YOP: Post 5

I'm really enjoying this group. Although I only seem to be posting YOP updates, at least I'm posting something! 
In the last few weeks I've started my next listed project: the cardigan for myself.
In the end it isn't one of the patterns I had listed, but who cares.
The pattern I've chosen is 'Chocolate Passion', a jacket-cardigan kind of thing with cables.


















I made the first sleeve while watching the last two days of the Olympics and made the second one while travelling back from the UK ten days ago. On that same trip I started the back, but I had to leave that aside for a while because it has been too hot to knit that kind of thing for the last week or so. But the weather has taken a turn for the cooler end of the spectrum and made some more progress on it yesterday. The colour of the yarn is just gorgeous, but sadly it doesn't show very well on photos...

Although I didn't work on my cable cardigan, the heat didn't stop me knitting. I cast on a shawl(ette) to take me through the hot spell and it is blocking as I'm typing. This one really needed to be blocked! The pattern is 'Lunatis Folium'. It's my second bottom-up construction and I still haven't decided whether I like the idea or not. I think that it's main advantage is that it's a better idea is your yardage is just slightly under what is required: you can just play around a little with the short rows, whereas in an top-down shawl you can't just not knit the last row of lace, you have to rip it all back. I don't really mind monster cast-ons either. The thing that keeps me from loving this construction is that I like to see the shawl's basic shape grow, something that just doesn't happen in bottom up.
Anyway, this particular one is not your traditional shawl shape. It's very long, but also very shallow, so I can't really decide whether it's a shawl or a shawlette...

As you can see, blocking really does miracles for this thing. Without it, it's just a sausage with points on one side. When I blocked the Ginko Shawlette, I used some improvised blocking wires for the first time and when I did some more research into them, I read that some people use cotton thread as a blocking wire, so I thought I'd give that a go.
The verdict: not as good as real wire, but miles better than pins on their own. I didn't really look for any techniques, I just gave it a try, so I think that I might just do some surfing around later to see whether I can find anything...

The other project I've make a little bit of progress on is my green granny blanket.
I'm now working on the final part, the long rounds. My lime green is practically finished and I've got one more skein of the other green left, so I'm looking for one last skein of dark green to do the final stripes and bring the whole thing together. After that, there'll be a few ends to weave in (but not too many) and that should be it!

Mnz

YOP: Post 3

 After finishing my first YOP project (which wasn't even officially on my list, but it helped me to learn continental knitting, so it counts, I've started my second one: the Pioneer top. Although Bella Paquita is still my favourite knitted top, I had some cotton in my stash that gave me a good gauge for Pioneer.
The yarn is a mysterious cotton I bought at the market in Spain. I bought four skeins when I was over at Easter in 2011 and so far I had only used 3/4 of one for my Ribbed Lace Bolero, so it was time to use it!








This top has twisted stitch columns and I had totally forgotten how to do those. Luckily the Internet means you're never far from a refresher, so I got the hang of them again, but they don't show very well in this yarn, which I don't really mind because this one is all about the colour for me. For one the photos aren't too bad, although it's slightly less blue in real life. I've also entered this project for the Ravellenics, so I hope I get it finished before next Sunday... I've got two travelling days planned between then and now so it should be OK, but it'll be a challenge.


Why do people destash? To make room for more yarn of course! It'll be my birthday soon, so I decided to treat myself to some new yarn.

The first three skeins are acrylic in three different shades of blue for my Sky Spirals blanket (which was originally a destashing blanket, but I realised that I'd have to add some more yarn if I wanted it to reach a decent size.

Next are a skein of Manos del Uruguay silk blend (for a shared shawlette for my mother and me) and a ball of rainbow (tropical fish) Zauberball. I've always loved this yarn, but I don't know what I will do with it yet...











Last but not least: three skeins of locally dyed sock yarn, two for myself and one for my mother.  I must say I prefer the colours in her purple skein, but I don't like the flecks, so I'm really happy with mine too!












This amount of yarn should keep me busy for quite a while, but I have a lot of items to make before I can even dream of using then. Hmmm. Okay, I think tonight I might just dream of them. There's something wrong with me, isn't there?

Mnz

Blankets Galore

For the last few months I've been seaming other people's knitting. The big blanket I named 'the seaming adventure' is now finished. I don't really mind seaming, which is good because this blanket consists of nine squares that each consist of 16 squares. That makes 144 squares in total!

This image is not a real one, but a photoshop collage of three images because I was unable to take photo of the whole blanket in one go. It took 18 skeins of acrylic in various colours and in the beginning I was rather worried that the colours really wouldn't work together. In the end, it doesn't look too bad at all, I think... I did a granny crochet border in black round the edge to make it look a little more finished, but you can't really see that on the image.

The other blanket I've been working on is a sampler afghan.
 My father knitted it (yes, you read that correctly, my father was even the one who taught me how to knit ) and he asked me to do a border round it in the style of the ten-stitch blanket.
 Because I didn't want to be working with the whole blanket every time I worked on the border, so I started it in two different places and then unravelled the cast-on edges and joined with the kitchener stitch (the first time I used it to seam garter stitch!) The seams are not totally invisible, but They're just about okay...

There was a minor problem involving the rows of squares that had the beginning of the border on them getting seamed to the wrong side of the blanket, but I think I actually looks better this way, the pattern block diagonals aren't so strong any more, which makes it looks more random and home-made...

I've also made some progress on the green granny squares blanket, but nothing worthy of a photo...
Mnz

Two months on

Wow, I haven't blogged for more than two whole months. The explanation for that is that not much has happened.
 I've completed my Miró blanket, which I presented at my Aesthetics exam on in June. Even though it's only loosely in Miró's style, I think it looks okay and I think my teacher liked it. He'd probably never seen anything of the kind...
In the end, I got 80%, definitely not bad huh?





I've gone on knitting my mother's socks and they sort of ground to a halt for a while, but a whole afternoon of chatting and knitting at Zuiddag last week gave me the chance to finish them off.
The problem with these was that they progressed very slowly as other projects seemed to creep in front of them in the WIP-queue. Something that did just that is my new shawl, a 'more than a triangle' shawl, which I started after being inspired by Stiched-together's Blog week shawl with it's beautiful stripes. I have a disproportionate love for stripes, especially for black and multicoloured ones.

It's a simple garter stitch shawl that lends itself very well to striping. The only problem I had was that it got quite asymmetrical colour-wise as it grew. Because the yarn's colour repeats are a set length, the colour that I began knitting a garter ridge with was usually very different to the colour the yarn was when I got to the same place at the end of the row. Obviously this didn't happen on the other side. This problem manifested itself after about 15 colour ridges = 30 ridges = 60 rows. To solve it I then changed direction and purled for 10 colour ridges = 20 ridges = 40 rows. After that I was rather fed up of purling and changed back to knitting. It blocked out slightly asymmetrical in shape because even though the colour change tightens the edge, it's not as tight as the slip stitch edge I did on the other side. I'll have to do something about that when I knit another one, as I think that is very probable...


Another blanket that I have been working on is my green stashbursting granny square blanket. Because I sewed the center panel and didn't join as I went, I have to sew the next row of squares and then add a few rows round the center panel and then join it to the row of squares. I'll still have some yarn left after that and the blanket is hardly a reasonable size, so I'll have to decide whether to do more squares or to just do more rounds round the whole thing. We'll see.

Another stashburster I'm trying is a double ten stitch twist. I'm using the yarn I reclaimed from my frogged Printemps cardigan, together with all sorts of blues and greys. The colour rule is: If the sky can be that colour, then it's allowed. The first swatch I did with these yarns was a log cabin shape, but I decided against it because the striping in the yarn stops you from seeing the construction. I didn't really follow the pattern as I had already made a single ten stitch blanket for my Miró project. the biggest mod is that my center is a bit different to the original version. I also chose to knit one spiral at a time a keep the other side on a stitchholder. I think my yarn would get very tangled if if knitted both spirals at the same time... It still looks a little weird and I have no idea how big it will be in the end, but I think there's enough blue yarn in my stash to keep me going for a while yet.

Mnz

flash your stash, three months on.

My stash in January.
Rather big, I know, even more so if you consider that I've only been knitting intensively for the last three years or so. But one of my new year's resolutions was to reduce it's size. And because I intend to keep that resolution, I'm going to flash it every three months, to keep it under control.

My stash today.
It seems to have shrunk a bit, which is definitely a good thing. The black and grey yarn is still there, and it probably won't budge now until autumn/winter, but as long as it gets used before the and of the year it should be okay. The three remaining skeins of white yarn will be used shortly, as will at least one of blue-white-metallic ones.

The Miró blanket keeps growing. I thought the result would be rather small in the beginning as I'm using the yarn held double, but it's already rather big and I still have 4 skeins left...
I've also started a new pair of socks for my mother. my next break-time WIP, which I will be needing, as the last term starts tomorrow... Oh well, before I realize it, the summer will be upon us ;)
Mnz

holiday knitting

Remember that white yarn that I didn't have a project for? Well, it told me it would like to be a blanket. I listened to it and thought for a while. We'd just received our exam plan for June, and I read that for the Aesthetics exam we'd have to produce a work of art inspired by a twentieth century artist. The art could be of any form: drawing, painting, music, dance, textiles,... Wait a minute: did it say 'textiles'? It did.

So, my choice was made fairly quickly. I was going to knit something. Next problem: what could I knit? While I was analysing my stash, I heard the call of the white yarn again. The choice was made. I'm going to knit a white blanket and use it as a canvas to recreate a work of art.The perfect pattern? One that has been in my queue for some time: the famous 'Ten Stitch Blanket'. I'm using the yarn held double and knitting with 7 mm needles. It's not the perfect mindless knit as you have to look at it to see where you need to pick up the stitch to join, but hey, it's good enough!

I plan to leave the spiral side as it is, and do some embroidery on the 'wrong side' to turn it into a 'work of art'. I'm not 100% sure of my artist, but my favourite -and my original- idea was to do something in the style of Miró. On the one hand because he was Spanish (yes, Catalan still counts as Spanish) and he's not that famous in Belgium, on the other hand simply because I like his paintings. I like the idea that art doesn't necessarily have to represent a certain object. As long as it's aesthetically pleasing, it's fine on me. Another reason for my choice is that it shouldn't be too difficult to crochet/embroider something in the style of one of his 'Constellation' paintings onto the blanket.




I've also finished my first pair of autumn socks. When I took the photo they still had to be grafted and have the ends woven in, but that has been done since and the socks are on my feet at this very moment. Autumnal socks for spring. Sort of sounds like singing Christmas carols in summer, slightly weird, but hey, the socks are comfy, so who cares?

Mnz

March

 March is over and that means the holidays are back again :)
 Due to an amazing amount of schoolwork I've only been able to do half the usual amount of knitting, but I plan to make up for that during the holidays...
I finished the Wingspan shawl and I must say I think the construction is pure genius. It's so simple and yet it looks so spectacular (to non-knitters mostly, people who knit themselves tend to see the construction quite easily) I think I might knit another one next autumn because I'm a bit disappointed about the colour outcome. I wanted a green shawlette and this one turned out rather blue. It's not that I dislike that, but I just want a green shawlette, that's all...

The blanket is also progressing.
I've sewn seven squares to date, I've now posted photo's of six because I dropped one off at my grandmothers without taking a photo of it. I've now decided how the colours are combined within the blocks, but I'm still thinking about how to put the blocks together in the blanket as a whole. There will be 3 squares composed of different blues, 2 with pinks and purples and 2 green and brown and then one grey and turquoise-green (in Dutch they have a fantastic word for that colour: 'appelblauwzeegroen' or 'appleblueseagreen' which always amuses me as, in the normal world, the apples tend to be green and the sea blue) and one red and white. It won't exactly be what you might call stylish, but hey, the recipient wanted it to look home-made. And what looks more home-made that a slightly mismatched monster blanket?

I've also started a new jumper, a little 'printemps' cardigan. The method used to shape the sleeves is a new one on me, we'll see how they turn out.
 I've had the yarn in my stash for some years now and although I like the colours, I never really knew what to do with it given the quantity of yarn in the pack (400 gr.): not enough for a full sweater, but too much for a little shrug, although it seams that I might have got a -more or less- full sweater out of it as, at this stage, I still have 2 & 1/3 skeins of yarn left... Anyway, it's not finished yet, so we'll see.

Termtime also means socktime. Blocking my autumn shawl reminded me that I had some of that yarn left, but I wasn't sure whether it would be enough to knit a pair of stripey socks, so I divided the leftover ball into bits. Apparently I failed to keep them in the right order ;) Anyway, the second sock is on the needles, but I can't find the camera at the moment, so no photo yet.
A quarter of the year has passed now, so I'll be flashing my stash again at the end of the holidays to check my destashing progress.
Mnz