Caboodle

Caboodle is an informal way to talk about an entire bunch of some item or category, frequently within the phrase “the whole kit and caboodle,” which has the same meaning. You might say you love everything about movies — the whole caboodle — or buy all the ice cream from your neighborhood shop, the entire caboodle.

I grew up using the phase: “The whole kit and caboodle”. I am not sure that I ever knew what that really meant.

Apparently, the phrase began as “the whole kit and boodle.” Kit meaning collection and boodle is thought to have derived from the Old-English word for bottel – meaning a bunch or bundle. Researchers believe the phrase morphed to “kit and caboodle” for alliterative purposes.

If spelt with a K, there are several Urban slang definitions that are too offensive to write here.

Now I find out that there is another definition for the word Caboodle. Apparently, it is used as a term for a train case.

The Caboodles Voyager train case is an ideal bag for those who like their luggage to have a touch of pizazz and glamor. Robin Raven, Forbes, 20 Apr. 2021

Over Thanksgiving, I had my new leather knitting case at my daughter’s house. She told me that she liked my Caboodle. I was not sure where that term came from, although she swears that I used the terms in reference to a case. In any case, this is the Caboodle that she likes. Me too.

And inside my Caboodle on that day was the shawl that I was making with Gauge Dyeworks yarn, Colorwheel.

Blocking out

And finished, this has become my favorite “shawl de jour”. The bright colors keep me happy on these short dark days.

I used the concept from Boneyard Shawl by Steven West. He had a reverse stockinette every 12th row, I opted to do this every-time the color changed. When I got toward the 1/2 way point in the color change, I just knit the shawl in garter stitch. Unlike many shawls, this looks great either side.

#GuageDyeWorks

#Colorwheel

#BoneyardShawl

#StevenWest

Solidarity

The world events are troubling and I am at a loss as to what to do, other than emailing reps and donating money.

Then I remembered the yarn that I did not know what to do from the Good Vibes Yarn Tour. I had found uses for the previous yarns from that club, and this just sat.

So, I wound this up and searched for a pattern.

A friend had loaned me the Laine 52 Weeks of Shawls book, and I found the pattern Limelight that seemed perfect, and the yardage that I had worked well.

And, so I started knitting. The directions in the book are not well written, they need to identify the repeat area more clearly, and to state how many repeats there are in each section. I misread it at first, and had to tear it out. I did contact the designer, Anna Johanna, and she replied right away.

The colors are working well in this pattern, however I am not happy with the blue yarn, there are many sections where little to no color was applied. I would not purchase this yarn again. Not sure who will receive this yarn, but knitting it is my little prayer for peace with each stitch.

#prayingforUkraine

#sunflowersandsky

#goodvibesyarntour2021

Making Lemonade

Last summer I decided to subscribe to the Good Vibes Yarn Tour. I thought that their graphics were so cool, and the videos looked like it could be a fun option. I have had minimal knitting companionship for the last 2 years except for my beloved Zoom Stitch ‘n Bitch meetings. It is an expensive club, but I thought that I would treat myself, so I signed up. And, didn’t hear anything, nothing, until after a bit I sent out 2 emails asking about it (the money had transferred), and finally got an email back with some details.

The first package arrived in September, and I was looking forward to it. In the box was a Plastic travel mug with their logo (which I was able to give away to another person in the group), cookies (gluten free here), and some lovely hand dyed BFL. I did try to make the shawlette that they had given the pattern for. It was on size 11 needles,and had a goofy cross-over stitch. My husband asked what I was doing with such big needles.

So, fast forward several months, and I took this yarn and made The Ruffler by Mrs. Peterson. I am so happy with how that turned out. I did have to increase the stitch count to 100/round, which meant casting on 300 stitches. The other change that I made was to add a twisted rib at the top, and do a tubular bind-off.

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-ruffler

It sits so nicely on my shoulders and fits under my coat to keep me warm.

This has been my go-to this winter since finishing. I love it, warm and so soft. I almost lost it, as it dropped at school, and my husband found it.

I have most of the second skein left, and will look to pair it with another yarn to make a pair of mittens.

Next, the repurposed package #2

#GoodVibesYarnTour

This is gong to take awhile…

Half of the knitting is finished for the body of my new shawl, Smolder.  It has been great for travel, and spending time with friends knitting, as very little concentration is required.

I am happy with how the color combination turned out, the next step is to figure out the color for the attached iCord.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

My preference had always been the Fuchsia color when I started knitting this, and I think that it will have the greatest impact.

Working on this will require lots of patience.  Binding 2 pieces together with iCord is slow going.  I am happy with the result so far though.  iCord is reserved for working on at home, I still have the other 2 sections to keep me busy with straight knitting.

There are approximately 220 stitches on each diagonal, times 3.  Then there is the entire edge in iCord.

 

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

Butterfly

When planning to head out to Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago, I naturally needed some very portable knitting projects.  I took some socks along, but they were on my precious metal Signature needles.  Not wanting to take the chance of TSA trying to confiscate those, I put them in my checked bag, and pulled out this Fiber Optic yarn that I had spun last winter.

This was spun using 2 braids of the color way Thistle.  My yardage was 1,070 yards.  Not as much as I would have liked.

So, then the night before having to get up at 4am for a very early flight, I am on the computer looking up patterns.  I opted for Pulelehua, which means butterfly in Hawaiian.  I am hoping that I have enough yarn, as the yardage on peoples projects is anywhere from about 1,000-1,500.

About 1/2 of the yarn has been knit up to date, this is my progress thus far:

For the second half of the shawl, I am weighing the yarn after each chart section is done.  Not sure yet if panic will set in, but I am already thinking that I need to obtain another braid to use just the dark blue end to finish off.

And, while knitting on this the past week, we have had great fun watching the Monarchs in our native plantings at the side of the house.  This garden was planted about 10 years ago, but this is by far the best year for Monarchs, and a few Black Swallowtails as well.

I counted 7 one night, and that was just from my back porch, I didn’t venture down the side of the house!

There is even the Monarch moth on the plants.

They are just loving the tall white flowers, my husband thinks that they are the  Tall Bonest, but looking at the book I am thinking perhaps Wild Quinine, we need to get our neighbor over to help identify these. To a lesser extent they are attracted to the Tall Coreopsis.  In addition there are many native pollinators, wasps, honey bees, crickets, etc.  It is fun to walk on the side of the house and hear all of the insects, with the Cicadas as the background music.  I hope that we are making a difference in our own little piece of the world.  I see more and more native gardens in lieu of pesticide lawns.  All these pollinators desperately need our help.

Yup, another shawl

Currently I am knitting yet another shawl, but this one is with a twist, the shawl becomes a sweater.  It is from my new favorite book Lovely Knitted Lace by Brooke Nico.

Slowly I am knitting my way through this book, there are some great twists on lace and how to use it for wearable items.  The sweater shown here on the front, Camellia Dolman, is my newest project, it is basically a circular shawl that is knit back and forth to achieve edges that becomes the button band.

 

 

 

The Helen’s Lace yarn that I purchased at the Lorna’s Laces warehouse sale is being used.

 

This shawl had to be restarted as I did not read carefully and got almost through the first 1/2 of the chart when I realized that I was supposed to just purl back on the even # rows.  UGH!, but I ripped it all back and started over.  It took a long time for my brain to realize why this did not seem to be large enough for the shawl.  The yellow showed how far I was when I ripped back, the green highlighted area is my progress to date.

 

Not quite sure about this color for me, although I think that it will look great with white pants and jeans as a summer sweater.

Progress has been moving along nicely and I realized that the pattern was incorrect in a major way, it asked for 3,000 yards of 2 separate yarns (6,000 in total)…. in reality if you look at the breakdown, it is 1,500 yards of 2 different lace weight yarns, or 3,000 yards total.  This would have made a huge difference in my purchasing as 1,500 yards is a lot cheaper than 3,000 yards!  Now I even think that I could make this again with a handspun gradient, after I see if I like the fit of course.  The other errors in the pattern are that the increases are every 12th row, not every 6th row as stated.  The charts are correct, I am not sure about the written pattern as I do not use them.  Also, she neglects to tell you to bind off, I was wondering if the sweater was made by sewing live edges together, but could not figure out how to block the shawl prior to sewing if that were the case.

In spite of the lack of proper editing or pattern testing in this book, I love these patterns.  It just would be hard for a new lace knitter to figure out what is wrong without the corrections.

Shawls to Excess?

Can one person own too many shawls?  Especially when they are handspun and hand knit with a beautiful Fiber Optic gradient.  I do believe I am testing this hypothesis firsthand.  My Reef Shawl is finished and off the blocking boards, fiber was spun using the Reef gradient that happened to be the first Fiber Optic gradient one that I purchased.

I know that this post will generate lots of offers to take these shawls off my hands.  Not happening people, too much time involved.

I was reluctant to spin this for 2 reasons, at first I thought the colors to bright for me, and second, I didn’t want to ruin the fiber.  It seems I should have had no worries. The colors are gorgeous, and the fiber is wonderful.

I chose the pattern, Poppy Shawl from Brooke Nico’s new book Lovely Knitted Lace, as I wanted to maximize the use of the yarn, and I often find that triangular shawls do not sit well on my shoulders.  The unique shape of this shawl is intriguing, 3 triangles separated by a thin rectangle that sits on the shoulders.  Sort of a simplified Faroese styling.

The shawl rests naturally on the shoulders.  Love the Nupps in the long, thin rectangular panels.

Using this mannequin helps me to see what the shawl looks like on the backside while being worn.  I changed the bottom edging, the pattern called for simply finishing a repeat and binding off.  Preferring a more detailed bottom edge, and wanting to maximize the use of all my yarn, I improvised a variation of the pattern for the end of the shawl, and bound off with the stretchy bind-off.

I will wear it today, although it will have to be as a shawl scarf, as it is rather cool outside.

Pattern: Poppy
Pattern Source: Lovely Knitted Lace
Yarn: Handspun gradient Reef from Fiber Optic
Needles: US 5
Date Started: 3/28/14
Date Finished: 4/27/14
Finished Dimensions: 48″ wide x 20″ deep from back neck

Reef Shawl

Work has been steadily progressing on the Poppy Shawl by Brooke Nico.

If you decide to knit this pattern, look for the errata.  I found a mistake in the first row of Chart 3 and in the repeat width (it is 8 not the 9 std boxed out). When I emailed Brooke to ask if I was correct, she concurred and issued a correction on Ravelry.  It is a lot of knitting of the same pattern repeat, which is fairly straight forward albeit a bit boring at times.  I am very intrigued with the shape which is 3 triangles separated by 2 narrow rectangles (those are the sections with the nupps).  It should sit nicely on my shoulders and have lots of fabric to wrap.  One thing that I would like to change is the ending, rather than just casting off.  I have plenty of time to mull that over, still not finished with the first skein of yarn, my spinning was wound in 2 sections.

The colors are so gorgeous on this fiber, that I had to go back and see what the inspiration photo had been.

Which generated this colorway:

 

 

Honey to Fig

I cannot believe that I have not posted for 2 weeks!  Must be that all of my energy is going into shoveling snow and attempting to stay warm.  We are on the 3rd snowiest winter ever, and it is not yet halfway through February.  Everyone is hoping that we do not break the record books.

During this hibernation phase, I have finished up my Semele shawl using the Honey to Fig gradient from Fiber Optic that I spun last Fall.  There were several false starts with various patterns, so the real knitting with the final pattern chose actually was only about 2 weeks.

Having a pattern that was knit from side to side for this gradient became an obsession with me, not quite sure why.  Three different patterns were tried before I settled on Semele, and I couldn’t be happier with the results.  This pattern allowed me to knit 1/2 of the shawl increasing and then start to decrease.  Either my calculations were incorrect, or the 2nd half of the braids were spun thinner.  In either case, I am still happy and I have some leftover deep purple for future use.

Here is a photo blast for this yet again cold day. Colors were hard to capture, as it went from a golden-yellow to a very deep purple.

Pattern: Semele
Pattern Source: Downloaded pattern
Yarn: Handspun gradient Honey to Fig from Fiber Optic
Needles: US 6
Date Started: 1/9/14
Date Finished: 2/8/14
Finished Dimensions: 68″ wide x 37″ deep