showing off shawls

a couple years ago hubby got this mirrored coat rack gratis from someone he helped.  it sat in the back porch collecting dust, destined for the rummage sale bin.

a few months ago one of my favorite bloggers posted about what she did with her shawls.  she hung them on a shaker peg board.  i thought it was an awesome arrangement, although i had no place to hang a pegboard, as we have coat hooks by the front and back doors and they contained, well, our coats.  i didn't know where else i could hang them becos i wanted to show them off.

i remembered this coat rack and toyed with stripping and staining it, or painting it a totally different color, but i had no idear where to put it.  one night as i was going to bed, i noticed one of our bedroom walls.  it had a couple pictures hanging on it (an old picture of the boy and a caricature we did at a fall festival).  i thought it would be a good place to hang the coat rack and put my shawls on it.  

the kids were at my parents' house for the weekend and hubby and i were working around the house and he offered to hang up the rack.

(that's my hope chest underneath the rack, covered with pillows, a quilt and our childhood stuffies.)



i love how colorful my shawls are, and they lend a splash of color in our otherwise plain bedroom.  

blast from the past shawl

this is the first shawl i ever knit.  i made it seven (!!) years ago.  it's so old it doesn't have a ravelry page.  i guess i'll have to remedy that.

it's knitted with red heart (!!!) on (if memory serves) on size 10.5 needles.  interestingly it is knit sideways instead of from side to side.



when i still had a knitting group at my old church, i left my shawl on a quilter's rack, to be used by someone who was cold in church, or if someone wanted to pass it on as a prayer shawl.  when i stopped by the church a few months ago to pick up the Bible the boy got for a third grade milestone, i spied my shawl on the rack, half hidden by other small afghans, and filched it.  i think, sometime down the line, the new pastor may remove the rack and afghans, and they'll wind up at a rummage sale, and i didn't want my shawl to meet that fate.

it's fun to see how far my knitting has come, from this simple garter shawl, to the lacy nupped shawls i knit now.

done!

done, done and DONE!

celtic owl hat, my first stranded project.  knitting two handed is a pain, but i love the result

this is a christmas gift for my dad.  shhhhh!

pre blocked...

more details...


top view.  i think i goofed the top up, but i don't think it's noticeable...


my floats...not too shabby!  the designer suggested knotting the ends together as they would felt when worn.  for the first half of the hat i wove in my ends...but dear bob is it a PITA, so for the rest of the hat i just knotted the ends out of sheer laziness.



my new favorite hat - rikke!


top of the hat...


arty shot of me modeling my hat.  i swear it's growing becos it seems more slouchy every time i wear it!



the million dollar albatross mom's shawl.


my shawl is crooked becos i started it back in the summer and when i picked it up i forgot to increase on the first and last stitch of each row, hence the shawl's weird shape.  at first it put me off, but when i put it on the "arms" of the shawl hang down the front and the shawl sits nicely on my shoulders.  my mom is not a "shawl wrapper" and i think she'll like this.  the pattern was to make a child sized shawl with fringe along the edge, but i kept on knitting until, as EZ puts it "knit until i was sick of knitting it".  i used only one ball of yarn.  i still have another ball of yarn (that would be for the matching mommy scarf).

i still have to make grams gloves, and i started knitting coffee cup cozies for the boy's teachers.  i have 5 of these things to knit.  i'm not in the mood for knitting (been hitting the books lately) - wish me luck!

stephen west mystery KAL

back in the summer i joined rockefeller, stephen west's mystery KAL for this year.  for four weeks, stephen released a clue every friday.  i chose dream in color smooshy in cocoa kiss for the border and aisling yarns merino superwash in finnigan's rainbow for the contrasting color.

here's week one's clue.  the new skill i learned with this clue was how to do a german short rows.

i slacked and neglected to get shots of clues 2, 3 and 4.  so to catch you up...

completed shawl, showing my mods, pre blocked.

close up of clue #4, the arm...



close up of clue 3 - the edge - i love the body of the shawl.



close up of clue one and clue two...




as i was running out of my variegated yarn, i had to make some modifications.  to wit: for clue number four, the "wings" of the shawl were an 8 row pattern - four rows of alternating colors, decreasing on the third and seventh rows.  i decided to do 20 rows of 4X4, then switched to 2X2, decreasing on the first and third rows.  it made for a short wing.  for the other side, i did four rows in the dark yarn then cast off in i-cord.  the mods made my shawl more of a short wrap.

post-block.  my shawl grew, but not by much.



i was cooking with the first two clues of the pattern, but then the ravellenic games hit and i lost momentum that i never got back.  i almost wished i stuck with the kal and bagged the games.  it was so hard to work on this after losing my mojo.  running low on yarn also didn't help.  i guess i could have bought another skein of finnigan's rainbow but i didn't feel like it.  i was quickly losing interest in this project and just wanted it done.  i like stephen's designs - he's so innovative - but sadly, i peter out in the middle of them (see also, earth & sky).

my shawl is finished, just in time for autumn wear!  

it's a sickness, really, part 2

i'm slowly finishing up the third clue of the rockefeller.  i-cord bind off is a booger, let me tell you.  it's not hard, mind you, just takes for.ev.er to complete.

in the middle of knitting Rockefeller i heard about laura nelkin's trapeze mystery shawl kal.  this was another lace and bead shawl pattern, which used two colors of beads.  i searched for yarn in cleveland and bought 2 skeins of tosh merino light in dried rose before deciding to buy two skeins of tosh sock in steam age.  i bought a couple colors of beads that coordinated with either colors - the ones i don't use i can use for a future project.

why did i choose steam age?  most of my shawls are either green or purple.  actually, the majority of my stash is green, purple or blue.  i have very little grey in my stash, and i liked the tarnished color of steam age.  of course it has a bit of magenta and peacock blue spotted throughout.  what can i say?  i like purple and blue-green.


you know those ads they have at the bottom of ravelry pages?  those things are the work of the devil - i lose more money to them!  anywho, i saw an ad for malice in wonderland.  as the name suggests, it sounds like a doozy of a KAL.  i'm always up for a challenge tho, so i bought the pattern and stash dived for yarn.  as luck had it, i had the perfect "widely variegated" fingering weight with enough yardage for the shawl, but i needed to find a coordinating solid to go with it.  the dried rose tosh would fit the bill, but i put it in destash on rave and as luck had it, someone wanted to buy it (from denmark, no less).  i sighed, prayed to the karma gods, and took the yarn off destash and emailed the knitter back that unfortunately i couldn't sell it (thankfully she understood).  this KAL begins in a few weeks, but i'll be knitting on trapeze, so it'll have to wait.


if two KALs weren't enough, i found this TBA KAL.  beads and garter ridges.  i just need to dig up 720 yards of sport weight!

i also bought yarn to make the kiddos hoot cardigans.  i have no idear when i'm going to knit these!

my name is k1k2, and i'm addicted to shawl knit alongs.  help me!

shawls

i cleaned off my dining room chairs so we'd have enough chairs for the kiddos' birthday dinner, and i found my pile of shawls.  it was like an archaeological dig.  to wit:

i had no idear i had this many shawls!

from left to right:

basic triangle shawl in cherry tree hill thick and thin in vineyard (completed spring 2007.  it predates ravelry and i didn't have it in my completed projects list!)
multnomah (aka it takes balls to be a butterfly) (summer 2010)
citron (aka hot tomato) (summer 2011)
petunia's princess shawl (summer 2012)


from left to right:

earth and sky (summer 2012)
nefarious web (summer 2012)
diantha (winter 2012)
faraway so close (fall 2010)
clapotis (aka linus) (fall 2008)

i missed sweet william (the hot pink one on the right) in the earlier batch of pics (becos it was with my fair pile), so i took another picture of my shawls, tangled on the floor:


somewhere i saw a picture that someone took of their shawls - the shawls hung on a shaker peg rack.  someday, when we have a bigger house and i have a room of my own, i'm going to hang my shawls from pegs on the wall.  for now, i'll have to make do with a basket:


i think i need a bigger basket.  

{this moment}

{this moment} - a friday ritual.  a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.  a simple, special, extraordinary moment.  a moment i want to pause, savor and remember.  this feature is inspired by soulemama.

if you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your "moment" in the comments for all to find and see.

i finished my earth and sky shawl, knit with 31G wexford merino silk in you are my sunshine and coordinating YAMS green and purple.  i knit it with size 7 needles.  becos i knitted with a worsted weight yarn instead of a fingering as suggested by the pattern, my shawl is holy hanna hyuge!!  and when i wet blocked it, i swear it doubled in width.

i was afraid to soak my shawl becos i loved the softness of the yarn, but i'm happy to report that the shawl retained its squishable softness.  and look at those colors.  

i sewed a tiny pewter butterfly to the underside cast off end.  whenever i see two butterflies dancing, i think of ani and mac.


this shawl is so cuddly and warm.  it's the perfect comfort shawl for me.

i am so grateful for three irish girls for making this yarn a possibility.  i am so sorry for the reasoning behind the creation of YAMS and last year's glimpse, but whenever i see this shawl, and petunia's shawl, and when i come across my YAMS adorn and glimpse springvale sock, i remember ani and mac, and charlie for whom the yarn was dedicated to.  

nefarious web

i completed another mystery KAL, this time a pattern by criminal knits called nefarious web.  it was a four part mystery shawl pattern, using beads, with clues sent out on wednesdays.

i chose cephalopod yarns traveller in rumfata legarrin, a pretty chartreuse.  it was the only yarn i had that i had enough yardage for the shawl.  traveller is a dk weight yarn, a little heavier than the pattern called for, but i figured it would just make for a bigger shawl.

the first clue was the beaded border, which took me a couple days to complete...

the second clue...



the third clue.  i had a bit of trouble with this clue - i miscounted stitches and the spine of the shawl was crooked, so i had to tink 4 rows.  the designer said that stitch markers could be removed for this section but i kept mine in to keep my stitch count in check (see above picture)...


the fourth clue.  i miscounted stitches at the beginning and had to tink a couple rows again.  becos the stitch markers were gone at this point, i had to concentrate on my work (read: no kids).


blocked out after a good soak.  holy hanna, traveller blooms like whoa.  i also discovered that my shawl dried quicker with these blocks (they were the kiddos' play floor when they first became mobile.)


lace detailing...


beading detail.  not the flashiest beads but they were the only ones that worked.  i bought (and returned)  packs and bottles of beads at michaels becos they were too small to thread with a hook (and they were too small for the hook to boot!).


nefarious web in a natural setting...



details are found on my project page.  i used a size 8 crochet hook for the crochet cast on, and the entire shawl was knit on size 5 circs.  the shawl used up nearly every bit of the two skeins i had on hand.  i panicked and bought a third skein (i used my a4a certificate to purchase it) and wound up not needing it anyway.  so if anyone wants to buy a skein of traveller in rumfata legarrin, drop me a line!

i had a lot of fun with this KAL.  it was challenging pattern but it had plenty of twists to make it interesting.

FO - sweet william

i finished my shawl for my upcoming reunion.  rav details are here, but this is all you really need to know.

pattern is diantha, medium size.  knit with verdant gryphon traveller in fields of sweet william, i used a US size 10 needle and crochet hook for the crochet cast-on (i used my favorite crochet hook; it's now MIA and after digging around my love seat for it, i fear that it was accidentally thrown away by one of my "helpful" kiddos).  the shawl was knit with a US size 7 needle.

i cruised through the lace section and short rows, and probably could have completed the shawl in 2 weeks instead of 4 (i had a little bit of mojo issues as usual).  becos i used a dk weight yarn instead of fingering, the shawl is a little bit bigger than my original dianthus.

i couldn't take a good picture that accurately shows the colors of the shawl.  it's fuchsia with a touch of purple.

lace section - done!

short rows in glaring neon - done!


some day i'll have ample space (and more blocking boards) to do a good blocking...


arty nature shot (wrong side of the shawl facing - i have no idear how i missed this...)


still wrong sided...


fixed!


i love how the pink pops on my chartreuse bush...


i adore working with VG traveller - loved knitting with it;  it blocked out to amazing proportions, and feels wonderful wrapped around my shoulders.