Kiri Shawl (FO)

Wow, so the midpoint of the holidays has just passed. I have one precious week left to squeeze in as much visiting and knitting and reading and food and drink as is humanly possible before the real world comes back and as soon as I had a few hours to sit by myself I wanted to knit this and read that and maybe eat some of those and do it all and then it became too exciting and oh let’s have a nap instead. My entire family had a ton of fun on the Wii this week too. Glenna and I played a lot of Dance Dance Revolution, which must be the most fun you can have without leaving your living room. (We’re barely into Basic level though. I think if you want to succeed at Expert you need to have something like a controlled seizure.)

I really limited myself on Christmas gift knitting this year, because my time available and rate of knitting ebbed to an epic low. But this was the big item I completed, a Kiri shawl for my aunt:

Pattern: Kiri, by Polly Outhwaite
Yarn: S.R. Kertzer Ovation (mohair/silk), 2 balls plus a little of a 3rd
Needles: 4.5mm circular
Size: 68 x 35 inches after blocking (here it’s scrunchled up a little like a scarf)

This is some of the Ovation I bought at Cloth and Clay last year (over the Christmas break actually). I’d queued the pattern months and months and months ago, but of course it’s the deadline that invites starting more than anything else. The only thing I wasn’t totally happy with was that the variegated yarn is not a very good match for the pattern. The mottled colouring obscures most of the pretty bits of the pattern. (But, if you’re looking for a good variegated yarn that avoids weird pooling, this one is for you.)

I still love that the experience of knitting lace rewards future lace knitting. One chart repeat was enough to understand what was happening, and the pattern itself is not challenging. It was one of those ridiculous sort of projects where the end half went faster than the first half, possibly because once you just sit yourself down and knit through chart repeat after repeat, it just grows. 

The only thing that would hold me back from recommending it as a first lace project is if you were also new to mohair yarn. (Learning lace on mohair would be exactly like trying to learn to drive on a stick shift: you can do it, but how many challenges do you want to give yourself?) And there are so many other yarns this would work with too. I love Jen’s version in Alpaca Fino laceweight.

Super Handy Blocking Tip That Is So Useful I Can’t Take Credit For It:

Thanks Rochelle for this piece of advice which works like a charm. For a triangular shawl, while still wet, fold it in half down the centre rib around a blocking wire. Slide another wire through the top edges and pin at a 90 degree angle. Pin each point together with its mirror image. This means you can use less pins overall, and you are assured of producing a perfectly symmetrical blocked piece. Super-fantastico.

Next I’m going to work on finishing the Streakers Shrug this week and finish up a few bits and pieces that have been hanging around. Then a whole new year of knitting starts.

Icarus Shawl (The big honkin’ FO post)

Pattern: Icarus Shawl, by Miriam Felton. Summer 2006 Interweave Knits. (Also now in Best of Interweave Knits)
Cast on: February 4, 2007. Cast off: April 24, 2008.
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Laceweight, 2 skeins plus a bit. (Used enough of 3rd skein to do last 15+ rows and bind off)
Needles: 3.25mm circular, Knitpicks. (Very pointy tips, nice and smooth.)
Modifications: 1 extra repeat of Chart 1. Otherwise I would have used just the two skeins.
Finished Measurements: 70 inches x 36 inches (at widest & tallest points, after blocking)

(DUDE I AM FINISHED. HOLLA.)

This was an enormous learning project for me, in so many ways I didn’t expect. When I bought the yarn it was a treat and something I just took the plunge on not knowing exactly what I was in for, but knowing was a pretty knit, something I’ve never tried before and that it would be a whole new challenge. Before this, the only lace project I’d tried was Branching Out. I knew the basics of lace and how to read a chart, and that for a triangular shawl you had to increase 4 stitches on every RS row, and that was about it. I had no idea people knit shawls. I had no idea people wore shawls. And here I was trying it out.

Talking to people and reading other knitters’ posts along the way helped me learn. It was also intimidating to learn as I went the kind of challenge I realized I was in for. I heard horror stories of people who ran out of yarn while they were binding off, or people who finished and blocked it only to have their cats shred it the next morning, or Rebecca who got to the tips only to find out she’d made a mistake deep in the centre rib. (Oh, hon.)

If I brought it along with me to a knitting night, experienced knitters would have something to say, and I learned things I didn’t find on my own. Tips like putting in lifelines (sweet Lords of Kobol, yes), and how to block if you don’t have blocking wires. The more I learned about other people doing laceweight shawls the more I learned how common and do-able this was, but I also felt like I’d found the tip of some tangly lacy iceberg. Knitters who hadn’t done laceweight before would ooh and ahh at the project and I’d get all mumbly. (Like Linz put it, people would think I’m a better knitter than I actually am.)

A metric ton of people have recommended this as a good beginner shawl. I’m still undecided. In terms of technique, I don’t think it would be any more challenging than learning fair isle. If you can follow a chart and, like Rochelle told me, if you can do yo’s, k2tog’s and ssk’s, you can knit lace. The hard parts were doing it all on laceweight for the first time, and doing it on a pattern that doesn’t always have a plain stockinette pattern on alternate rows. The Chart 1 sections were good once I got into a groove, but it took me 3 or 4 repeats to get there. Chart 4 was a whole lot of concentrating. My last rows were over 600 stitches long, and started to get hard on my wrists. Binding off took about 3 hours.

If I was going to sell other people on lace knitting it would be on cost. The knitting hours don’t make it a quick fix but the price certainly does: two skeins of Misti Alpaca is cheaper than most sock yarns out there.

It also helped to have other small lace projects to practice on as I went: the Small Capitals socks from Sensational Knitted Socks, the Gossamer Shell Scarf from One Skein Wonders, and Medrith’s Little Lace socks from A Gathering of Lace (still on the needles). I’d recommend trying lacy socks to anyone who wanted a starter project, because they’re small project and the charts have enough repetition to get you really comfortable with the stitches. Branching Out was helpful because it had a centre rib, just like a shawl, and enough complicated decreases to learn on, but learning the pattern was harder. In fact, I think the Medrith’s Little Lace socks were the project I learned the most on, and they were the ones I cast on toward the end of Icarus. Somehow, the charts and technique all clicked. For me it was more than about knowing the techniques but being able to read my knitting and understand what it was all doing.

But blocking, okay, blocking is pretty fantastic. They don’t lie about that. Anything that takes a squishy, matted blob and turns it into this, is awesome.

I followed the pattern’s alternate instructions and strung a piece of cotton (Patons Grace) along the top and centre rib. Gave it all a good soak, cotton and all, with Eucalan and spread it all out on the futon, covered with a sheet. To get it really tight I tied both ends of the cotton to the futon arms and pinned it straight. One pin for each tip. I left it out before bed and by this morning it was dry. Wore it out to the Knitter’s Frolic in Toronto to show it a good time. It was well pleased.

Now that it’s done I’m glad I can finally wear it and move on to my next project. I kind of can’t believe I actually… did that. For beginner knitters I feel like we always downplay the challenges of projects because if you don’t you risk scaring them off. This wasn’t easy but I learned and I worked and I did it and I’m pleased. There’s a whole subset of knitting that doesn’t scare me any more. So if you want to do Icarus (or any shawl, really), and you think you can do it, you can. It’s hard but you can do it. I think it might be that simple.

It’s like seaming.

It turns out that moving house + a week of no internet + another week of non-stop commuting, thesis, and beginning-of-term insanity are not good for me and my blogging. But I’m still alive and kicking and ready to knit another day. Hotcha-cha.

It’s been fun exploring Hamilton, being treated to some nice cool sunny weather this weekend, for a stroll to the Farmer’s Market and revisiting the downtown of my childhood (and in many ways not the downtown of my childhood: suburban sprawl and the ‘donut-city’ phenomenon have not been good to the city centre). Now that all but the last three boxes are unpacked and I’ve had a weekend to sit and sleep and settle. I wish I could say the views I’ve had this week have all been as nice as the CIBC building up there, catching the clouds, but they’ve actually been more like this:

The train, at 6am. Beginning of the line. As I’ve race out my backdoor on my way to the station this week I’ve found myself grateful for travel cups of tea (when I don’t forget them on the table next to the door) and a brown-bag breakfast (thanks to presence of mind the night before). The rewards of the early starts, though, have made a great difference to my thesis revisions, since they get me into the library in plenty early time to both work and save my sanity with time to spare to meet friends along the way. Long days are tiring but satisfying when they’re full.

Today, it’s those last little bits of the thesis I’m confronting, that remind me of what the backside of a mitred square afghan must look like: lots of ends to tie in. Par example:

That’s a lotta footnotes that need checking. To paraphrase the ladies’ Mason-Dixon on seaming, I don’t think you’ll find an academic out there waiting to tell the world, “I’ve just taken up checking my references, and BOY is it fun!” Thank my silk laceweight this bit is finally done. Now my intro, acknowledgements and abstract await the same.

And finally, I’m pleased to report a completed hourglass pullover has made it into my closet. I finished the seaming last weekend, and gave it a good solid wet block this week. It’s a perfect pullover. Comfy enough for every-day, but neat enough to make you look sharp. The only drawback I found (and I really do mean only: count me among the adoring masses of this pattern, stat) to the sweater is that the front and back are identical. Without a dip for the front, I find myself tugging to make sure it’s not creeping up too far, or wondering if I’m putting it on the right way. But I’ve got a bunch more worsted wool in the stash earmarked for another one of these babies, soon enough. A great piece to wear.

The happy bit of pink in that picture is the start of the wrap baby sweater from the Knit Cafe book (borrowed from G). One of my grad colleagues has just had a baby girl, already 4 weeks old. I’m knitting this up for her in KnitPicks’s Shine Sport. It’s soft, it’s pink, and the only thing making it happier was sitting in a sunny spot this morning having the thrill of casting on something new.

What is this strange feeling? I get to start a new project again? Progress updates to come. As soon as I’m done with my proverbial seaming on the thesis.

But what would the Doozers wear?

My first official day as a commuter done, and I only made my lunch companions pose for one touristy picture in Yorkville. Maybe it’s the thesis revision stage making me punchy. Also, it might just be the Fall TV blitz going on, but I was in no way bothered by seeing Michael Vartan’s face plastered all over Union Station ads. Or the Laura Secord cone (crunchy chocolate chip) that passed the time waiting for the train to pull out.

In knitting, the hourglass pullover continues (in good pace actually: I’m onto the yoke and have just a few more inches of decreasing before the collar. Hot damn.) but last week I managed to crank out a fun little gem with two balls of Online Linie SmashCrazy from the tent sale at the Needle Emporium. Usually I have to admit a whole lot of weirdness around novelty yarns. I don’t know what to do with them and I’m convinced that one person’s funky!cool is another person’s “you knit WHAT?”. So in that vein, I’m still deciding on this one.

1) This will be so funky and fun to wear all fall! I’ll stay so warm yet stylish in that chilly air, and no way you’d get this in a store!

or

2) The Fraggles in my basement are shedding, but look at this cool scarf you can make out of it!

Whatever it is, it was fast, it was on 10mm needles, and I’m kicking myself daily for not cramming more of that stuff into my grab bags.