Dug in Shadow

I finished a Sonja Esbensen shawl on Monday night, the dug from this free pattern. Instead of cotton and size 1 or 2 needles, I used Knit Picks Shadow in the color Sunset. Kevin bought this yarn for me a year or two ago for my birthday. Knitted on size 9 needles and cast off with size I crochet hook, it is very open and lace, measuring 60 inches across pinned out on the bed. It'll relax to probably 56 or 58 when it's completely dry.

This is a 102 round pattern. If it were any smaller, it wouldn't work well for a shawl unless you used heavier yarn and even larger needles. I love how open it is, and it'll still be warm on my shoulders. Next time you see a doily pattern you like, take a chance and knit it large. You won't be disappointed.

 There was only one error in this pattern, a missing yarnover in round 81. There are 3 sets of what should be “yo, twisted stitch, yo”, but the center set omits the second yarn over and if you don't catch it, you'll find you are one stitch short on round 83.

So, round 81 should read:

(ssk, yo)3x, ssk, k5, k2tog, yo, (k2tog, yo)5x, ssk, k1, yo, k1twisted, yo, k1, k2tog, yo, k2, yo, k1twisted, yo, k2, yo, ssk, k1, yo, k1twisted, yo, k1, k2tog, yo, (ssk, yo)2x.

I'll take some more drapey pics when it's dry and unpinned.

Chris

I started Chris by Sonja Esbensen way back in March and finished it about 2 weeks ago. I blocked it out to 74" diameter and it relaxed down to 68" diameter, just right for my 5'8" frame.;) I had to block it folded in half so it would fit on the bed. I have never done that before, but it worked out well and wasn't as much of a pain as I thought it might be.

I LOVE the yarn, Dream in Color Baby, and I LOVE the color, Black Parade. It's mostly black with bits of blueish green here and there to jazz it up a bit. Not enough value contrast to make the pattern look funny, but enough to give it richness and depth.
 

 Errata- The only problem I found with this chart is that they do not list rounds 105-110, which normally means you should knit that round. In this case, the photo makes it obvious that this is not the case. Purl rounds 100-104 then proceed diractly to round 111 (do not pass go, do not collect $200).

I cast on for Bent 1 last week. Ellen gave away a bunch of fine alpaca yarn last year at the HGB knitters group, and I snagged a cone of chocolate brown. It's knitting up a little skimpy on size 2 needles, but I'm hoping it will bloom nicely when it's washed and blocked.

Blocked Veronika

I forgot the one thing I did get done this week. I finished knitting Veronika last weekend and got it blocked last night. Ta da!

 There are some errata and clarifications, plus I made a change to the design. Elizabeth from the NieblingLaceKnitters yahoo group was kind enough to share what the blurry symbols are, as well as the "move marker" symbols seem to go the wrong way. She figured it out from trial and error, saving the rest of us some time and effort. Thanks, Elizabeth! Here are her clarifications and corrections:

Round 1- (one) make 4 from 1
R13- (one) k4tog
R15- move marker forward 1 stitch
R35- (six) make 3 from 1
R37- move marker backwards one stitch
R45- (two) k9tog
R47- (six) make 3 from 1
R57- (three) make 3 from 1, (two) k9tog, (three) make 3 from 1
R67- (two) k9tog.

For the Make 4 from 1's  I decided to do (k1, yo)2x instead of alternating knits and purls. It made the start MUCH faster and easier. Did the Make 3 from 1's as k1, yo, k1. Don't think it made much difference visually, but the ease of it sure helped my attitude, especially since I had to start over after 60-someodd rounds the first time. I decided to do all the k9tog's as slip 6 individually, k3tog, pass slipped stitches over. Very do-able.

The other change I made was in the number of repeats for rounds 77 through the end. The pattern calls for 20 repeats of a 16 stitch sequence. Since there are 8 repeats in the rest of the pattern, I changed it to 16 repeats of a 20 stitch sequence. To do that, I added one unit of hex mesh (k2tog, yo, yo, ssk) to the repeat. I wound up knitting 2 extra rounds, but I really prefer the look of it. Cleaner and more intentional, I think.

Blocked out to 20" in circumference, and it looks smashing on the dark wood table. Victory!

Veronika Redux

 

A few days ago I cast on Verokia again, this time with larger needles and thread (yes, size 20 thread and size 0 needles count as larger this time). The lighter color also helped, as did the method of increase used. I decided all the make 3's would be knit1, yo, knit1, and all the make 4's would be (knit1, yo)2x. Way easier, and way faster, than alternating knits and purls in the same stitch. Especially since the big increases start on round 1 of the chart! 

I've knitted through round 36 so far. There is errata for this pattern, but I think I'm going to post it all at once when I'm done.

Bertel

 

This one was a joy to knit! Very regular, no weird increases or decreases. If it was larger than it was, I would no doubt have gotten bored, but this was fine. I like how it looks, too.

There was one mistake in the chart. On round 59, you need to slip 2 stitches from the left needle to the right needle in order for everything to line up.

Bent 2

 

This is Bent 2 by Sonja Esbensen. I used size 10 DMC cebelia and size 1 needles. It's about 12" across. There was an error in round 43. The last knit 3 in the repeat should be a double decrease. So, it should read: (yo, double decrease, yo, knit 1, double decrease, knit 1)3x,  yo, double decrease, yo, double decrease.

The sequence for grouping stitches didn't make sense, and didn't match up to the repeat length at all, corrected or not. This is what I did- knit 2 stitches, then group stitches as follows: 4-3-3-3-4-5 with 7 chain stitches between them.

Stefan, bread

Here's the second Esbensen doily, Stefan. No trouble with the charts, a nice quick knit!

I picked up a great book at the library over the holidays, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. Lots of great reciped for bread that doesn't require kneading or living by a lengthy schedule dictated by rising times. It's nice to have fresh, real bread every day. We've had a different type of bread every week since Christmas and there are plenty more recipes left to try.

Veronika Ripped, Lars

I had a streak of bad luck once I got around 62+ rounds in on this one. I dropped a stitch that ran down about 4 rounds, started tinking back and  dropped another one after about a round and half, then dropped a third one right over (and down into) one of the k9togethers. So I ripped it! I'll probably start again sometime soon, but for now I need to work on something simpler with larger thread.

I started knitting a few of the doilies from Sonja Esbensen's book Kunststrik 2. Lars had a couple of errors, but it was easy to spot them and easy to fix them.

Corrections:
The cast on instructions tell you to cast on 12 and knit 1 round. To get the look in the picture, though you need to knit 3 rounds before you start the chart.

In round 36, omit the last yarn over to get the correct stitch count and maintain the pattern lines. It should read “yo, knit 1, yo, double decrease, yo, knit 4, yo, double decrease, yo, knit 1, yo, knit 1, double decrease, knit 1”

Veronika

Just had to cast on a lace piece! I've been knitting simple things (socks, domino scarves, JMS) over the holidays, now I'm ready for some complexity. Someone in the Niebling Lace Knitters yahoo group mentioned this free pattern Veronika and we decided to do it a knit-along. I cast on last night with size 80 tatting thread and size 0000 needles. The first round was tricky, increasing every stitch to 4 stitches right off the bat with nothing to hold on to. Took me 45 minutes. The third round was a bit fiddly, too, establishing the twisted stitches that form the central flower. The rest wasn't bad at all. I made it through round 17 before I decided it was bedtime.

Listening to The Specials lately, need a little ska to get me going. Finn starts dancing every time I have it on in the kitchen. Gotta start 'em young........

Dance of the Butterflies 2

I'm making progress on the new scarf after a bit of a wrong turn on chart 3. It looked great on graph paper, but knitted up the motifs looked too squished together. I think this is the first time my DH noticed that I did a serious amount of ripping. He seemed quite alarmed. ;) I fixed the chart, spreading the motifs out in both direction. Now it looks much better! It's also good to know that the Dream In Color rips well. I'm liking this yarn very much!

Chart 4 is the central bit of the pattern, 16 repeats of it makes up the bulk of the chart. I'm about halfway done with the blue scarf as of today. I wasn't sure how the pattern in the edging would look, but I'm liking it! Really frames the knitting nicely.


As for the Infinity scarf, I've knitted through chart 2 so far. I'll get back to it soon. The soysilk is a little fussier to knit. It's very slippery. I think it will look gorgeous when it's done, but right now I'm not in the mood to pay that much attention.

Blocking Lace- Part 2

Looked all over, bought new pins, found the old ones. ;) Now I have lots. All the loops have been pinned out and I can get the other stuff out. I have done all of this dry. Now I need to wet it and starch it.


I have a plant mister that works really well for wetting it down. I mist it pretty thoroughly, then let the cotton absorb the water for a bit. You don't want it dripping wet, but the whole surface should be damp.

The little bottle has a 50/50 mixture of liquid starch and water. Spray pretty thoroughly with this one, too, but don't go overboard. A 50/50 mix is on the strong side, but the water already in the cotton dilutes it a bit. What I look for is even coverage. Make sure you spray the whole surface so you don't get limp spots. I usually go over the whole thing once in horizontal lines, then again vertically. Go around the edge once for good measure. Set the board up against something and let it dry thoroughly. When it's totally dry, unpin it and find somplace for it to live where you can enjoy it.

Blocking Lace- Part 1

I finished knitting the snowflake doily last week and thought I would take this opportunity to take pictures as I block it. No matter how many times I knit lace and block it, I'm still amazed at the transformation a little water and tension cause.

Everybody seems to have their own favorite way to block lace. This is how I do it lately.

My blocking board is a piece of foamcore. You can get it cheaply and easily in 20x30" sheets or 32x40" sheets. This is a small one. Since this doily had 6 repeats, I used a board divided into 6, then 12 sections. If you use a sharpie the marks won't rub off. I made a mark every inch along each line (the center point is zero, 1" mark is 1" from center, etc.) so I can stretch it out evenly. I mark each 5th inch mark with the number of inches so I don't have to count too much. You can put marks for different numbers of repeats on either size, so for instance on this particular board I can block things with 6 or 12 sections on one side and 5 or 10 sections on the other. I just make them as I need them, then use them over and over.

So you get a bunch of t-pins (a big bunch, you'll need one for every cast-off loop), find the center of the doily, put a pin through it and stick the pin through the center point on the board, where all the lines come together. This keeps it centered as you stretch the doily and add pins. Also lets you know if you've gotten it a bit wonky. I've tried the flower pins, but they are a bit on the wimpy side and tend to bend. T-pins are much sturdier.

This doily has 6 main sections so I found the same point on all 6 sections and pinned them out. For this one I used the center of the edge frill right at the corners of the lacy part. Eachone is different and you can pick any spot you like, but it's easier if you choose the center of something. You want to put a pin througha bit of knitting right on the edge, or a chain stitch loop, and pull it towards you a comfortable amount. No need to pull it very tight, just get the slack out of it plus a little. Check which inch mark you are near and try to keep them all the same distance from the center. If you start out too tight (while there is only tension in one direction) it will be hard to keep the tension even as you pin out the rest of it (when there will be tension in several directions). Angle the pins a little bit away from the center so they hold tight and the knitting doesn't slip towards the t section.

Next pin out a point halfway between the first points. In this design there was another edge frill on the center of the straight edge, so I used that. This set of pins doesn't need to be pinned at the same distance from the center as the first set, but all of the pins in this set need to be at the same distance as the others in this set. For a round or square doily, anyway.

Next you pin out a spot between the first set and the second set, right in between them if you can. This doily has sticking stitch points, so that choice is easy. This set doesn't have to be the same distance out as the other sets, but they should be the same distance as each other.

Now it's time to pin out the individual loops. Start next to the points you have pinned out and work out towards the others. Once the 2 loops in either side of an original pin are placed you can remove the original pin if you like. You can pull the lace a bit farther out or release a little tension at this point to enhance the over all effect, or if you are not happy with the choice you nade earlier. You can decide, based on the design and what you see in it, to make the edges curvy or straight, or ?. This one had such a geometric feel to it that I've decided to reinforce that by pinning out the edge frill to make an angle.

At this point, I've gone through the first box of pins and need to find the other one before I can proceed any further.

Dance of the Butterflies

A few weeks ago, someone bought a Butterfly Pi shawl pattern and asked me if I could convert it into a scarf pattern. I said I'd give it a go, so that's what I've been working on for the past few weeks. I had to do a lot more recharting than I thought, but I really like the design and have started knitting a couple to see what it looks like. I bought a skein of Dream in Color Baby in the color Some Summer Sky for one of them, and a cone of lilac South West Trading Company Infinity for the other.

The Dream in Color is a bit on the heavy side for laceweight, but it knits up really nicely. I'm using size 5 needles and knitting this scarf from the handwritten charts. So far I've knitted through chart 2. It'll be a nice warm scarf when it's done.


The Infinity soysilk is much thinner, so I'm knitting it on size 2 needles. It'll be better suited to a warm climate or indoor wear, and I can tell already that it'll drape beautifully. I'm proofing the spreadsheet chart with this one, to make sure everything got entered correctly. I finished the edging chart a few days ago.

Snowflake Doily

This weekend I decided to take a break from "should" knitting and do some "want to" knitting. Yay! I needed a break. On Friday night I cast on the lovely Niebling doily from the spring issue of Anna magazine. It isn't named, but it reminds me of a snowflake. I'm using the leftover thread from the Piecework doily and size 0 needles. I made it to round 50 last night. About 20 rounds to go, give or take. This one has pattern on almost every round, making stitch markers and counting very important. It's been challenging so far, but it makes sense the way the pattern emerges. No chart errors so far!

For those of you who don't knit much lace, this is the "before" picture. It's lumpy and weird looking now, but when it's been cast off and blocked it'll be magically transformed. Just wait a few days and you'll see.