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 By ShadowDancer, on February 8, 2010, 2:47 pm Sooo…
That cowl? It’s lovely and all, but it doesn’t fit the way I wanted it to. So, I’ve done some reworking, and have a new chart. The old chart ought to be perfect for sport-weight yarn. This new chart should make the DK yarn produce a cowl I like. That’s underway — with a questionable amount of yarn left from the first one.
Meanwhile, I’ve been planning to knit Echo Flower along with the rest of you folks. If I’m going to make enough headway for it to look like the end is in sight it before it’s time to start Evenstar, I’d best get my butt in gear.
Today, I thought I had finally chosen the stash yarn I think I’m going to use. I can’t bring myself to use the new silk — because Echo Flower only takes 800 yards. I can’t bring myself to just waste 400 yards of silk. So, I was thinking of using my Blue Moon Fiber Arts Bambu.
Here’s my swatch.
It took awhile, but I managed to get the nupps to work despite the very splitty nature of this yarn. But in the end, I’m not impressed, actually. I don’t particularly like the way the nupps come out in this yarn. I suppose I could substitute beads for nupps.. and then the lovely shimmer of this yarn would do what I wanted for the Echo Flower, even if it doesn’t make pretty nupps. But you know, this yarn just isn’t doing it for me for this design. Now I’m back to the hunting for Echo yarn, and trying to figure out what to do with THIS yarn. (I may just up and … sell it! – 800 lovely yards of bambu!)
In the mean time, I think I’ll call Miss Babs to see if there’s another 500 yards of that silk lying around somewhere. I’d love to use it for Evenstar!
Oh… and one more thing!
We’re actively collecting now for the Stealth Award to our Amazing Blog Mistress. Since I didn’t share my pay pal address until I was sure we’d have enough for a really nice gift, there are a few people who’ve not had a chance to fill their original pledges. That means that there’s still time for a few more donations to slip in to put that gift certificate over the top. After all the work she does in the background to keep the blog running (not to mention just plain paying for the server space), I think she deserves a massive bonus. Thanks so quite a few of you, she’ll have a nice gift. But if you’ve been dithering, or now realize that you’ve got $5.00 or $10.00 to spare… if you either send it by pay pal to needledncr AT comcast DOT net, or comment seeking my address for other forms of payment, I’ll add it to the pot.
Thanks again to all who have already generously donated!
By cgirl, on February 8, 2010, 12:34 pm I’ve cast on the lace section for the second baby blanket I’m making, this time in brown.
This one will probably be just like the last one I posted, That Frikken Baby Blanket, unless Inspiration hits me soon for something new and fun to do for the corners.
Hopefully this will be the last baby for a while.
By beadingbanshee, on February 8, 2010, 10:01 am So after setting her aside for a bit in order to finish the Christmas gift knitting, Titania is back in action. She wasn’t quite to the halfway point before the season started, so she’s fully in the running this season. After a pretty rough start which engendered lots of grumbling, I’ve gotten the hang of the pattern and it’s wending its way along smoothly now. I’m in the last chart before the border, but I may decide to do another repeat of the pattern before then. It seems a bit short to me as it is. I kind of suspected this would happen when I was looking at the finished project, because it seemed a bit short in the pictures. We’ll see how long it is when I finish this chart.
The other current project on the needles is Dem Fisher Sin Fru. Yes, this is an ANCIENT mystery knit. It’s taken me forever mostly because of the yarn I chose. It’s a lovely 100% alpaca, but it’s also dental floss thin. Even using tiny needles the stitch is looser than I usually work, but I’ve decided with this yarn that’s just the way it should be. Unfortunately my fingers tend to complain using the tiny needles, so I can only do one set of knit/purl rows before I need a break. I’m about 50 rows from the end now, so there is a small possibility I’ll finish this by the end of the season. I ended up changing the border on this pattern. After looking at a ton of finished pictures on ravelry, I decided I just didn’t like the way the border looked. This seems to be a recurring theme with this designer. I love her patterns, but there is usually some part of the pattern I feel compelled to change. Either that or it’s a disease I’m catching from shadowdancer who has a hard time knitting ANY pattern exactly as written!
I also hope to be casting on something new this season, but haven’t quite decided what yet. More on that when I finally make a decision!
By namida, on February 8, 2010, 5:18 am So I started that boarder chart of the Echo Flowers Shawl not long ago feeling like “wow, I’m coming to an end quickly now!”
If only it was that easy. Since between me and that finished shawl a nasty little obstacle had built up: devilish, mean, unnerving things called “nupps”.
I did realize that in order to knit all those beautiful Estonian lace shawls I would have to master nupps at some point, so I was rather curious when I did the first row of nupps. In fact it kept me up till unspoken times in the night because I couldn’t bring myself to do it the day after. Row 1 of the nupps (the knit row) was not problem. It’s the same thing I had done a zillion of times during the flowers pattern anyhow. I did even try to give it extra-low pressure, but obviously didn’t pay enough attention.
Since as soon as I reached the purl row those nupps turned into evil entities out to destroy my knitting – and my hand. For out of forcing the needle through all those slings of yarn produced a row earlier made my hand hurt before I even reached the end of the row! OUCH. Not even thinking about doing another row just afterwards. Those hands needed a serious rest after the Battle Against Evil Nupps.
Everybody who is knitting the Echo Flowers Shawl and hasn’t knitted nupps before please take that one advice from me: Knit your nupps really, really, loosely! Don’t pull too much on the yarn. Give it all the air you can get in there and your nupps will be so much more beautiful and so much easier to do! (And that’s from me, who usually has to pay extra attention the stitches don’t just fall off the needles for she knits so loosely …)
However this is what it looked like once I had gotten through that row-of-hell:
There are Good Nupps …
… and there are Bad Nupps.
tough I have to admit I’m glad the Good Nupps outnumber the Bad Nupps thereby giving me hope that I’ll eventually, one day, get the clue of it. Well … given how many nupps remain on this chart I better hurry up doing so … though right now I’m a little scared of all of them *irgs*
By birgit, on February 7, 2010, 10:27 pm I´ve been absent for way too long, but I am lurking…
Last season was about test knitting, and it produced this
It is called “the life of a tree” and it is a faroese-shaped shawl that features cherry trees, leaves and berries. Pattern will be up soon on jriede.org or ravelry.
Then I was totally determined to start with the KAL. But. I got carried away with the faroese shape and cast on Lacewing
What can I say. I just HAD to cast on since I managed to get a skein of Wollmeise lace. In the name of science,how could I not test the yarn everyone seems to talk about?! Here´s the result so far:
By Lady Foxglove, on February 7, 2010, 5:29 pm I have received a beautiful bag. I’ts got little bows all over it. Now you might imagine little bows sticking out, but no, these bows are part of the fabric that the bag is made of. See? Isn’t it just amazing!! It was a pressie. A marvelous pressie. It’s truly wonderful, and…….. IT HAS POCKETS!!! Isn’t this bag great?
It also came with a cunning little side bag. It can go inside the bigger bag and hold stitch markers, or needles, or tape, or *gasp* patterns. Although you’re not technically supposed to fold the pattern, it’s realtively simple and the pattern was printed large, so I”m good.
I’ve gotten relatively far on my knitting. But not really. I have been frogging, or tinking, or ripping out three rows worth of stitches, because I made a mistake three rows back. But it’s alright. My family and I watch plenty of television, which is perfect frogging time.
By blindpurls, on February 6, 2010, 4:06 pm So I started my echo flower shawl a wee bit later than most. I casted on Feb 1 and so far I’ve fnished the set up chart and the first flower chart repeat. I decided with this shawl, slow and steady is the way to go! I’m using Schaeffer Andrea (100% silk laceweight) in Lady sings the blues – Billie Holiday. I’m loving this pattern so far. Normally since I use silk laceweight I have to go down a few needles sizes so I cast on in size 3.25mm (US 3), I think I should have gone with a larger needle size. Oh well good thing silk blocks out lovely. I also decided to use beads instead of nupps because in a fine silk yarn they look a little off. Here’s pictures of my progress so far.
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