As already mentioned, Susan and I attended Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp earlier this month.  On our way to the wilds of Wisconsin, we stopped at Amazing Threads, one of the yarn stores that Susan frequents.  They had a store sample of a shawl that we both had considered making: Imagine When designed by Joji Locatelli. It’s a simple but elegant shawl, made by combining garter stitch, short rows, and eyelets. The shape lets it sit nicely on the shoulders.

I started it on the way to camp, and finished it right after I got home. After experimenting with some lovely Madelinetosh, I decided to knit it from the same yarn the shop had used: Anzula Dreamy, soft and drapey blend of merino, cashmere, and silk. The store had a proprietary color — Neptune. I hate to be a blind follower, but sometimes it’s the way to go.

In other words, I used the exact same yarn and the same needle size (a U.S. 6, 4.0 mm) as the person who knit the shop sample. Even though I generally knit a little loosely, my shawl didn’t block out to be as large as the sample. It would have been easy to make a larger size by adding stitches and rows in a few key places, and I had plenty of yarn left over. Unfortunately, I didn’t know it was going to be smaller until it was finished. The pattern called for two skeins and I barely dipped into the second one. It’s still a nice size, but I do wish it were a little larger. The shawl still has a fair amount of spring to it, so I might try blocking it again. Le sigh. I might even make a second one in a different yarn.

Below are some not great photos. It’s hard to photograph the shape.

Can you capture the light of a firefly?  Can you hold a sunbeam?  YES!  Buy gorgeous yarn!  It is almost impossible to capture the colors in pictures, however.  Here are my skeins of Lost City Silks in Honeydew (green) and Cerillos (aqua) — 1000 yds/90 grams, $60.  Now, go buy your own and see what I mean!

My DD Elder just returned from South Korea, and Sally and I came back from Knitting Camp in Wis-con-sin (said with emphasis in a nasally Minnesota whine).  That counts (it is part of the world, after all!).

I told my daughter that she HAD to go to a Korean knitting store and get me something with Korean writing on it.

She found Banul:

They seemed to have a lot of cute, knitted toys.

And loved covering the walls with elaborate knitting:

She bought me a Japanese book because the [crocheted] patterns were cuter! 😉

And here is my lovely daughter, proving her knit-worthiness as she models her new Aranami shawl:

I had no idea how to wear it, but she threw it on in a flash with her impeccable fashion sense!

Sally and I had a great time at Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp 2.75.  It is hard to describe what went on, but generally a lot of “show and tell” as Campers shared their latest projects, general discussion/Q&A about knitting minutiae, and other knitting-related activities.  Linda and Penny were our besties at Camp, and next year I hope that Kim can again come along.

We met Denise, a newbie to Camp, who dyes her own line of yarns.  We were gobsmacked by her laceweight silk yarn ($60/skein, 1000 yds/90 gms) — sold at Lost City Knits.  I am just selfish enough NOT to share the link, except that I already ordered two skeins in the colors of my choice: Honeydew and Cerillos.  I am not very original.  Denise had two shawls knit from the identical  colors and I just had to have them both!  She mentioned that Honeydew was not a big seller, so she designed and knit a shawl in that color.  It was drop dead gorgeous and now awaits her test knitters to finish it up.  Hurry it up, peeps!!

I am working on a couple of projects that will be revealed in the near future and I will share pics of my Lost City Silks when  they arrive!!!

It’s happened to all of us. (It happens far too often to me.) We finish a project, and we don’t love it the way we had hoped. It may not be a disaster, but it’s not what we wanted and so it gets shoved to the back of a closet to be forgotten. With knitting, that’s really a shame because it can take so long to knit a sweater or shawl or whatever.

One of my most recent meh projects was my Summer Solstice sweater. I liked the pattern and I liked the yarn (Fibre Company’s Arcadia in the color Summer Sweet). I didn’t like the result. I had made it just a little too short (the result of not having purchased enough yarn because when I bought it I wasn’t sure what I wanted to make out of it). A reminder of what it looked like on Lucy:

See? Nothing “wrong” with it at all. But it hit me at unflattering spot and I just felt dowdy in it. Susan kept telling me to fix it. I resisted because to lengthen it required finding yarn in a different dye lot that looked plausible, removing the collar (because it is added last), knitting the additional length, and then reknitting the now even longer collar. Le sigh.

I finally decided to go ahead. I found three skeins of yarn that looked close. To be on the safe side, I chose to reuse the collar yarn for the additional length; I knew that the dye lot difference would be less noticeable if I only knit the collar out of the new yarn. So, I removed the collar, winding it into a hank/skein. I wetted it, and hung it up to dry. (That step was to remove the kinks in the yarn.) Using just that salvaged yarn, I was able to add five inches in length to the sweater. Here is my “new” Summer Solstice. (Forgive the poor quality of the photos; it is SO humid in Washington today that my camera lens kept fogging up when I went outside and it was very difficult to get any pictures.) You can see how much longer it is by looking at the hem in relation to the sleeves, even though I added an inch or so to them, too, as long as I was at it.

I think the difference in dye lots is virtually undetectable. Yay!

My other reclamation project was not a knitting one. A couple of years ago, I purchased a T-shirt meant to be worn as a tunic. I really love the color and the pattern on it, but it was too long. Too short — too long — why can’t anything ever be perfect? I had ordered this online so hadn’t been sure of the length when I bought it. It looked stupid. My sewing machine doesn’t have a serger, and I didn’t feel like spending more $$ on this thing.

Well, the other day I thought I’ll just cut it off and do a decorative hem by hand. It might work. And it did! I used an embroidery stitch in a thread color that I thought would work with the pattern.

We all know the most famous split personality: Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde…that is what I call my latest FO.  Do you want to go to the dark side or into the light??  YOU decide!

This is my Gradient Cowl — it is like getting two cowls in one!  I used 4 skeins of Shibui Silk Cloud, colors Clay, Honey, Grounds and Mineral:

From Left to Right above: Honey-Clay-Honey-Grounds-Mineral

It is as soft as the underbelly of a baby bunny and really nice on the shoulders when the air conditioning is set too cold!  I also want to make a blue –> green version.  It is really nice…except for grafting seed stitch with 3 strands of mohair.  Did not turn out well.

Update on World War Z — fantastic!  L O V E D it.  So scary, so realistic, great zombies, lots of action, great story line.  It did not seem very much like the book, but that’s okay I guess.  My adolescent male self rated it an A+!!!

I don’t want to step on Susan’s post (contrasting her two shawls, below) or hide it by doing anything too fancy here.  But it’s after midnight on the east coast, so even though she’s in Minnesota:

Happy Birthday, Susan!!!

Yes, it’s me!  I am back after travelling into the abyss that is know as the “High School Graduation Open House.”  Is this common in all of the U.S. or is this a Minnesota/Midwest phenomenon??  Egads.  But my open house is done and doner so I am feeling pretty footloose at the moment!

Okay, A Tale of Two Shawls.  As you may remember, I recently finished an Aranami Shawl in Brooklyn Tweed’s LOFT yarn.  My daughter loved it but preferred something lighter, so I decided to make her one — but in Cascade 220 Fingering (a misnomer if ever there was one: Cascade 220 is so named because it is the yardage of their worsted weight yarn 220 yds/100 grams; so what does that have to do with fingering weight yarn??!!??).

Anyway, I finally finished my second Aranami.  So boring.  And the second one to boot.  Quadruple boring (boring increases at a geometric rate).  I took both shawls to my knitting group and did a “blind taste test” – actually, I asked them to vote for their favorite: “If you had to choose one of these two shawls to keep as your very own, which one would it be?”

100% chose the $25 Cascade 220 Fingering version over the $72.50 LOFT version for both the look and the feel.

Here they are side by side (LOFT on the left, Cascade Fingering on the right):

The LOFT version has a browner tint.  The Cascade colors have sharper contrast: the bottom tiers are whiter, the top tier much darker.  There are also gauge differences, and I had to add a tier to the LOFT version for size.  Though I did not add a tier to the Cascade version, I did add a small amount of knitting to the top two tiers…described in detail on my Ravelry project page.

The Cascade yarn, thin as it is, has amazing strength.  I loved working with it and would highly recommend this yarn.

My current project is a copy of Sally’s Gradient Cowl – mine is in golds and browns.  Yowza, it is pretty yarn!!

PS – She loved it!! (and preferred the Cascade, given the choice – much drapier and lighter weight).

When Susan and I were at Yarnover, we both fell in love with a make-it-yourself necklace kit with wire, beads, and wire ribbon. The project is Falling Leaves, designed by Bev Pilarzyk. For me, wire knitting never turns out quite like it does for the “pros.” I’m not unhappy with my necklace, but it’s not as beautiful as the one I saw at Yarnover. Just sayin’.

On the other hand, I was able to make this in a quick afternoon, and it was fun to do something so different from what I usually knit. I’m not sure where I will wear it, though, which is my own issue and not the designer’s. It seems a little dressy for most of my activities. (Then again, getting dressed at all seems a little dressy for most of my activities.)

Here, though, is my little necklace. I knit four leaves as called for in the pattern, but I am showing it here with just two. (You can play around with how you want to wear it.) I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the photos.

I have at times referred to the dichotomy that I have going on in my brain: my middle-aged female self cohabiting with my adolescent male self.  These two personas co-exist in relative peace until “The Walking Dead” is showing opposite “Downton Abbey.”  In those battles, the adolescent male will always win! 😉

Imagine my excitement with the upcoming release of World War Z — a zombie apocalypse movie (score one for the adolescent male) starring Brad Pitt (oh yeah, baby!!).  Woo Hoo!!!

As a zombie-loving freak I will be at the first showing of this movie!!

In true zombie-loving, zombie-fighting style, I would like to share a new knitting pattern with you.  This design is supposed to replicate Beth’s hat in AMCs The Walking Dead, shown here in a poor screen-grab photo:

I couldn’t quite capture it exactly, but I came up with a cute alternative, modeled by my youngest:

The hat is called Beth’s Zombie Apocalypse Slouchy Hat and is available FREE on Ravelry!!  To quote the pattern page:

Be ready for the Zombie Apocalypse! This hat will allow you to make the best use of your stash. Because, let’s face it. After the ZA hits, where will you find a good yarn shop? And we know it is a practical accessory for fighting zombies – Beth on AMCs “The Walking Dead” has a hat just like it! Yes, this design is fashioned after Beth’s zombie-fighting hat.

Worked flat in garter stitch (with a twist!) and shaped with easy-to-do short rows, this hat can be adjusted to different yarns and sizes.

Pattern includes written out instructions (no charts), and diagrams.

It is free, so share it. We have to look after each other!

PS – I guess you can also wear it before the ZA…

The hat is very comfortable because it stretches to fit even my large head.  It can be adjusted to different sizes easily by adding a few sts, or adding a wedge.  I did this when I made a second hat for my older daughter using Madelinetosh DK.  Sorry, no pics!

So make one, share the pattern, go for it!  Like I said, we have to look out for each other!!

Hey, all!  I got back from Cape Coral, Florida (near Fort Myers) earlier this week after a really great weekend with ‘the girls’ (old girls, to be sure!!).  The house was fabulous:

Pools down there are surrounded by what they call a “pool cage,” the world’s best invention!  You can open up the house to the back yard and it is completely screened in!  The weather was perfect the entire trip: 80’s-90’s and sunny.

Our first stop was the Tropicaya (below) for lunch: authentic Cuban sandwiches.  What can I say?  It was the best sandwich I have ever eaten!!  The secret is Cuban bread.  My husband is a huge fan of The Cuban, so I immediately planned my strategy for getting a sandwich back to him.  It worked and we still have one of these delightful sandwiches in the freezer!

We did go on an airboat in the Everglades, even though it was well past the season for it.  Saw no gators there and very few birds, but we loved it just the same!  We did see a gator in a fresh water canal after leaving the Everglades tour, so it was well worth it!  My picture is too crappy to even see him.

Of course, we had to go to the beach:

Fort Myers Beach, photo taken from the pier

On our last evening, we dined near one of the canals on Pine Island and watched the sunset:

The day we left, we shopped a bit and swam in the gorgeous, saltwater swimming pool.  I did not take any knitting and I think that was a really smart thing to do.  It would have been distracting and it gave my hands a rest.

It was a great respite and a fun way to connect with old friends.  I have known these women for 40 years, and feel much closer to them now!  I see more travel in my future!