So, this fall I took up "snowflaking" again (note: snowflaking="to make crocheted snowflakes") and it reminded me of how incredibly satisfying crocheting can be compared to knitting. At the same time, some nice person in Ravelry pointed out that there were some copies of Mary Konior’s “Crochet Lace” for sale online that did not cost an arm and a leg which reminded me about those nice patterns (apart from making me go ahead and buy a copy :D.) Between the two things I felt like making a crocheted shawl again and this was the end result.

Anyway, I remembered that atwood48 had some cotton/acrylic shiny yarn she wanted to make into a scarf and she had been telling me for ages that she wanted to learn how to crochet in order to make another shawl like the one I made for her years ago. The thing is, we never had gotten around to teaching her, so instead I borrowed the yarn and gave her back the scarf in return. I know, I know! It’s not the same, she would be better off learning, but I’m sure we’ll get to that eventually, and I needed my crochet fix ;D

She loves the scarf, which is no wonder, after all she chose and bought the yarn herself, but still… it’s nice to know that your work is really appreciated.

The moment I finished Lyra I just couldn't help but cast on this one. I know everybody has chosen to make it, but it's so lovely, and about the right size… All the other, very organic, Niebling designs I found were simply too big.

So, anyway, I used this as my easy-to-carry-around project while working on S.'s shawl. It was nice to work, interesting and small, so it made all those hours in the underground bearable.

So, now all I need is to be brave enough to adapt one of the bigger organic patterns to a reasonable size or actually design a shawl following Niebling's style.

So, I've always said I'm a lousy knitting friend because I can't finish commissioned projects no matter my good intentions. Lord only knows how many times, upon a friend asking me to make something, I've gone and chosen a pattern, bought yarn and even casted on, and then left the project unfinished due to lack of motivation. Well… maybe all I need is the project to be interesting and challenging, because when S. asked me to make her a wedding shawl and chose the Ingrid's Bridal Knot Shawl pattern, I actually managed to make it through.

Hope she is really happy with it. I told her the meaning of the design that Bridget Rorem explains in the book and that she can use the shawl for their children too when the time comes.

As I mentioned in my previous post, since I joined Ravelry I have been having a really hard time choosing which project to make next, there are so many and so beautiful. But one of the things that caught my attention the most was German knitting designer Herbert Niebling. He designed tons of absolutely lovely doilies, tablecloths and household items, having floral and organic designs as his main signature.

I decided to start with "Lyra", since it seemed to be the perfect size for my mom's living room table, although I have to admit a preference for designs where the stems of the plants are not straight. He has many of those too but they all were really big so, when I have the time, I'll sit down and adapt some other pattern to the right size.

Of course, the moment it was off the needles I had to cast on for Frosted Ferns. I'm a process knitter, and this was too much fun no to go on :D.

We'll see what my mom thinks of it :)

Since I joined Ravelry my queue of future projects has increased maybe... by a twenty fold :D Anyway, Arbor was my favorite one and I decided to use some Gloss in woodland sage to make it.

Well, first I made the medium size, given that the yarn was fingering and that I was between the extra small and the small. When I only had the sleeves to finish I decided it was too tight, after all, I had gained ten pounds... So I started all over again. To my great chagrin, I discovered I had started the same size again by mistake when I was already a fourth of the way into it. So, for the last time I casted on, the large this time over, and when I got to the part where you put the sleeve stitches on hold, I discovered the pattern was wrong.

Now, I'm not talking typo, I'm talking mistake, because when I tried to come up with the correct number to put on hold it turned up that the algebraic system of equations you had to solve had no solution for the number of stitches in the cast on and the number of stitches in the bodice. So I actually had to change the number of stitches in the bodice and make it even wider. I need to get to the designer about this, but the studying has gotten in the way of my figuring out the correct numbers. For anybody out there interested in knitting this lovely pattern, I figure every other size is probably correct, the medium is definitely fine.

Anyway, anybody who is interested can have a look at the details:

I'm quite happy with the results, but maybe the bodice is too elastic; it seems to crease all the time despite it not being tight at all; I think I just need to block it a bit wider. Also, it looks like the yarn might be too warm to be a sleeveless top; when am I going to be able to wear it?

On the other hand, I just love, love, love the color and the yarn held up really well considering all the frogging. Also, I have to say the shape of the top is just perfect for my body type. Oh, well! We'll see if I get to wear it...

I thought I'd make J.M. a scarf for Christmas and I bought this lovely merino yarn for it. The moment I started knitting I was totally in love with the colorway and the pattern, but the longer the scarf was, the more unsure I was that it was OK for him. There's something about the turquoise color that simply looked too feminine to me.

So I went back to the store and bought some other yarn to make him a completely different scarf and started working on it and everything, when he tells me that he just loves the original one (that by now I was making for my friend A., a woman) and that he wants to learn to knit so he can make himself one like it! What could I do? I went back to my LYS and got the same yarn but in a colorway without turquoise in it.

Here are the two scarves and the cap I made for J.M. to go with his:

It seems that J.M. is happy with his, let's see what A. says when I give her hers.

I had some Lamb’s Pride worsted in chianti that I had bought a year before to make a project that never materialized. Since the color goes really well with small_thesecond’s complexion, I made her a set of hat and scarf with it.

atwood48 had some really pretty seed beads in warm colors that she thought I should use. The pearls just reminded me of a crocheted necklace I had once seen in a shop, so I decided to make the following experiment:

I wanted to make a knitted toy for a little four year old girl and I settled on making a little turtle. Since it does not require much yarn to make and I needed two colors, I chose some leftover Red Heart Supersaver from my stash in two different purples from my tribal belt. Wish it could have been pink, her favorite color, but the only pink yarn I had was not machine washable or durable.

While I was making it atwood48 suggested that I made another one for smallthesecond, preferably in orange (her favorite color). Since I didn't have anything suitable in my stash and this was a toy that was not going to be played with (at least no much :D), I decided to go with the original yarn suggested in the pattern, except I changed the light green color for an orange one. Here are the pictures of the second turtle:

I won’t be able to give the original turtle to its recipient yet, but smallthesecond is very happy with hers :D

(Three weeks later) I've given the original turtle to its recipient. I wasn't sure whether she liked it until I found out that she had given it a name, so it turns out the turtle is a she-turtle called:

(Six months later) I've made yet another little turtle, this on in fingering cotton with 2.00mm needles. The colors are more realistic because I made it for an adult (at least in physical years :D)

A year ago when I was visiting eseprimo in Minnesota I bought four skeins of Alpaca with a Twist Fino, two in Twilight and two in Champagne. I had no idea what I wanted to make with them, but the 30% off discount they had at the store (whose name I can't remember) could not be resisted :)

Anyway, after quite a while I decided to try Eunny Jang's Print O' the Wave Stole in the champagne color.

Not quite sure yet of what will happen to this one. I might keep it and, possibly, dye it, or just give it to the first person that shows enough appreciation for it :)

When I saw the Mountain Peaks Shawl pattern I just loved the geometrical shapes the pattern formed and then I realized how aptly chosen its name was and the fact that the exact yarn it required to make it had been living in my stash for several months without an assigned project (another of my "reach the limit for free shipping" purchases in Knitpicks). It was really meant to be.

It took much longer to complete than usual. First I got stumped by the instructions to attach the border, turn out that there was a slight contradiction in the pattern and, being my first time, I couldn't quite understand it. Then my life got in a turmoil and I stopped knitting for nearly three months, but I'm back to it with a vengeance :D

I have finally made a knitted garment that is neither a hat/scarf, nor a shawl. Hurray! And, what's more, I'm extremely happy with the end result (in fact, if it wasn't so hot right now I would probably wear it all the time), and it took such a short time to complete!.

Since I finished it I've been concocting how the next one is going to look :D.

It's been already something like 4 months since I made this hat and cowl for eseprimo, so it was about time to write this entry. He requested a hat that would keep him warm in Minnesota, and given we are mathematicians... this was my answer.

I've also decided that I'm going to try and be more organized in my craft post. Hopefully this will help me remember all the details about the construction of the items that I need to reproduce them.

So, on to the pictures and details:

I have been neglecting my needlework lately, specially several projects that were completely planned and for which I already have the yarn. In fact, my crocheted alpaca shawl is still half way done and seems to be going to stay that way for a while. But somehow I've found myself starting, and finishing, a knitted shawl made out of completely unplanned materials.

First I got the First Book of Modern Lace Knitting from Amazon because they gave me a coupon for $25 and it was just perfect to complete the order, then I got two hanks of shadow in jewels just to reach the free shipping in Knitpicks when I got the yarn to make eseprimo's pi hat (soon to come here!). Then somehow I ended up picking a curtain's pattern to make a shawl (made in two symmetric sides with a provisional crocheted cast-on) and throwing in the border of my sister's lace shawl. I did a lot of the knitting, and all of the blocking, while on the phone with eseprimo and my mother, which is good timewise, but rather painful on the neck :D.

The shawl used most of the two hanks of yarn and USA size 4 straight needles (the long ones, I'm still sticking the right needle under my arm if possible). After blocking, it measures 40.5x175cms. The pattern was not hard to follow and the yarn is quite soft, maybe soft enough even for my mother? The color of the yarn is rather pretty, although impossible to show in my monitor, it has subtle changes of color, from a dark turquoise to purple going through a deep blue, but it's hard to appreciate unless you look at it very close. I still gave it a shot anyway:

All in all, I'm quite happy with it.

Today I went with some of the Oasis girls to the Diwali Show on campus. There were some really nice performances, and some rather incomprehensible, not funny at all ones (and not just because they were in hindi). The event was somewhat disorganized, but after all the performers were just students, not professionals, so it was to be expected. In fact, the event was just a glorified talent show, so why would it be any better than our own department's one? Well, actually it was better, obviously this guys worked really hard on it, but still...

Dinner afterwards was nice though, the company was great and I got to wear the saree Manish brought me from India, so I'm not complaining about the evening.

Here is a picture, to proof that Roshni got us all looking prim and proper in our sarees:

You can see a few more here.

Driven by the description and good reviews of Knitpick's elegance, I added a couple of skeins in redwood to my cloud order (one has to get the free shipping, hasn't one?). So I made Pony Oh! a ribbed hat:

( Pony Oh! with his hat and scarf )

I worked it on straight 5's and then sewed it up together since knitting in the round would require a complete makeover of my knitting. I didn't like the top of the pattern it was based on, I figured out a different way of decreasing that looked... more tidy? geometrical? just nicer?

Anyway, the hat only used up one of the balls of yarn, so obviously a scarf was in order, :D, and Pony Oh! being a tree geneticist, there was really no option but to make the DNA scarf:

( Genes )

This was my very first cable knitting ever. I tried for a little while, using a crochet hook as a cable needle, and then remembered that once someone had referred to this method in knitting; so I ended up making the cables without using an extra needle at all. I didn't actually follow the instructions there but instead just made up my own method of switching the stitches around. Knitting is actually quite logical, if you know the result you want there aren't really that many possibilities to get it.

The scarf was knitted in straight 6's and used up less than three and a half balls of yarn. The color and the drape are just lovely and I'm very happy with the end result. I just wish I had bothered to measure the scarf before and after blocking, but now it's too late, it's in the mail, on its way to Madrid together with my sister's shawl.

Although I learned to knit before I ever learned to crochet (when I was around 5 or 6 years old), the truth is I never even made an actual knitted object until I was 24. At that time I made a seed stitch scarf for eseprimo, after deciding that one crocheted one was enough. I don't know why, but I always found crochet to look better on women. Since then, a 2x2 ribbed hat with its corresponding ribbed scarf were my only FO's until now.

Well, some months ago I was in the middle of my last crochet obsession (triggered by joining LJ) and my sister kept on asking me what she could do with three balls of kidsilk haze she bought in England a few years ago. She absolutely adores the stuff, so I decided to make her something out of it. I bought some kidsilk haze in liqueur to make her a shawl.

I kept my eyes opened for a pattern but, unfortunately, she didn't like anything from Knitty... Then I saw Shawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter's Magazine. It contains a very simple lace pattern that looked pretty and doable:

( Ni se te ocurra mirar aquí si eres atwood48 )

I think the stitch pattern is called ostrich plumes and it's just a variation of the usual feather and fan. The shawl took five balls of yarn and was worked with straight 3.5mm needles, just like the pattern calls for. The final measurements after blocking are: 22x80 inches. I know it's not perfect, there are at least three mistakes in it that I know of, but the mohair is forgiving enough that hopefully nobody else will notice.

Anyway, the shawl is now on its way to my sister and should arrive home with plenty of time to spare before her birthday.

We're just back from the trip home, where I finally had the chance to give atwood48 her new shimmer shawl.

After the small poll I made some time ago to find if it was just me who thought the colors were "too much" when crochetted, I went ahead and make the shawl following swatch number 1... Unfortunately, when atwood48 saw the finished shawl, she reacted to the combination of colors the same way I did. Don't get me wrong, she is my sister and I know she appreciates all the effort it took in the making and all that, but I'm also sure that she'd rather that green was not there. As you can see from the picture, she decided the shawl was so fine that she would use it as a scarf (the less one can see the colors, the better ;D).

( Pictures and pattern explanation )

Now I just need to come up with something to do with the other 2 skeins I've got left...

July 2007: I have finally dyed this shawl black:
( Read more... )

The color is not completely solid, if you look at it carefully, you can actually tell what areas used to be green/pink/purple.

Meet small_thesecond's new pair of slippers (click for bigger images):

( Do not get Lard and Velocity mixed up )

So, the Oasis troupe performed today at the new farmer's market in Cumberland Park, and in between dancing I managed to take some pictures.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get pictures of some of the people. As usual, I managed to run out of battery before the end and there was just no frame of some of them in the ones I took.

The market looked really nice, but I was too tired after dancing to actually walk around. Maybe when we come back from Spain in June... The market works from 3 to 7 p.m. every Wednesday while the weather is nice, and they'll always have performers there from 5 to 6:30. It should definitely be interesting.