A Mystery No More

It took me two nights to finish the picot bind off, but look what's finally finished!

Pattern: Through the Loops Mystery Shawl 2013 by Kirsten Kapur
Yarn: Louet Gems Sport Weight (100% merino) in Linen Gray (color A), Pewter (color B), and Caribbean Blue (color C)
Needles: US 6 (4.0 mm) ChiaoGoo Red Lace circs
Started/Completed: June 1/June 24

This was a really fun knit. I have long admired Kirsten's designs but had never knit one before now. After taking a lace design class with her a couple of months ago, I knew I had to knit one of her patterns, and I jumped at the chance when I heard about the mystery knitalong.

I decided on solid colors so that the yarn wouldn't compete with any pattern, and I'm very pleased with my choices. These colors go well with my wardrobe (I wear a lot of blue, black, and gray), so I know that this shawl will actually get worn. I'd worked with the fingering weight version of this yarn recently and really enjoyed it, so I knew the sport weight would be a great choice. Now that I've had some more experience with it, I like it even more. I think it would be a good yarn to design with in the future.

As to the pattern, I really like it. It was a very easy knit pretty much until the last clue, when I had to pay attention to both the right side and the wrong side of the lace. And it blocks out so beautifully -- it's attractive right off the needles but it's even more so once it's gotten a good soak and pin. I'd consider knitting this pattern again; I think it'd look really interesting in two colors, especially if one of the colors is a solid and one has long color changes. I might try it with handspun.

Someone wanted to get in on the action

If I have one complaint, it's the number of ends to weave in. It really doesn't make sense to carry the striping colors along the side when you're working the lace sections, so that means four ends for every striped section plus two for the adjacent lace panels. I tried to be diligent about weaving in as I finished each section, but it still made for a lot of work.

Photo by Rainbow

Overall, it's a winner. It was fun to race to finish each clue as it was released, and it's great to have a finished shawl after just a little more than three weeks.

Somewhere in the Middle

I'm at that somewhat boring stage in all my current projects where there's not very much exciting happening. My Sybaritic socks are still moving along slowly (they get about 40 minutes of attention each day during my lunch break). I've now completed the leaf design on the foot, so I'm at the point where I work even until I'm ready to start decreasing for the toe. The good new is that despite a very tight cuff that takes some effort to get over my heel, the sock does fit, as you can see.

I've spent most of my knitting time the past three days working on my Through the Loops Mystery Shawl and completed clue 3 last night. I was not as diligent following the last clue and, as a result, have a ton of ends to weave in (I'm trying to do it as I go so I'm not stuck with all of them at the very end, when I just want to weave in the last one and block the thing). I got a good start on it last night but will have to finish up this evening.

Hello, I am too big to spread out on a 40" needle

I'm predicting that the last clue, which is due to be released this Saturday, is a lace edging in the third color (the blue, in my case). I'm guessing it'll be 30-ish rows, and with the length of the rows these days, that will likely take a bit of time. If I get lucky, Kirsten will release the clue a day early -- I have a day off on Friday, so it would be great to use that uninterrupted knitting time to make decent headway on finishing the shawl.

Of course, on top of all of this, my Breezy Cardigan is still hanging around. I did put in a little bit of time on it the other night, but it's still making slow progress. As much as I'd like to start plying up my Fiber Optic gradient this week, I'm going to make a point of devoting time to this sweater. I have other things I'd like to start but don't want to cast on for something new until this longtime WIP is finally an FO.

Dividing My Time

When last we discussed knitting, I mentioned that I was once again working on my handspun sweater, which has been on the needles for almost a year. That's still seeing a bit of action here and there, though I'll admit the call of the wheel has been strong the past week or so. I worked on the sweater for a bit on Sunday night while watching the Tonys and got about another couple of inches done on sleeve #2 (I have no photographic proof, so you'll have to take my word for it). Although the sweater is relatively light, being knit out of laceweight yarn, it's still a bit too much to carry in my work bag, so I had to start another pair of socks for my lunch break knitting.

This is most of the cuff of the first sock in the pair. The pattern is Sybaritic by Hunter Hammersen; it's one of two single patterns I got as a freebie as part of a promotion for preordering The Knitter's Curiosity Cabinet, Volume II. I didn't realize until I started knitting just how involved this pattern is. As you can probably tell from the photo, there are a lot of twisted stitches (there are also two kinds of double decreases and some lace). What I didn't realize at first is that the entire instep of the sock has every stitch knit through the back loop, so needless to say, these will not be a really fast knit. I'm really loving the fantastic texture, though, so I'm okay with that. I have about six rounds left on the cuff of this sock, provided I don't make it longer, so at least I'll be getting to the heel flap soon.

Meanwhile, the second clue for the Through the Loops Mystery Shawl was released a day early, so I was able to knit up all of it before the end of the weekend (actually, most of it was done Saturday night).

As you can see, this clue added another, larger, lace section with slightly larger motifs and another stripe section. It's now big enough that I cannot stretch it out over my 40" needle, and I'm noticing a pretty significant reduction in my yarn. I'm guessing that the next clue will have an even larger lace section followed by stripes and that the last clue will be a lace edging. We'll see if I'm right!

The Mystery Revealed: Part One

Note: This post contains spoilers! Don't scroll down if you don't want to see!

You may recall that a few weeks ago I mentioned that I had signed up for the Through the Loops mystery shawl for this summer. As a reminder, this was the yarn I picked out (Louet Gems Sport Weight):

The first clue was released this past Saturday. I am far past the age where I can stay up until midnight to cast on the moment the pattern is released, so I downloaded when I woke up and then cast on after breakfast and yoga. I was able to complete all of the first clue before going to bed that night.

I already knew the shape of the shawl, more or less, and that it would use three colors, but the rest was a surprise. So far, the main body of the shawl is done in two-row stripes with colors A and B (with yarnover increases) and has a strip of lace done in color C.

So far, I'm liking it, even if the stripes do make me a little dizzy. I expect that there will be more of the lace in the blue in the future clues based upon the yardage listed for color C. I hope I can keep up with the pace of the knitalong -- after all, this clue didn't take much time, but the shawl only gets bigger from here!

My Piece of the Pi

It seems this was my week for finishing lace.

Pattern: Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl by Renee Leverington, clues 1D, 2C, 3A, 4C
Yarn: Knit Picks Gossamer (100% merino; discontinued), colorway Caribbean, approximately 3.16 skeins (1,390 yards)
Needles: US 5 (3.75 mm) 32" Addi Turbo circs and Crystal Palace bamboo dpns
Started/Completed: June 13/August 15
Mods: none

Based on the principle of Elizabeth Zimmerman's pi shawl, this shawl is knit in the round and separated into four sections. For each section, we had four charted clues from which to choose, followed by an increase round after the first three sections. It is finished with a simple border knit perpedicularly around the entire outside.

This is the first time I'd ever knit a shawl in the round, and it was an enjoyable experience. The beginning is a bit awkward, but it's very pleasant once those first few rows are past. I really liked that the "even" rows were knit rather than purled, which allowed me to knit more in the same amount of time because there was no turning the shawl back and forth.

This also was the first time I'd knit on a border perpendicular to the rest of the knitting. After one false start (caused entirely by my skimming the directions rather than reading them properly), I found it to be very easy albeit a bit time consuming. By the time I reached the end of the fourth clue, I had 576 stitches on my needle. Because the border is attached by purling a border stitch with a body stitch at the end of every wrong-side row, that means there are twice as many rows of border as there are stitches in the body. Needless to say, the border clue took me longer than any other.

My only concern about this shawl is that perhaps the colorway of the yarn I selected (because I had enough of it in stash) obscures the pattern a bit. I think that if I knit another version of this shawl -- using different clues, of course -- I'll choose a solid or mostly solid colorway.

I took this to Natural Stitches yesterday to show it off, guessing that other knitters would appreciate it more than The Mister did, and I was "forced" to enter it in the Summer of Lace contest. I certainly won't win, but I'm proud of the accomplishment even so.

I've definitely been bitten by the mystery lace bug: Before this shawl was even finished, I signed up for Mystery Stole 4 and picked out my yarn:


Aisling Yarns superwash merino laceweight, colorway Perfect Storm. Now to find the perfect beads!

Back to the Status Quo

Now that the shawl is off the needles (and thank you all for your very nice comments!), I am back to working on the usual: a pair of socks, which I hope to have finished up by this weekend, and the mystery shawl, which is not very much different from the last time you saw it. I am anxious to finish it up in the next few days, too, in part because I'm more than ready to be done, but also because I need the needles for another project.

I pulled my spinning wheel out again on Monday (it'd gone into hiding in my fiber room for a bit to stay safe and clean while we had a new sliding glass door installed right next to where I usually spin). I'm trying to spin at least half an hour every day, and it's definitely helping that I using some dreamy fiber.

This is some of the Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino I scored in their summer sale. It's incredibly soft and so well prepped that I didn't need to predraft at all. I'm doing a traditional three ply, aiming for fingering weight, with this fiber. I can't wait to see how this turns out when it's plied.

I don't have much else in the way of fibery stuff, but perhaps you'd like to see the visitor I had in my garden today. Notice how carefully he's checking me out to make sure I photograph him from his good side.

Bordering on Obsession

With approximately 12 hours to go until the Ravelympics begin, I am in a mad dash to get as much as I can get done on the border of my mystery shawl. Here it is after a couple hours of work last night (yes, I knit lace at the meeting of the Hurricane Knitters!):

It's really starting to look huge, but the sad thing is that I'm not even halfway done yet. I'm under no illusions that I will finish this tonight, so this shawl will go into hibernation starting at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, when I will be casting on for my Olympic project.

Speaking of the Shetland Triangle, it looks like I'm not going to be the only one knitting it -- Jen cast on for hers (in a gorgeous color of DIC Smooshy) at knit night last night. I'm trying to convince her that it's easier to knit lace from a chart than from written directions (at least I find it to be so). I was getting quite jealous and wanted to cast on my own last night, in spite of the fact that I had a lap full of lace already. In any case, I have everything ready to go, and I will be casting on at 8 a.m. sharp tomorrow.

Those of you who did not make it to Hurricane Knitting last night missed a visit from a special guest: Rufus the wonder dog! He's a lot bigger in person than I thought he'd be. I wish I'd had the foresight to get out my camera and take some pictures with something for scale, but I was too busy giving him scritches. Thank you to The MWP for facilitating the canine visit!

Good Things Come in Small Packages

This evening, I arrived home to find a rather small box waiting for me at my front door. Now, I guess you couldn't objectively call it small, but it looked small to me considering I knew there was a full pound of fiber inside -- my order from Crown Mountain Farms. I fully blame the ladies over at Lime and Violet for alerting me to their big summer sale (psst! it's on until the end of July!), although to be fair, I had been wanting to try the famous CMF sw merino for quite some time. The sale proved to be just the impetus I needed to break out the credit card. So, after patiently waiting about a week and a half, here are the latest additions to my stash:

"San Francisco" (above) and "In the Skies" (below)

Each of these bumps is 8.5 ounces of extremely soft superwash merino. I haven't pulled them apart yet, but they look like they will require very little predrafting before spinning. I'm going to try a traditional three-ply sock yarn with at least one of these, and I'm anxious to get going on that, so I'm going to be working to finish up the BFL you saw yesterday by the end of the week (so far, spinning about half an hour every day seems to be working well).

Meanwhile, the knitting continues on my mystery shawl; I think I have about 12 rows of the fourth chart left to knit before I can start the edging. We had a rather crazy, but fun, weekend, so I didn't get in as much time on it as I would have liked. I'm going to focus on the shawl this week and this weekend, however, so that I can finish up if at all possible by next Friday, when the Olympics start and I cast on for my Shetland Triangle.

Best-Laid Plans

I've been meaning to write this (or any, really) blog post for quite a few days. First I meant to write it over the weekend, but partying with my now-legally-able-to-drink brother and entertaining my aunt got in the way. Then I meant to blog last night, but some sort of stomach bug sent me home early from work and directly into bed. So this post is, by necessity, a bit of a catch up. I hope you'll forgive the bullet-point style; I promise to get back to my verbose self in the next post.

Just what have I been up to since last we talked? Well, I finished a quick-and-easy pair of baby socks:

(The usual pattern, using the leftovers from these socks, on size 1/2.25 mm dpns.)

Then, I started some very plain socks for my father (long-term planning) in what may very well be the oldest sock yarn in my stash.

Here's sock #1 done; sock #2 is part way through the foot and should be completed in the next day or so.

I'm still plodding slowly through the mystery shawl, which has grown to the point where it's taking me 20-30 minutes to knit a round; needless to say, it will not be finished any time soon.

I'm almost halfway through clue 4, and then clue 5, the edging, will be very long and tedious. (It's knitted on perpendicularly, so the number of rows will be twice the number of stitches I have in each round right now. I don't even want to think about how many rows that is.)

I've also been trying to spin at least a little every day, and I'm halfway through the Dragonfibers BFL. Here's the second half, ready to be fluffed and then spun:

Finally, I signed up for the 2008 Ravelympics. I'm going to attempt to knit the Shetland Triangle (Rav link) with this handspun. I think that's doable, considering last summer's lace knitting, but I'd really like to be done with the mystery shawl before I cast on another, so maybe this will be the kick in the pants I need to get moving on that particular WIP.

What about you? Are you signed up for the Ravelympics? What is your challenge?

Days of Lace and Fiber

Is there any Monday as depressing as the Monday following a long holiday weekend? I doubt it. Today was doubly depressing after the weekend I had, in which I indulged in many fibery pursuits. It was a busy weekend, between entertaining on the 4th, going furniture shopping (the new coffee table arrives Saturday!), doing some serious yard work, doing "work work," and even going to the office for a while yesterday, but I made sure I observed the holiday weekend and my vacation day by doing what I love best.

First there was working on the mystery shawl. I'd been working on it a bit last week, but I really focused my energy on it on Saturday afternoon and evening, when The Mister and I decided to stay in for a low-key evening. We made some pasta and watched a Law and Order: Criminal Intent marathon on USA, and I kept at the shawl. I feel particularly proud of myself, because in addition to cooking and cleaning up dinner and doing two loads of laundry, I finished Clue 3. My shawl has now grown to 576 stitches around:

For scale, I will tell you that the needle is a 32" Addi. That little mess of yarn up near the top is what's left from the first skein of yarn. I'll be interested to see how much more I'll use in the last two clues.

Speaking of which, I printed out Clue 4 yesterday, and the charts have gotten much larger -- each chart is a full page. Two of the four options are about 46 rows and the other two are about 96. Take a wild guess which option I'll be choosing.

I'm holding off on the shawl for a day or two, though, because I've been flying on my February Lady Sweater. Sleeve number one is ready for its cuff.

I'd really like to finish this by the weekend (perhaps short of getting buttons if I find I need to go shopping for them), and I seem to be on a roll, so I'm going with it. Plus, I have a movie to watch tonight that will require a bit more attention (and thus is not very compatible with knitting lace).
Yesterday, although I didn't blog about it, I observed a Spinning Sunday and worked on my second bobbin of my All Spun Up merino while watching the marathon men's Wimbledon final.

See that contraption in the back? That's my very high-tech fiber holder (I've graduated from the cardboard box some of my most recent purchases arrived in).

Eventually I think I'd like to get a Lantern Moon basket to hold my spinning fiber, but for now I'll settle for an old pillowcase inside a handled basket. I think it's only appropriate that, on the 4th of July weekend, I used a little old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity!

Little Bits

My knitting time has taken a back seat to household chores in the past couple of days, so there hasn't been very much progress. After my spinning adventures over the weekend, I did pull out my February Lady Sweater on Sunday evening and did manage to finish the body.

It does fit, but I didn't think you wanted to see a shot of me wearing it over my pajamas. Let's save the modeling shots for when it's all done, shall we?

Although Clue 3 of the mystery shawl was released on Saturday, I didn't get around to printing the clue and pulling out my shawl until last night. Good thing, too, because it turns out that there were a couple of errors discovered by the designer in the interim.

As you can see, I've made it on to my one "big" needle. This clue is noticeably larger than the two previous ones; I think I'm about on row 4 of 50, and when I'm done with this clue, there will be 500+ stitches on my needle.

I'm a bit worried that the variegated colorway of the yarn I'm using (Knit Picks Gossamer -- now discontinued, I think --in Caribbean) might be obscuring the lace, but I will withhold final judgment until it's done and blocked. The thing that I really like about this particular KAL is that the pattern is a sort of "choose your own adventure" shawl. Each clue has four charts to choose from, so you could theoretically knit more than a thousand shawls from the one pattern and have no two alike.

This shawl requires a fair amount of concentration, so if you come to the meeting of the Hurricane Knitters tomorrow night (7 p.m., Waterworks Barnes & Noble), you'll see me getting my sleeve on instead!

How I Spent the Rest of My Week

I printed and knit the first clue of the Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl, a day earlier than expected.

I got to the lace portion of my February Lady Sweater.

I knit a heel, gusset, and foot of a Monkey sock.

I did some spinning and gave it a lot of good thwacking.

I bought a house!