Henslowe

In the midst of all the WIPs, presents, shop samples, and small projects I've been doing this spring and summer, I feel like my Henslowe shawl has been overlooked. Which is too bad, because I love it and I can't wait for shawl-wearing weather to show it off.

This pattern, by Beth Kling, had been in my queue for a long time. I wanted to make it someday, but when it first caught my eye, I only had a few simple knitting projects to my name. Then this year, when I was looking on Ravelry for patterns to use the skein of Ball and Skein Glissade that I bought at the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival, I realized Henslowe would work perfectly.

And I think it turned out beautifully. The pattern and yarn complement each other well, and both were easy to work with. I really like knitted-on lace edging construction, and the semi-crescent shape of the shawl. I haven't gotten a chance to really wear it yet, but I imagine that this shape will be a little easier to wear as a scarf than a true triangular shawl is.

Socks #4 and #5 for me

I've decided I will be one of those knitters that always has a pair of socks on the needles. My current in-progress socks are the ones I'm making for my boyfriend that I mentioned last week, but before those, I finished two pairs for me in pretty quick succession.

These are from Kristi Geraci's Froot Loop pattern, and they are my new favorite socks. The pattern has the perfect amount of visual interest without being too fussy to make, or so elaborate that I feel like the socks are too special to wear. I also got the fit just about perfect on these, which is not an art I have fully mastered yet, so I'm very pleased. And, I think the yarn works very well in this pattern. It's the Space Cadet sparkly sock yarn that I bought at the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival earlier this year.

As usual, Juniper assisted with my photo shoot.

I also made a pair of Hermione's Everyday Socks for myself. The yarn store where I work recently started carrying Frolicking Feet from Done Roving, which is a 100% superwash merino sock yarn. So far I've only used sock yarn with a nylon component, so I'll see how these do. I couldn't resist trying out this yarn, though - the only issue was choosing between the many, many unique and vibrant (and crazy) colorways they offer. This one is called Cozy Cove and features my two favorite colors circa 1994.

Kleks

I haven't been this frustrated, and delighted, by a project since I first started knitting. The pattern is Kleks, and it sat in my queue for a long time. I love lacey, light, mesh shawls, but I was a little frightened by the many comments about difficulties with the stitch counts in the pattern. Since I didn't think I really wanted a mathematical headache, I tried to persuade myself to start a different shawl, one with a similar look and stitch pattern but that maybe would be a little easier. But I wanted Kleks.

I knit it out of madelinetosh prairie in Silver Fox. The yarn, too, was one that I had several good alternatives to, but I had to have this yarn, in this color. Don't know why. But I love it.

Kleks is indeed a challenging pattern, because it's really more of a formula than a pattern. The actual stitches are fairly simple, but as many other Ravelers warned, the stitch counts in the increase sections don't necessarily come out evenly. I struggled with that, probably much more than I should have. But on the upside, my confidence in fixing mistakes in the midst of relatively complicated lacey bits increased enormously. It was like an RPG, where you make 250 identical iron daggers and your competence in all things smithing increases. I fixed the same type of mistake 250 times, and suddenly my knitting skill went up a level.

I wore this shawl to my friends' wedding back in May (the wedding that I made the Tree of Life pillow for). It was perfect for a late spring evening in the mountains, and I was so thrilled to finally have it finished, and looking just as pretty as I'd hoped.

WIP Wednesday

Well hey, what is this? A blog post?! And a WIP Wednesday post, no less, for the first time since early April! As usual, I have no good excuse for my absence, so let's just skip that part.

I have four things on the needles, all of which are taking turns with each other, and therefore taking their time. Usually I only have one or two projects going, but a few weeks ago I had 6+ WIPs, which was strange and exhilarating! Now I'm back down to the more tedious projects - not to say I'm not enjoying them.

For the past month, I've been working on a pair of socks for my boyfriend - my first socks for someone other than me. Calling it "a pair" is optimistic at this point, because I'm only about halfway done with the first one. They are an experiment in many ways, plus they are for giant man feet, so they're going quite slowly. I'm using leftover GnomeAcres yarn in the Naruto colorway for the cuffs, heels, and toes, and black Cascade Heritage sock yarn for the rest. Three by three rib, nothing exciting until the heel, where I finally ventured beyond heel flaps and learned to make a short-row heel. I wasn't happy with how it was looking until I discovered the shadow wrap method, and now I'm past the heel and well into the foot. The rest should be easy!

I have also been working bit by bit on this little guy. The pattern is Joris by Annita Wilschut, and I have been wanting a Joris of my own since before I could knit. I'm so happy with how he's turning out in this yarn, which is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Child's Play. The pattern is not that difficult, but a little too complicated for tv-knitting, so I work on him when I'm in the mood to listen to a podcast or something.

There is also this shawl, Zilver by Lisa Mutch. It's currently my tv-knitting for whenever I'm tired of the Naruto socks. The pattern doesn't require too much attention, so it's a nice project for relaxing and just zoning out. The yarn I'm using is Miss Babs Yummy sock yarn, in the Swan Princess colorway, which I picked up at Loopy Yarns during my visit to Chicago a few months ago. This color... I don't know how I feel about it. I loved it in the skein and in the cake, but every time I see it now, it looks different to me. I'll think it's gorgeous, then two minutes later it looks kind of moldy to me. Probably the color variations will even out in the full-sized piece, and if I'm still ambivalent about it, it can be my only-wear-in-low-light shawl.

And finally, my Tempest Shawlette by Tabetha Hedrick, which I'm knitting in Malabrigo Sock, in the Azules colorway. It's grown a lot since this picture - I'm now on the 18th repeat of the tempest stitch pattern - but it's slow going. The pattern is a little too complicated to memorize, but not too hard, so by this point it's starting to get a bit boring. I'm also only working on this project a few days a week, because it's my at-work project, because - surprise! I work at my local yarn store now. I don't think I've mentioned that yet, but yes, I now have a part-time job sitting amongst huge quantities of wonderful yarn with other addicted knitters and crocheters and trying to keep myself from spending my entire paycheck before I even earn it.

Tree of Life

My other main project in May was also a present, for two friends who were getting married over Memorial Day weekend. They are both lifelong fantasy/sci-fi nerds (like me, and most of the people I hang out with), and were having a Middle Earth-themed wedding. I thought something knitted with a cabled Tree of Life motif would be a perfect gift for them.

I picked Nicky Epstein's Tree of Life Afghan, which is a free pattern available through Lion Brand. Rather than doing a whole blanket, I wanted to use just one tree motif on a pillow. Many other people have done the same, and I used some of their projects as inspiration, especially Karen1959 and franconia.

I first mentioned this project back back in March, when I started making a prototype so that I would know what I was doing. I'm not really a fan of that kind of preliminary work, but at that point, I had never knitted cables or a pillow so I decided the practice was worth it. I didn't actually go through making an entire practice pillow, which I should have done - in hindsight, I could have left a little more selvage for sewing together the front and back panels. I'm very happy with how it turned out, though!

I used Berroco Comfort again for this project, so that the pillow would be easy to clean (they have a couple of messy kitties). The front panel is the tree motif surrounded by a two-inch border of seed stitch, and the back panels are plain seed stitch, overlapping in the middle - more notes on my Ravelry project page if you're interested.

Elephant blankies

It's been quiet on my blog again, partly because in May, most of my projects were presents (and partly because I'm lazy). But now that all the presents have been given away, I have quite a few posts to catch up on.

Two of my friends from grad school had babies within a few weeks of each other this spring, and I thought it would be nice to make them matching presents. Since I'm not that confident with baby sizing, I wanted to avoid sweaters, and I get the impression that most booties don't stay on that well. I was searching for something cute and cuddly, that the babies wouldn't instantly grow out of - and look what I found!

The pattern is Grace - Elephant Comfort Blanket by Dedri Uys and is available for free on Ravelry. I would happily have paid for it, though, because it's detailed and well written. The construction of the head and ears is slightly complicated, but every stitch is explained, and the result is super cute! The only change I made was to crochet a few more decreasing rounds at the back of the elephant heads before sewing them on to the blankets, to help keep the stuffing secure inside. I also sewed on black pieces of felt for the eyes rather than using safety eyes. I think opinion is mixed on whether safety eyes are really baby-safe, but I didn't want to take any chances.

I used Berroco Comfort DK in alternating colors, and each blankie took about one and a half skeins, which makes this a very affordable project!

Both babies have received their elephants now and I've enjoyed seeing the pictures of them with their new buddies. I hope they can enjoy them for several years.

Glorious cables

I finished these a while ago, but it took me almost as long to photograph them as it did to make them. It's really hard to photograph mitts in a way that looks natural, especially on your own hands! This picture will have to do for now, because I wanted to finally do a finished-object post about these guys.

These are from the Glorious Cabled Mitts pattern by Karen Adams, in The Fibre Co. Canopy Fingering. It's an excellent pattern, and while I like the yarn a lot, I would rather make this project again with some kind of sock yarn. The stitch definition is not bad with the Canopy Fingering, but I think the cables could pop even more. And it's such a pretty that the more the cables stand out, the better.

I haven't yet suffered from Second Sock Syndrome, but I struggled with Second Mitt Syndrome when I was making these. Although I didn't spend much time actually working on them, it took me more than three weeks to finish up, and most of that time was just dawdling around about starting the second one. That middle section, where the whole thing is cables, is a little overwhelming. But, in the end, it's worth it!

Since then, I've been working on a handful of different projects, all with deadlines and/or intended as gifts, so that's been keeping me busy. I have some more FO's, but they need to get to their recipients before I can post them here.