shawl

For Christmas 2011 I gave exactly one knitted item as a present, and this is it!

In fact, it's not even a real present... you see, my mother-in-law had a few balls of Lana Grossa Giava Print, a viscose and linen blend yarn left over from a vest a friend of hers had made her - so she sent the balls to me with a note "I'd like a slightly triangular scarf, with a pretty edging, but have no idea on how to make one - will you please knit me one?"

I was a bit annoyed, but I started looking and found the perfect pattern: knit in one piece (without crazy sewing-on-lace-border activity), slightly triangular, and free!

The pattern is called Chinook Scarf and it's available on Ravelry.

I always miss WIP Wednesdays, so here's my WIP Friday instead!

First my Coraline cardigan, which has actually progressed quite a lot since this photo. It just needs buttons now!

I'm making it with Novita Julia yarn, which is pretty much my staple yarn when it comes to bigger pieces of clothing - it's partly wool, partly acrylic and wears nicely.

I'm also working on another shawl. I'm hoping to make this design my own, but having some trouble with it... this is actually my second try with this yarn and this shawl. Wish me success!

The yarn is handdyed sock yarn (not by me). I don't especially like the colour (anymore), so this shawl -if it's ever finished- is bound to become a present or go to charity.

What are you working on at the moment?

Behold, an FO! I haven't been knitting very much lately due to a change of role in my "real job", which requires a lot of time and learning, plus a general, temporary loss of interest in knitting (terrible, I know!)

That seems to be coming to an end soon though. Well, the job stress will last for a while, but the lust for knitting part is getting better. That can be seen in these two shawl FOs as well.

The main shawl of this blog post is the Rusty Alpaca shawl, which I started sometime in (early...) 2010. It's a simple stockinette triangular shawl knit from the top of my head with ca. 80 grams of Artesano Inca Cloud and 4 mm needles. Simple, pretty, and so warm!

I was going through my year last weekend, and decided it would be nice to pull together my knitting highlights and the steps I've taken to build my site! So here it is: the best of Worsted Knitt in 2010!

January
I started the year by publishing a free sock pattern, namely the Ripple Moss Socks. They're now at 10 projects on Ravelry!
I also finished the beautiful Owls sweater, which hasn't been getting much use, though.

February
The highlight in February was finishing a shawl in two weeks - Tulppaani for Ravelympics. I also started selling stitch markers "for real" on Worsted-Knitt.net.

Greetings from Finland! I spent my Christmas with my family at my Mum's and loved it. I like living abroad, but I do miss my family a lot, so being able to spend Christmas with them is always a very speial treat.

I mostly just relaxed (and ate!) while there, but I did manage to knit a few rows on my new WIP, the Scroll Lace Scarf by Ysolda. I'm already dreading the "pick up and knit 200+ stitches" part, but I think patience (and a glass of wine) will get me there eventually! I'm working the scarf with Elsebeth Lavold's Hempathy yarn, which I received as a random act of kindness a while back. I only have two balls, I sure hope that's enough!

I love my local animal shelter for being able to use almost whatever I knit, including simple shawls, which they sell at the fundraising events and "open doors days". Very delicate, complicated shawls are not suitable, because due to the amount of work and material they require, they would cost too much for the audience generally visiting the events. Small shoulder shawls, made with less than one 100g ball of sock yarn, using a simple stitch pattern however is the perfect product - useful, beautiful even though simple, and more interesting to buy than a pair of socks for example!

This is my latest Tierheim shawl, with a very simple stitch pattern and self dyed yarn.

The specs:
Pattern: Tierheim shawl 2, of my own making! I plan to publish this little pattern soon
Yarn: nameless self dyed (by me!) yarn given to me by a friend. I assume it's sock yarn, at least it's the same weight.
Needles: 4mm circular used as a straight one

Ever heard of WIP Wednesday? As far as I've understood the idea, it's basically a blog theme for Wednesdays to, well, show off your WIPs. I have been neglecting my WIPs here for so long, so I'll try to post a WIP or two a month - on Wednesdays!

So, here's one of my current WIPs, the Japanese Feather and Fan shawl (Rav link) which I am working in Kauni yarn in black and grey tones.

The pattern is really interesting, but I'm not sure about the yarn... It's just so dark, you know? I'm just not quite sure I'll end up liking and wearing this shawl! It is fun to knit though, so I think I will knit along at least for now, and decide again after I can see how the shawl is turning out - I'm rather in the beginning at the moment.

My shawl love is not showing any signs of dying, and that's just fine. As long as I like making them and find people who want to wear them (although I do keep most myself...) I'll keep making them. They're so quick! They're so pretty! There's interesting lace! They're made out of sock yarn but aren't tiny gauge! What's not to love. This is my latest FO, the Clothilde (Rav pattern link) shawl.

I can't seem to get enough of shawls! I love knitting them, love wearing them, and I love how I can use sock yarn to make them and don't have to knit the yarn with tiny 2mm needles!

This is my newest shawl FO - the Twilight Gloaming shawl (Rav link), already shortly shown at my KYH posting a few days back. As I've mentioned earlier, I am sort of a Twilight fan, or at least I really enjoyed the books and have also knit Twilight fanwear previously (like Bella's Mittens), so it's no wonder this shawl pattern insipred by Twilight immediately caught my eye. After being so lucky and have the pattern gifted to me this spring I wanted to start knitting right away. Well...

Ok, I've cast on 26 things in June, all because I'm participating in the Finnish KAL I mentioned a few weeks ago, where you - starting from the 1st oh June - cast on something new every day until Midsummer, and you finish everything my the end of July. It's a challenge, but so much fun! Here's what I have ready (or almost done) by now (& since the last posting)

From up left clockwards: a shawl from the top of my head (it's the better version of my Tierheim bamboo shawl) with self-dyed yarn; the Twilight Gloaming (Rav link) shawl made with a Zauberball (I'll post more on these shawls later); seven mice that just need to be felted, filled and sewn close to finish these cat toys from Kitty Knits.