Circular Carson

I've finished this shawl for a (long) while now, but sometimes there's too much to show, but not enough time.

When I saw this Wandering Cat Yarns Continental Cat yarn, I knew exactly what I was going to knit with it. A Carson shawl by Romi Hill. The colors, especially of the Merlot one, are richer, deeper, but I never got it quite right.



Right from the start I said I would love to knit this shawl as a circular shawl, and Romi wrote some notes for us, to do just that. Some used heavy yarns to make it a Carson Afghan, but I wanted to use fingering weight yarn.

Anyway, I love how it turned out, even though I made couple of major mistakes (which you can easily see in the next picture), which I only saw, when I was blocking it. I knit tow rounds, where I should have purled, and it shows. Oh well. It's staying with me, so I don't feel too bad about it, except that I'm wondering, if I'll EVER be able to knit a shwal without at least one mistake in it.



Note the snow free deck, it really has been a while.





Once again, it was the edge that drew me to this shawl at first glance. That happens a lot with Romi's designs. I used the simple edge, but it can be expanded, if there's enough yarn, and/or desire to do so.





I've used it to warm my shoulders, but I think it will rest on my coffee table in my studio for now.

Play with me!

Some Denny love!

Play with me!





Pl-eeze, I mean it!




O.K. if you insist! (and to shut you up)



You don't understand the concept, Denny. You need to let go of the pin so I can throw it!



Let go of the pin! (Not in your life, woman! Who am I? The village idiot, who runs after what you throw a million times? I think not.)

Hey Maggie! I'll be right with you!

Handspun Friday - FCK Greek Myths - Persephone

I'm waiting for the fourth, and last installment of FatCatKnits fiber club, whith the theme "Greek Myths". Meanwhile I've spun up "Persephone". Here's Ginny's interpretation : Rechoice & Despair, 5oz each, 85% Polwarth 15% Tussah Silk.



I hand carded 4oz of each colorway, and made these rolags.





Rechoice: chain plied, ~ 177yds



Despair: chain plied, ~ 172yds



Then I wanted to do another experiment, and spun the last ounce of each colorway, and made 2-ply, which I wanted to chain ply as last step, but I spun it in the wrong direction, and that's what I've got. A big mess.



I think it would have looked lovely as finished yarn. I think it was also the first time I've spun yarn in the wrong direction. Boy did I feel like a fool!

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Maggie's sweater!

The last FO of last year (sounds like a long time ago) was a sweater for Maggie. I made an oopsy, because I'm embarrassed to say, I didn't realize that I used the wrong needle size. I used 6.5mm instead of 8mm needles, and it's no wonder the sweater turned out too tight, and too small.

That didn't keep us from stuffing her in it anyway, and Maggie didn't care. She likes wearing things (unlike Denny who's freaking out, even with a tissue on his back).

She's cute, isn't she?









I've used left over yarn from David's blanket. Vanna's Choice Solids. I think I'm going to try it one more time to get a better fitting sweater. I still have left over yarn for this (looks like it's never going to go away).
The pattern is Ozzie's Large Dog Sweater. It could benefit from a once over. There are spelling mistakes, and I would have liked all measurements given in rows, or rounds be in inches or centimeter. Some are but not all. But I like it enough to  try it again, now that I know what's going on.

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Happy New Year 2013!

2012 in Numbers

Just a very short review in numbers of my crafty year of 2012.

I've finished 60 projects. (same as last year)

I spun up 38lbs 12.3oz of fiber/17kg 353grams (almost double from last year).

And to all my readers, thanks for coming by! Big hug!

Monika

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Almost done, just a few more!

I'm always knitting something or other for my DD. It's a pleasure for me. She's easy to knit for, but we have such different taste, and love very different colors. So whenever possible, I let her choose the yarn/color for whatever I'll knit for her.

One of her Christmas gifts this year was another of Stephen West's hat designs (he was very prolific this year!). It's called Raxtur. I'm not keen on knitting Honey comb stitch pattern, but I love the look of it. I like this hat very much, and might have to knit myself one in the future too.







She also got a surprise gift, another knit monster. Actually I made this one first, before I made the Hug Monster. This is Rudy (named by Hannah), I took a pattern by Rebecca Danger starting with her Harold the Houseplant monster pattern, but made a few modifications. I made up the ears entirely, crochet a nose, took the pattern form different monsters to make arms and legs.




 

 Christmas Eve:



Hehe, Rudy has a butt like a Newborn.







I think she likes him. :o)

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More Christmas gift knitting ....

picture heavy post ahead

For my DS.

I didn't plan on doing a lot of gift kitting, apart from the mittens for my dad, and my sister. But in the end I got ambitious again.
I've started this blanket for my son at the end of May. I worked on it on and off, in between other projects. Sometime at the beginning of November I was just over the halfway point, so I thought I should finish it for Christmas. This blanket is huge, let me tell you!

It turned out 73" x 88" or 185cm x 224cm. I wanted to do stripes, which I knit together, so I didn't have to sew anything. That got old quickly, so I threw in some mitered squares. Everything is just knit on, and that got really heavy on my lap. I used acrylic yarn, since it's easy to wash. Don't turn your nose up! As far as acrylic yarn goes, this was not bad to work with. It's Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Solids, in all the warm colors and some silvery grey. I also wove in the ends right away, so when I was done, I really was done.



I even changed direction of knitting for a while.



I didn't have to stick to a pattern, and that was quite fun.



The knit on edge looked quite lovely I think.





And of course, Denny was never far away, while I was knitting on it. My foot stool was more his dog bed, where he let me put my feet up very graciously (barely).O.K. he looks a little mean in this picture, but he really wasn't. I moved, and he wanted to see what's going on.





Then he really wanted to do something else for a change, and he told me so.



But he was not the only one keeping me company. Maggie was up there too.



And you've already seen Happy too.



Anyway, I'm quite happy with the outcome, and am VERY glad it's done.

I also made some socks for DS from lovely Wandering CatYarns he choose himself. They are having a SALE going on, and it's not too late to get some goodies!



He has really wide feet, and I had a small skein so I added the black for heels and toes so I would have enough yarn.

And as a total surprise, I made him a Hug Monster by Clare Doombos. I was just inthe mood for knitting toys, and this one I thought was incredible cute.



This was really easy to make.

Handspun Friday- a couple of hats

I've shown you this handspun yarn before. But now I have a finished hat too!

Here's the yarn: Southern Cross Fiber/Trickster/October 2012 fiber club/Polwarth



I knit this hat with it. It's a Stephen West design. It's called Pom Pom it!
I really dislike making pom pom's but I LOVE having them on hats.



I gave it to Hannah, because it's way too small for my big fat head.



And another handspun yarn hat I've made recently. It's also a Stephen West design. This one's called Aurora Expanse.

I used some older handspun yarn, which I wanted to dye light aqua, but didn't get it right, for the prim, and the rest of the Downton Abbey handspun yarn for the rest of the hat. It's warm around the ears, that's really lovely with the double knit prim.





I made my sisters Wood Hollow mittens, and still had left over yarn, so I used it for this hat. It's nice and slouchy, just the way I like it.

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