Transformation

If you have seen my work before it is no surprise that I love lace. Once I worked my first lace piece I knew I would be hooked. My favorite part about it is the incredible transformation that takes place after it is done. Here is a before shot of my latest piece.



Close up.



It is knitting but really the design is totally lost in what looks like a pile of yarn.

After a good soaking and A LOT of pins, since each little scallop had to be pinned separately, you have a shot of it drying.



Totally different. Also if you take a close look you can see how much the piece grew in size from the blocking as it started out on only 2 mats but needed 5 for the final. You can now see the leaves and all the detail work that is lace knitting. The blocking on this piece took me a full hour but after knitting on and off on it for almost 6 weeks it was worth doing right.





Love it! The yarn is a magical blend of alpaca and silk and the finished piece weighs less then 3.5oz. It also has a fabulous sheen from the silk and halo from the alpaca. Truly magical! The yarn came from Germany and the color turned out to be perfect for the lace.

Finally a FO!

Thursday was the final "clue" for the Wendy Knits mystery shawlette. Since it was only 20 rows long with each row getting shorter it was easy to finish up. I quickly knit it and put it right into soak for the blocking. I used lace yarn even though the pattern called for fingering as I have a good size stash of lace. I did add extra repeats to make it larger as I find small shawls to be rather useless.



The plan is to give it away, I find this to be much more fun then selling anything. I know someone who is very appreciative of hand knit pieces so it should be well received.

Great or Crazy!?

Okay...I need some help. I have been thinking about this idea since I started on the other granny squares. I have a TON of handspun yarn that is sitting around. A lot of it goes together well as I tend to gravitate towards a certain color palette.



The plan is to take all of these yarns, crochet granny squares, in a different pattern then I am doing now and make a blanket. The handspun will stripe slightly on its own due to the way it is spun so each square will be done with just one color. This will also maximize my yarn as there will be less ends to weave in. I would do a plain yarn on the last round of each to bring it all together.

Am I crazy or does it sound like fun?! Any ideas, suggestions...throw them out there.

Grannys

So I have been busy with some stealth projects and with my hook. I am having a blast right now making granny square after granny square. I currently have 33 done and figure I need about 99 to get the blanket the size I want. Here they are.





I just love making them. I have been keeping careful notes on what color combos I have already done and hope to have them all different but I am not sure if that will be possible but I am going to try. I am already planning the next one maybe a hexagon granny with hand spun since I know I have a boat load of that stashed. Decisions...decisions....

New Design and some more crochet...

This week I released a new design, Trielle. It is knit in the very sumptuous Sunsilk by Sunshine Yarns. I used the color Ruby.



The yarn is a heavy lace/light fingering yarn so any of those would work. I have also included notes on how to up size the scarf to a shawl.

I have also been working on my crochet projects. Here is my Granny Stripe.


I also started a new Ripple blanket.

I am blending the colors by holding them together and then dropping one strand and adding in a new one. This makes for the very blended color changes which I love.

Now I just have to decide if my next project will be knit or crochet as I really love them both now.

Having fun!

So the crochet is really becoming something so fun! I am getting good at the pattern I am doing which is called Granny Stripe and I LOVE all the colors.



I think crochet and all the fun color combos are bringing out my inner hippie. I don't plan on making a granny square outfit anytime soon but for blankets and maybe even some pillows it is super fun. The hardest part might be deciding which color to use next. Here is what it looks like so far.



I have decided to change it up slightly since the pattern has stripes of just 2 rows each and I am going with a random pattern of different widths. I am hoping now that I have enough yarn as where I bought the yarn has no more left but they do plan to restock. The only problem there is that the dye lots would be different but I think with the stripe pattern it would not be too noticeable. Guess we will see and it might be a "go until you run out of yarn" size.

Learning something new!

I have decided that I want to learn to crochet. Armed with a book, a hook and lots of YouTube videos I have done just that.



I have been wanting to make a blanket for a while. I even bought yarn to do it but after a while of knitting on it I decided that knitting really wasn't the right way to go. So after finding this great blog with tons of inspiration and directions on how to do it I started to crochet. It is easier to pick up since I already knit and I knit continental so tensioning the yarn in my left hand comes naturally. I have already started the foundation of the blanket and can't wait to get moving along. I also decided that chaining and then single crocheting into all those loops sounded tedious so I jumped right in and learned how to do a foundation single crochet so no long chain to deal with. This is some fun stuff!