Finished and Donated

This shawl was actually all knit last summer as a charity project for Chicago’s Go Red, a Women’s Heart Health fundraiser.  It sat waiting to be blocked, and since they did not want the items until sometime in January, I saw no urgency to blocking it.  I love the pattern, and the color pink is so beautiful.  The first version that I made was gifted to my sister Diane, that was in a natural wool.  This is Merino and Silk and I extended the pattern by one repeat. Love them both.

Greta Garbo Shawl in Estonian knitting, pattern by Nancy Bush.

Blocking photos:

Greta Shawl Detail

Greta Shawl blocking

And me modeling the finished project!

Greta Shawl Finished

Greta

The Great shawl is finally finished and blocked.

The pattern was not a disappointment either in the knitting or the end result.  This is a really beautiful pattern, and I would like to repeat it some day with my handspun. My only comment would be that I wish the yarn had been a finer lace weight.

Project Specs

Pattern: Greta Garbo Shawl
Pattern Source: Wooly West
Yarn: Nordic Lites, 2 skeins
Needles: US 5
Date Started: 4/6/12
Date Finished: 5/6/12
Finished Dimensions: 65″ Wingspan, 34″ Deep

While waiting…

So as not to miss the UPS guy delivering my much anticipated new spinning wheel, I am sitting at home all day.  To occupy my time (in between some real work), I am spinning up this footnotes unspun from Fiber Optic.  This has to be my favorite fiber to spin, it is pencil roving and easily splits right down the center.  No predrafting is required, and I swear that it spins up faster.  The color is Black Coffee, and it is a wonderful blend of darks, very subtle and deep.  The yarn is destined to become some handknit socks for my husband (superwash merino + silk).  This is for the April Sash busters on the Fiber Optic group on Ravelry.  I think that I will make the deadline.

I finally finished the singles of this multi-colored fiber from IntoTheWhirled that was part of Feb/March SAL, and that deadline missed.  I am really debating plying these 2 together or plying one with it’s coordinating pink singles, and one with the coordinating blue singles.  I worry about the yarn becoming muddied if the variegated is plyed with itself.

And, I pulled the Greta Garbo shawl off the blocking boards and am weaving in ends.  In theory I should only have the beginning and end threads to weave in (spit-spliced the 2 skeins during knitting), but if you remember my row of shall we say “wine induced nupps”, I had to catch several of those and that gives me many additional ends to weave in.

Remember my post from the CookieA weekend?  She wrote a wonderful post on her blog about our group, and I got a double shout-out!

Shawl, fiber and a wheel

I finished my Estonian shawl, and blocked it tonight, hopefully finished photos tomorrow, and project details.

And, a package arrived for me yesterday, which I missed and picked up at the post office today.  The newest SAL from Loop.  This is a different version of a gradient, and I am anxious to try it.  It also has sparkles!  She cards the fiber into a batt, and then does the gradient color.

AND, I just got notice that my new dream wheel is shipping and should be here tomorrow!!!!!! I am so excited!

Estonian Shawl

I started making this shawl almost 2 weeks ago, and will probably finish tonight.  The shawl is cast on at the bottom with 379 stitches, and knit up to the top decreasing at the outer edges, and a double decrease at the center. It has lots and lots of Nupps (nupp rhymes with soup), many more than on most Estonian shawls that I have seen, but that is what gives it the lovely heart-shaped patterns.

The heart shapes will really stand out after it has been blocked.  A nupp is a series of stitches knit into one stitch on the knit side, in this case a 5 stitch Nuup (K, YO,K, YO, K), and then purled together on the back side.  This is where I ran into a few problems at first.  When knitting the Nupps, you have to do it VERY loosely, and then on the purl side make sure that you catch them all together.  If you recheck on the next knit row, you can pick up any errant loops that were not knit together.  If you wait, then you have to take a darning needle, some spare yarn, and hook the loop and secure on the back.  I have one whole row near the beginning where I missed about 6 loops, I think that it might have involved wine drinking.  Discovered way too late to rip back, so I have a bit of repair to do prior to blocking.

During my 3 days of knitting class last week, I made great progress on the shawl.  It is nice that the stitch count is reduced by 4 stitches every other row, progress speeds up rapidly.

All things Estonian

I finally ordered and received yesterday a package from Nancy Bush’s website, The Wooly West.  2 months ago I took a class from Nancy Bush with my knitting guild, although I have yet to blog about that weekend (I was waiting to finish up the sample projects), I could not wait to show you  what I ordered from her website.

First off, books, the Haapsalu scarf book, companion to the Haapsalu shawl book that I purchased last summer, and the Estonian sock book, also a companion volume to the mitten version that I purchased last summer:

both gorgeous books, in Estonian and English.

The most interesting one however, was this book on knitted animals and toys, Kiri Kari, which Google Translator has it translating as “Letter from the Herd”.  I have no idea what that is suppose to mean.  I even tried translating it to French, and it comes out with the same meaning.  Written only in Estonian, it is none-the-less a fabulous book and I will try to make some of the wonderful characters listed, the patterns are diagramed out so it should not be too difficult.

And I purchased this kit for a Greta Garbo Shawl by Nancy Bush.  I saw this in person at the workshop and knew that I had to have it.

So last night I sat casting on for the shawl while watching The Singing Revolution with my husband.  It is a documentary about the passive fight for independence that the Estonians had with the USSR, they won their independence with song, and not a single loss of life.  Highly recommended.

Chugging along

I am still knitting away on my lace shawl.  Almost to the last color, and then the I-cord edging, which will take an eternity in itself.  I had hoped to have this done by Halloween, it was the 25th anniversary of my husband’s & I first date together.  We went to a nice restaurant to celebrate, and I would have loved to wear this.  It is an easy knit, just a lot of stitches at 395/row!

I also cast on for another pair of socks, using Malabrigo, the color is Impressionist Sky, and it is a beautiful semi-solid blue..  I am making the Gentlemen’s sock with Lozenge Pattern by Nancy Bush.  I think that I will have to purchase another skein of this yarn.  It is knit up on size 0 needles.  I love the color, and will give these to hubby for Christmas.  Good thing he never reads my blog!

Provisional cast-on 395 stitches…

I started making the Volt shawl from the new book The Fine Line, by Grace Anna Farrow.  The cast-on and first row took me a bit of time.   Seems my counting abilities were a bit off.  That has proven to be the only difficult thing about this shawl.  I changed the lime green accent to a turquoise (and in doing so, had to use a slightly thicker yarn, but I think it will block out nicely), as I did not like any of the accent colors that they had at Stitches when I bought the book and yarn.  This is Isaeger I lace yarn, and I love it.  The shawl will be very fun to wear.  I already have another pattern in mind to make from this book when I am finished with this one.  I would also like to use this yarn for a Faroese shawl aka Myrna Stahlman.  This photo is a bit wonky, and just shows the first 2 sections with the black yarn being knit up.  The bright blue cotton is my provisional cast-on waste yarn.

I also finished Dan’s socks with the Zauberball yarn that he picked out when we were away for a weekend.  I thought that the colors would be too bright, but it works out nicely.  the yarn is fun, but you could not do any patternwork with it.  It is also a bit splity at times.  I knit them in the Madder pattern from Nancy Bush’s Vintage Socks book.   They look skinny, but have a lot of stretch, and hug your foot nicely.

I finished my September Mystery socks…

I finished my September Mystery socks by Nancy Bush:

I made no modifications to the pattern.  They are knit up for a friend with small feet.  I really truly love the Malabrigo sock yarn.  It has a few great semi-solid colors, and knits up so nice and soft.  It is a very fine gauge yarn, and I think will work well for Fair Isle sock knitting.  I am really curious how this compares to the elusive Wollmeise sock yarn.  I would love to get my hands on some of that and try it out.  Alas, it is not available in this country.  The colors that I have seen people use online are amazing.  Lots of variety.

Here is my daughter wearing her sweater—finally.  The color is beautiful, one of my favorite.  The yarn is very soft (Sheffield by Valley Yarns from Webs), we will see if it pills and how it holds up over time.  I think that she was happy to have it finished.  Me too.

Dutch Heel

I finished up Clue #3 on the Nancy Bush mystery socks.  She uses a honeycomb slip stitch back for the heel (which I used on the orange socks that I made of hers).  I really like this heel, and had been thinking about doing something along this line when I knit up the Ilga’s socks and it was used there.  I also incorporated it in my Maraschino Cherry socks.  It has a better look, doesn’t seem to bunch as much, and spreads the extra wear coverage out over the heel.  Then she used a Dutch heel.  I am knitting her Madder ribbed socks for my husband, and she uses the same heel there.  It does seem to hug the heel better.  Not sure if there is a good/bad way to do the heel.  The one issue that I see with this heel is that you don’t have as many instep stitches.  So, if the fabric is not stretchy, or you have  a very high instep (me), it might become problematic.  It is interesting to see the complaints on the Ravelry thread.  Either knit the way the pattern was designed and try something new, or change it the way you like.  Not sure why people feel the need to complain.

Here is my heel, (I had 17 picked up stitched on the instep, so finished 2 full repeats.  I seem to always get 2 more than the number of slip stitch ends—like to close the gap) now waiting for clue #4 on Tuesday: