Feeling thirsty?

Mango orange tropical splash.
Imagine, a tall icy glass with a umbrella in it while lounging on a hot sandy beach!

That's what I saw when I looked at this yarn. It's another top-down original by yours truly for yours truly.  I changed this one up and added a belt and belt loops on this one.  There's lots of swish and sway in this skirt.  I'm getting better at balancing to get the flare I want.  A couple more and I'll have to a science, my body.  I still have to finish up the belt, trying to decide if I want two loops, beads, buttons or what.  I'm toying with the idea of making something with pop caps.
Who knew I'd enjoy knitting clothes so much!!

Keep stitchin'

Dandelions on the hill

Remember rolling around in the grass, picking dandelions, looking for 4-leaf clovers and finding animals in the clouds?  Ahhhh, those carefree days when we all wanted to go up fast. Because that's what I'm reminded of as I work with this yarn,  I've named this skirt Dandelions on the hill.

I see a mistake I made and I'm slapping my hands to keep from ripping all the back to fix it.

I only ordered four skeins of this yarn because of a sale, had no idea what I was going to do with it.  As usual, I either rode too much or not enough.  So I ordered four more Saturday, probably too much time.  So maybe I'll have enough to make a matching vest, shrug or certainly a small scarf.  I may just go until I run out of yarn and make a maxi skirt!.

Keep stitchin'

H A P P Y N E W Y E A R

I ended the year with completing 3.14159. The PI shawl is approximately 60" across so it provides lots of coverage.  I love the color if blue that is and look forward to wearing it in early Spring or maybe even a very special night this winter.

 Keep stitchin'

3.14159

For those who don't know, 3.14159 is Pi.  I have made a couple of shawl and find that knitting lace shawls is a lot of fun and produces beautiful pieces. After creating several shawls, following someone else's instructions it was time to do my own thing.
I'm using Elizabeth Zimmermann's pithy instructions for creating a circular shawl based on pi.  I pulled out some of my stitch books to find my own patterns and got to work.  I've found a couple of diamond and leaf patterns that are pretty and pretty easy to follow. It's slow but steady work watching it develop. 
The first pis shows the color the  best but the pattern shows very well.  I'm up to 576 sts now and have started repeating the patterns I chose rather looking for new patterns.  I want the shawl to be bigger than the ship wreck shawl so I'm focused on just clicking away.

I actually started on this shawl December 5th, it sure seems not I have been working on it so much longer.  Hopefully I will finish this up next month.  Blocking is going to be really hard, my apartment does not have the floor space.  I saw a pic where someone had blocked something vertically, I think that's what I'm gonna have to do. 

Keep stitchin'

Land ho!

My shawl is done!
I made several mistakes along the way, such is life.  Being human I've had my share of crisis and struggles.  So my shawl shows the points during the voyage when I was adrift.  But like any good sailor, I was able to weather the storm, check my navigation and bring her to shore.
The blues remind me of a sunny day and clear waters.  But as evening approaches, you see dusk, with the threat of a storm approaching in the purple skies.  The ship is tossed during that storm with several dropped stitches.  I recover and try to find the my lost stitches though not always successfully.  Once I reach the shore, even in the night, I can see the remnants of sea glass and shells that have washed ashore.  And I smile because I still made it to the end.

This shawl was definitely a whole lot easier than I expected it to be.  I'd say the hardest part was starting the circle.  After deciding to go with Emily Ocker's Circular Cast-on it was easier.  Of course starting anything with so few stitches is going to be bothersome to start so be prepared for some rough waters.  Find a quiet place to start your circle and work the first 4-5 rounds.  After that, you've got something to work with and life gets a little easier.

You can hardly see them but those little glints around the edges are the few beads I scattered.  The things that flicker in the night when the moonlight hits them.
Hopefully the ruffles will lay flat once the shawl is blocked.  The patterned leaves are beautiful and I am able to see some hearts.  I want all of that to show after blocking.  All in all I did enjoy making this and just may make another one next year.

Keep stitchin'

We're sailing now!

I totally killed the middle section of this beautiful and now I'm on to the the part that will test my resolve.  Round after round of the same two stitches again and again and again.i believe I've already made a couple of mistakes but can't figure out where.  I think putting the stitch markers back in every 20 to 30 stitches will help me stay on track.   I could definitely see myself making another one of these one day.

I added the extension cables and laid it out on my resistant ball to get a better shot.  I love the colors!

My ship sunk but I had a life preserve

Things did go well with my Shipwreak shawl.  After starting over 2, 3, 4 times I decided to put the yarn in the corner to think about the way she's been acting.  I picked a different color called Blue Dream and so far it has been a dream to work with.  I haven't had to do any ripping and I will get caught up this weekend and be ready to start the netting.  

Shipwreck fun

This shawl is so much fun! Lace looks so intricate and intimidating but I'm finding that it really isn't at all.  A series of strategic placed yo, ssk and k2tog, for the most part, turns into the most incredible piece of work. As you work through, and I can only speak for myself, I start to notice the pattern.  This makes it easier to catch a mistake when I’m paying attention.  I start to see that on the current row, for instance, the ssk should fall right before the yo of the previous row. Or maybe, that (yo, k1, yo)  be right over a ssk on the previous row.

I don’t necessarily use stitch markers, don’t have enough.  What I do instead is used about 5-6 scraps of yarn, each about 3-4 inches in length.  I rotate these markers as I go along by simply sliding the farthest one out and placing it at the new starting point along the round. So my markers just move with my work. Stop to count in between the sections before moving on.  Often, just like typing, I can tell when my count is off and can easily correct it that way.

One of the biggest things I’ve come to discover about lace or knitting and crocheting a pattern in general is that I need a bit of noise. Even though I’ve read books and blogs that say find a quiet place if it’s too quiet I make more mistakes.  If there is no music or tv, not folk talking incessantly, I start thinking and daydreaming which leads to more mistakes.  However, having other sounds cause me to focus in order to stay on track. My be odd to others but works well for me since I now know that’s what I need.
Is there another Shipwreck in my future...who knows.  My goal is to continue to try creating my lace pieces that are just as gorgeous as this.

Keep stitchin'

Shipwreck

Now why would something so pretty has such a name.

I fell in love with this shawl as soon as I saw, and what a surprise to find out that it's free!  The pattern is on the knitty web site, and on ravelry of course.

This is one of the beautys that made me gasp. Mine is off to a pretty good start though it have made a couple of mistakes.  Hopefully they won't show too much.

 

Circles

I created my own, totally original top.  I bought a pattern and it ended up being a waste of my money, the designer was no help in explaining it to me, that will never happen again.  What it done is let a bad taste in my mouth for new designers.  I will be very hesitant about ever buying a pattern from a new designer.  If I've never heard of them, can not google them, and can't find hundreds of patterns made by others, I certainly will not be one of the first.
So this is what I ended up with, my Faux Overlapping top based sort of on a pattern by Kristin Omdahl's book The Finer Edge.

BONUS!!!
It's reversible!

Keep stitchin'

Just Plain Frilly

Enough of this darn snow, right? My last posting I spoke about 3hrs of digging snow and how smart it was. Having the whole week off of work made it easy for me to relax and recoup since I couldn't even get to the doctor for pain pills. Thankfully, I worked as a Physical Therapy Aide for seven and half years so I know how to apply heat/ice and stretch out my muscles.

There was also time to work out a new project. I wanted to make a blankie for our new family member and I wanted it to be something a little different. I've never done the diagonal stitch so I figured this would be a good time to try. I'm not sure if I started it right because I just ripped until I was happy with the way it was coming out. Remember, I hurt my back so running back and forth to the computer wasn't an option. Once I got a size that I liked, may not be right because I didn't have any measurement to go by, I needed a border. I wanted something with lots of lacing and maybe some ruffling. I did search for that and found Kim Guzman's friendship squares with a really nice border. It had pretty much everything I wanted and some so I tweaked it a bit to get the look I wanted; basically adding more chains did the trick. All the extra chains and the way I changed my colors gave me enough of the ruffle effect that I wanted. It's just plain frilly.

Since the baby is due in May this blanket is more useful for bedding decor rather than for wrapping baby but I love it anyway and I'm sure Mommy will love it too, right Kiana? I'm glad we have a break from the snow because now I can get out and get a look at the spring/summer yarns for something that the baby wont have to wait to wear.

Keep stitchin'