

knitpicks wool of the andes superwash in cadet

At $3.49 per 50g/110yd, I’m not sure I’d actually purchase this.  I suppose it’s still a good deal for superwash wool… what do you think?  Well, it’s still 100% wool and thus not the softest yarn I’ve used.  Not sure I’d want this as a hat or scarf.  I don’t really know what to do with this single skein; any suggestions?  Since it was free, I can’t complain.

The items that I ordered so that I could get the free yarn are ones that I think will be very useful:

knitpicks new tools

I do love KnitPicks’ needles, and I didn’t have any that were 16″.  The 16″ needles are my favorite way to make hats, and 7 is a common size.  It’s too bad that the 16″ cables aren’t available for the interchangeable set that I have, but it is what it is.  It’s worth purchasing the 16″ needles, I think.  The coiled wire thing next to the needles in the image above is a wire yarn stranding guide, supposed to be handy for colorwork.  Unfortunately it is too big to fit on my finger the way it does on the hand model in the picture on their site, but if I slide it further down my finger it will be fine.  I’ll just have to adjust my knitting angles, I suppose, because I do intend to use it.

That’s all for today, I suppose.  Nothing too exciting.  Well, thanks for stopping by!

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finished the hat!

August 28, 2013 by 10 Comments

What a day!  After working a long and hot (95 Fahrenheit) lunch shift out in the sun, all I wanted to do was get clean and cool and relax!  My hands still wanted something to do though, and as a result the knitted hat for my friend Tara is finished!

Hat for Tara 1

 

It turned out great!  The seed stitch was fun and the inside looks just the same so it’s totally reversible.  I added 8 stitches to the recommended cast on number and also went up a needle size from the recommended one (both because the pattern writer knits very loosely and because my friend has lots of lovely thick hair, although the extra stitches turned out to be unnecessary).  The hat can be worn slouchy, like that, or it can be worn with the ribbed section rolled up like this:

Hat for Tara 2

 

It’s still roomy this way and it is big enough to where either way it can cover one’s ears.  I thought about lining it with polar fleece for extra warmth, but I’ve never done that before and don’t want to try it out on a hat I’m planning on gifting (but if anyone has any tips on that, I’d love to hear them so I can try it out on one of my hats sometime!).  I think I’ll be working with my friend on Thursday so hopefully I can give it to her then.

This hat used about 3/4 of my 220 yard ball of Aslan Trends Royal Alpaca, and the free pattern can be found here.

That’s all for today!  Just wanted to share the finished project somewhere (I can’t put it on Instagram yet because Tara and I follow each other and she’d see it)!  Thanks so much for stopping by.  Now I’ll get to work on the CAL installment for this Saturday!

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a hat for a friend

August 23, 2013 by 10 Comments

Today I started knitting a hat.  A couple hours in and I’m still working on the ribbed band because I had to start over — the pattern writer stated that she knits very loosely, and since I knit tightly I had to go back add 8 stitches (even after switching up a needle size).  The hat is for my friend Tara, who is the girl I work with on the food truck most often.  She’s been very kind and patient (not to mention fun and hilarious), and she’s the one who pushed the big boss to hire me in the first place, even knowing that I’ve had very little food service experience.  I like to think that we’ve also become good friends, which means I have TWO close friends that are girls that live within an hour and a half’s drive.  This is exciting for me, even though I’m probably moving soon about an hour down the road in the opposite direction from them both.  Because I have so few friends, the ones I have mean a lot, and so I want to show them that I appreciate their friendship.  Hence knitting the hat for Tara with no particular occasion in mind.

Although it’s averaging a high of about 87 degrees Fahrenheit most days, that’s pretty cool for a South Carolina summer.  Many weather experts agree that this means we’ll be in for a colder winter than normal.  I am grateful for this because last year I barely got to wear any of the items I had knitted/crocheted because anything more than a light scarf was too hot.  The impending cold season, however, will not be so fun for Tara when she has to work on the food truck (or me, if I’m still here then) because the truck doesn’t have heat.  This means when we’re not cooking but just sitting waiting to open between shifts, it will be incredibly cold.  Tara had said that she doesn’t have a warm hat that will stretch down to cover her ears, so I’m making her one out of 100% alpaca yarn that will.  I hope she likes it!

That’s all I’ve got for today.  Thanks for stopping by!

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