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August 13, 2011

From Sally — The Path to Enlightenment

Filed under: Forest Path Stole — surly @ 1:54 pm

Eight years ago, Faina Letoutchaia’s Forest Path Stole pattern appeared in Interweave Knits (Summer 2003). I loved it. I wanted to make it.

To be honest, most of the time if I don’t immediately embark on a pattern that I have fallen in love with, I gradually lose interest or forget all about it. (That can be a good thing; I don’t have enough hours in the day to knit everything I’ve wanted to knit in my life.) Despite my fickle nature, the Forest Path Stole continued to enchant me. I bought yarn for it. More than once. Susan and I discussed what changes we might make in it. I periodically scrolled through the finished projects on Ravelry. Finally, a few weeks ago, I actually started it.

Back in 2003, the pattern looked intimidating to me. I didn’t have all that much experience with entrelac or lace, and the pattern looked complex to me. Now, in my dotage, I realize it’s actually a very simple pattern. Each of the three lace panels is easy to memorize. Because it’s entrelac, you are only working with about twenty stitches at a time (the stitches for one lace panel motif), and so there’s a sense of immediate progress each time you finish a panel. It’s a relaxing, fairly portable project. My yarn is Alpaca with a Twist Fino in the color Champagne. Fino is 70% alpaca and 30% silk and knits up beautifully.

I’ve made a couple of changes to the pattern. First, I am knitting a narrower and shorter version. Second, instead of the seed stitch border, I started with a provisional cast on and I’ll do some kind of knitted on border at the end. (I have several ideas, and will decide which one when I get there.) I’ve completed ten tiers, with my current plan to end after tier 19.

Progress photos of lace are usually uninspiring: unblocked lace looks shriveled and a little sad. But here are two shots anyway to give an idea of the color.

I love working on this stole. It’s a good thing, too, because after all these years of loving this pattern I am not knitting it for myself. It will be auctioned off in October to benefit The National Inclusion Project.

I knew it was smart to buy yarn more than once. I can’t wait to finish this one so I can start it again.

Additional Comments from Susan

Sally is so right: we both fell in love with this shawl, and I was intimidated! I saw the actual shawl in person at a trunk show at Amazing Threads years ago. I walked in and saw this stunning (and very large) lace stole and knew it was completely beyond my knitting capabilities. But not beyond my dreams! So, quite a while later I bought a ton of yarn (the same yarn Sally is using, but in cream) and ended up using it for Lyra. Oh well! Then I bought Exquisite in Slate Blue. It, too, is beautiful and currently marinating in my stash. I have definitely earmarked it for Forest Path, but have to wait for the knitting planets to align…some day…soon? Sally is doing the pre-work so it will be easy for me to follow!

Comments (10)

May 29, 2016

From Sally — Spring Awakening

Filed under: Updates — surly @ 4:13 pm

It’s shawl season. Not that there’s a particular season for shawls, but periodically — out of boredom, frustration with fit, yarn lust — I get into the mood to knit nothing but shawls. I’ve knit three of them in the last few weeks. The first was Waiting for Rain. This is the second, which I finished a couple of weeks ago. I’ll about post my third one (also finished!) next time.

This shawl is Newfoundland, designed by Anne-Lise Maigaard. If you aren’t familiar with her patterns, she has designed a number of lovely shawls, several of which are in my queue. I liked the shallow crescent shape of Newfoundland as well as the “squared off” ends. It’s knit from the bottom up so you cast on all the stitches at once. (In other words, it starts off slowly.)

The yarn I used is Cashsilk Lace from Sweet Georgia Yarns (55% silk, 45% cashmere; 400 yards in a 50 gram skein). The color, Seagrass, was a custom dye for Knit Purl in Portland, Oregon. I purchased it to make a Forest Path stole, but the color changes that are so subtle in the skein did not look good in that pattern. Forest Path is built from entrelac blocks and the color became too blocky. It worked well for Newfoundland, though. I did put in the beads (there are very few of them in the pattern) but I think they sort of disappear in most light.

In a surprise turn of events, I also tackled a sewing project. I rarely sew. Rarely means that the last time I sewed something it was a poodle skirt for my now 30 year-old daughter’s 8th grade play. I bought myself a brand new sewing machine months ago and hadn’t taken it out of the box. When Susan was here for the Sheep & Wool Festival, I got inspired and bought some fabric. Here is the top I made. It ain’t couture, but it fits!

ETA: The sewing pattern I used is called the Wiksten Tank. It can be a dress or a top; I changed the length to be sort of in between so I’d have a summer tunic.

Comments (5)

March 20, 2012

From Both of Us — It’s That Time of Year Again

Filed under: Updates — Sally @ 12:19 pm

HAPPY BLOGGIVERSARY!!!!

It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been writing this blog for six years. As we often do when our bloggiversary approaches, we’ve spent time reflecting on our knitting and blogging. There have been interesting changes in the knitting world over the past six years: Ravelry (which didn’t exist when we started and now has over 2 million members), a big shift to downloadable patterns, more online resources, and of course new yarns and tools.

We’d like to understand a little bit more about how our blog fits into your knitting world as we go forward. To that end, we’ve written a (brief) survey that we invite our readers to fill out. Responses will be anonymous. We’ll share any interesting findings and comments in a later post.

To reward you for responding, we’ll give out three prizes. Details on how to fill out the survey follow the descriptions of the bribes prizes.

Prize #1

Buffalo Wool. One reader will receive 120 grams (approximately 440 yards) of this luscious yarn (90% Bison, 10% nylon).

Prize #2

Brooklyn Tweed’s Loft. One reader will receive two skeins in the color “Longjohns” (100% wool; 275 yards per 50 gram skein).

Prize #3

Fino Alpaca with a Twist. One reader will receive two skeins in the color “Champagne” (70% Baby Alpaca, 30% silk; 875 yards per 100 gram skein). That’s enough yarn to make a shawl identical to Sally’s Forest Path Stole.

How to Fill Out the Survey and Enter the Contest

It’s easy. Just click here and fill out the survey. Instructions on how to enter are at the very end of the survey. The survey and contest are open through midnight Monday, March 26th. Prize winners will be announced on Tuesday, March 27th. (You have the option to enter for any or all of the prizes.)

Thank you for participating and, as always, thank you for reading!

Comments (19)

September 9, 2011

From Sally — Rain, rain, go away . . .

Filed under: Forest Path Stole — surly @ 11:35 am

We have had nonstop rain here in Washington, DC for what seems like forever. I know that other areas are suffering from fires and drought, so I shouldn’t complain. But that never stopped me before. One side effect of the rain is increased difficulty in taking good photographs of finished knitting; it is so gloomy out that adequate lighting is a problem. Le sigh.

I did finally finish my Forest Path stole, and I love it.

(Sadly, it’s not truly mine; I knit it for charity and have to mail it off to be auctioned.) To recap, the Forest Path, designed by Faina M. Letoutchaia, first appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Interweave Knits. I had wanted to make it for a very long time. It was fun and relatively fast to make.

I used Fino Alpaca with a Twist, which is a lace weight blend of alpaca and silk, in the color “Champagne” (a warm ivory). I made several modifications. First, I narrowed the shawl and shortened it. The original has 23 tiers of entrelac lace panels; for this charity project I knit 17. (I’ll probably do 19 when I knit it again for myself.) The tiers in the original alternate between four and five lace panels as you work your way up; my version has three and four. Even with those changes, my finished shawl blocked out to 70 inches by 26 inches, which I think is a generous size for a stole. When I reknit it, I will keep my width.

The other major change I made was to the edging. As written, the stole is bordered by seed stitch. You work base, side, and top triangles of seed stitch as you knit the shawl and then add a seed stitch border to the sides, which you sew to the stole. (The bottom and top seed stitch strips are done before and after the base and top triangles respectively.) This didn’t appeal to me because I didn’t like sewing the border to my Crown Prince shawl, and I find that much seed stitch a bit boring and tedious to knit. More important, my reading at Ravelry had made me a bit leery about the border. [Side note re Ravelry: This is one of the strengths of Ravelry as a knitting resource. By skimming through finished projects, you can learn a lot about what does and does not work in a pattern before you knit it.] A number of knitters who made the shawl felt that they couldn’t block it as much as they wanted to because the border wasn’t as willing to stretch as the lace panel center. Therefore, I added a lace leaf border based on a motif in Victorian Lace Today. It was slo-o-o-ow, but I was very pleased with how it turned out.

So here, without further ado, is my first Forest Path. A second, that I will keep for myself, is definitely in my future.

Comments (30)

August 22, 2011

From Sally — Rocky Mountain High, Colorado

Filed under: Updates — surly @ 10:27 am

I’m off today on an unexpected, spontaneous trip to Colorado — I just decided to go on Thursday! My daughter’s boyfriend is racing in the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, which features some of the world’s top pro cyclists including Cadel Evans and the Schleck brothers, the top three finishers in this year’s Tour de France. This guy, however, is our big draw:

Nora and I will be driving all over Colorado to catch the various mountain stages; I’m really looking forward to seeing the cyclists race over the top of Independence Pass, which tops out at over 12,000 feet. The race will be televised on Versus in case any of you are secret bicycling fans or just like to watch fit men with great legs in tight spandex. Go Team Exergy and Matt Cooke!!!

I will, of course, bring along knitting. In addition to my Forest Path stole, I’ll be working on my own Summer Solstice cardigan. Susan liked hers so much, I was inspired to start one. I’m making it out of The Fibre Company’s Acadia, a wonderful yarn: 60% merino, 20% baby alpaca, and 20% silk. My colorway is Summersweet and I love it.

I haven’t knit enough to bother with a progress shot, but I hope to have a big chunk finished by the time I come back.

Comments (4)

April 29, 2007

From Sally — Inside of Widdicombe Fair

Filed under: Knitting Tips,Widdicombe Fair — Sally @ 5:55 pm

I won’t steal Susan’s clever “skirt lifting” title, but Lisa asked me to show the inside of Widdicombe Fair. She was also wondering about some of the floats, which she thought looked as if they could be quite long. As a quick refresher, here is what the blanket looks like. (I’ve now finished the third out of five horse repeats.)

Some of the floats are quite long for fair isle. I think the longest is 17 stitches, but there are numerous others in the 10-13 range. My rule of thumb is to do nothing for any float up to 8 stitches. Eight is my cut off. At that point, I will “catch” the other color at some convenient point. For example, if I have a 9-stitch float, I will:

1. Try to convince myself that I should stretch my 8-stitch rule to include 9. I’m never successful.

2. Knit 4 or 5 stitches, catch the unused color, knit the remaining stitches.

What I try to be careful of is where I catch it. I don’t want to “stack up” those catch points on top of one another. So, if in the row below I also had a long float, I try to make sure I catch the next float one or two stitches apart from the first. I also don’t want that caught color to ever peek through, so I try to not catch it right above a color change. I’m probably thinking too much, but that is my nature.

If I have a really long float — such as the 17-stitch one in this blanket — I’ll catch the unused color twice.

Here is the inside of the blanket:

Someone asked about wedding shawls. I’ve been thinking a lot about that question, but I don’t have a great answer. I think it so depends upon what level of difficulty you would want to tackle and what shape shawl you want. For example, the Forest Path Stole that was published in Interweave Knits would make a beautiful wedding shawl if you wanted a rectangle. Heritage Knitting and Fiddlesticks both have some lovely patterns — but there are so many shawl patterns out there. I’m no expert.

What does everyone else think?

Comments (11)

December 31, 2006

From Susan and Sally — No Snow in Minne-snow-ta

Filed under: Updates — lv2knit @ 1:42 pm

New Year’s Eve in Minnesota and not a flake to be found. It is very disappointing and not a little disturbing (see “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Soylent Green,” and “The Day after Tomorrow”).

Because it has been a brown winter, it never did quite seem very Christmasy or wintery. Last fall, Sally and I started a project we were both very enthusiastic about, but it never “got legs” so to speak. It was a shawl that would be gorgeous (IF it worked) to wear during the holiday season — very festive and certainly wintery in nature. It is the Winter Wonderland Shawl designed by Sharon Winsauer.

The pattern is available from the Alpaca Yarn Company which also carries the Forest Path Stole pattern (featured in Interweave Knits a few years ago). Sally and I fell in love with this shawl, immediately ordered the yarn, and started cranking out snowflakes like crazy. We didn’t post anything because we realized that this project could flop very easily because of the unusual construction — we wanted to see if it would work before posting. We forged ahead and then, like so many times before, momentum stopped. As Sally recently put it, “Its time has passed.” So, these are the only snowflakes in Minnesota — at least anywhere near my home:

Aren’t they wonderful? If nothing else, the snowflakes could be appliqued onto something. This project is set to resurface in the fall of 2007 — if there is snow for inspiration. If it is another brown year, I’m not sure the muses will deem this project knit-worthy.

Project details: 13 snowflakes are knit individually on dpns using “Glimmer” (3 skeins); then you pick up around each snowflake with Suri Elegance (1 skein) and knit the background. To finish: graft the snowflakes together and knit an edging with Glimmer.

I miss snow, and I miss winter.

From Sally: Here are a few photos of my snowflakes, including one with its knitted background. (I know, I know. Mine aren’t as nicely blocked and finished as my sister’s yet.)