so i’ve got a question: do you want to have a slumber party in my basement?

I’ve had a pretty calm first week at school, so the knitting has been going pretty quickly. I managed to turn my skein of pretty, pretty Mini Maiden (50/50 wool/silk! omg!) from this:

Into this.

And in a little less than a week. The pattern I’m using is the Shetland Triangle Shawl () which, according to Ravelry, everyone and their dog has already knit. On the one hand, this makes me feel very unspecial and boring, but on the other it lets me exploit the power of Ravelry to my advantage, which is awesome.

For instance: the pattern calls for ten repeats of the main lace motif, and then to begin the edging. But other people have already used this pattern with this yarn, and discovered that if you want to use up the entire skein, you can get away with twelve repeats. I realize this is not new news to anybody, but the fact that a website exists where I can figure this out is still, like, the coolest thing ever.

Does anyone know if there’s some sort of Ravelry for sewing? I fear I’ve been spoiled.

Song of the Entry: Ke$ha – Your Love Is My Drug (Listen)

fo: daybreak shawl

This shawl, like a lot of things I’ve knit this year, has been an instructive exercise in the power of blocking. You may recall how scrunched and curled this looked when it came off the needles? I blocked it, and now it looks like this.

Pattern: a very truncated version of Daybreak, which was super fun to knit – the stripes and slipped stitches are just enough to keep the stockinette interesting, and the extra increases make this a perfect shawl to wear as a scarf, with the way it curves.
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM, 2 skeins – one in grey, one in turquoise.
Needles: I used my 4mm Addi Lace circular, because I didn’t own the size called for in the pattern. It was close enough.

I modified the pattern a bit, mostly to allow for the fact that I really didn’t want to buy extra skeins of yarn, even though the yardage that I had was much less than what was called for to knit the smallest size. I worked fewer stripe repeats (nine stripes of each) and striped the garter rows at the end. I ended up having a bit of the turquoise left over, but I used up the charcoal almost entirely, and I’m a big fan of the way the finished product turned out. The other change I made was to switch the M1R and M1Ls at the very end of each row with yarnovers, to make sure that the edge was nice and stretchy.

Because I worked the whole thing on a slightly larger needle and blocked it pretty fiercely, the finished shawl actually a perfect size – just big enough to wear as a scarf, over a t-shirt with jeans, and just in time. Fall is actually starting to settle in (finally), and I can’t wait to wear everything I’ve knit this summer with my new fall wardrobe.

kick it up, let loose and lol

IMG_8083ps, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

I really am finishing these like it’s my job, aren’t I? This is my second Ishbel this month – each of them only took about a week, this is the fastest shawl on the entire planet – for myself, this time.

It’s knit from Tanis Fiber Arts Blue Label fingering-weight, which is lovely and sheepy and hand-dyed in Canada, all of which are good things. The actual yarn isn’t quite as white as it looks in the photographs – it’s sort of a sandy grey-brown that’s really lovely and subtle, but I just couldn’t quite capture that with my camera.

This one blocked out to about the same size as the purple one from my last entry, but it sprung back down to the dimensions I expected once I took out the pins. I realize now, what made the other shawl grow so much was probably less related to the larger needle size and more related to bamboo’s tendency to sag and stretch out, since it doesn’t have the same “memory” as animal fibers.

Whatever, though – I’m still DEEPLY excited about wearing this (as a scarf, I feel too young for shawls over the shoulders) once it cools down in the fall.

Song of the Entry: Demi Lovato & Selena Gomez – One And The Same (Listen)