Finished Zephyr Cove

 

I finished my Zephyr Cove Shawl!  This is knit exactly as the pattern is written using Frabjous Fibers Cheshire Cat in Curiouser (blue green) and Muchness (navy).  It was a fun knit and for the most part was pretty mindless.  I do love the details of this shawl though.

The beginning starts with a little leaf.

And the whole thing ends with a little lace - not too much, just a hint of lace.

Now I'm down to just one shawl (the Westknits MKAL shawl) and one pair of socks (Mickael's Decathlon socks) on the needles, instead of two of each.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Finished Socks!

 

I finished the Speckled Space Socks for the Flash KAL!  This was a fun and quick pattern to knit and I'm very happy with the way they look in this colorway.  As you can see in the photo, one end of the skein ended up with warmer and lighter tones than the other end so there is a warm sock and a cool sock.  Fortunately, the difference isn't quite as pronounced in person as it's photographing, but that's one of the fun things with hand dyed yarns - you never know how it's going to knit up!  The yarn is Madelinetosh Twist Light in Opaline if you're curious.

I'm off to submit for the KAL credit and a few Boosterthon badges!

Socks!

Remember how on Friday I was planning on getting some things cut out to sew over weekend?  (I was planning on doing the cutting, not necessarily the sewing.)  Well I got absolutely nothing cut out.  Nada.  What I did do is knit almost a sock and a half.

These are the Speckled Space Socks which is a free pattern.  Eat.Sleep.Knit. did a KAL flash challenge with these and since I had yarn and I know I can knit a pair of socks in a week, I decided to participate.  The pattern is written as toe up, but I'm knitting mine top down.  I've gotten the first sock finished and I'm almost to the heel turn of the second sock.  The Flash KAL began last Friday and ends this Friday.  I'm hoping to get finished before then and get some Boosterthon badges as well as the KAL yardage and half a star for the team.

Lace!

 

I made it to the lace section on my Zephyr Cove!  You're looking at the first two rows of the lace.  Ironically, because it's overcast and dark and trying to decide if it's going to rain this morning or not, this photo actually shows the true color of the blue better than any of the previous photos.  It's somewhere between royal blue and navy, but not really either one.

I hope you all have a great weekend!  I'm hoping to get some sewing projects cut out this weekend.

Zephyr Cove

 

I've kind of set my Westknits Mystery KAL shawl aside for a bit while I finish Zephyr Cove.  Apparently I can cast on more than one shawl at a time, but I'll only work on one at a time.  I've made it past the striped section of the shawl and I'm now working only in the dark blue.  I'm not sure, but I think I don't have too much more before I start the lace.  On the other hand, each row gets a little bit longer, so while there might not be too many more rows, there is plenty of knitting to go.  It's pretty big at this point, big enough for Max to try to climb under it and take a nap.  The shape isn't quite right for kitty napping, but that doesn't really stop Max from trying.

Once I get this finished I'm looking forward to getting back to my MKAL project, I just feel like I'm not getting anywhere on either project by switching back and forth.

Man Socks

 

I finished my first Decathlon sock over Spring Break and I've started the second one.  I got the first one blocked, so you can really see how it looks when it's all finished.  I think Mickael will like these socks and I'm definitely enjoying knitting them!

What I Did Last Week

Last week Caleb and I had Spring Break.  We stayed right here and honestly, I had no intention of taking a break from the blog, but with the time change and the sleeping in, before I knew it it was Wednesday and I hadn't written a single blog post.  At that point I just decided to take a little blog vacation for the week too, and just catch you up this week!  I hope you all had a great week, even if you weren't on Spring Break!

I thought I'd start today with the sewing I got finished last week.  When I cut out the gray Moss Skirt (the one that something weird happened to and it came out funny at the waist), I cut it out in a woven cotton pique in white also.  Since it's white, I decided to underline it in a white cotton batiste to make it a bit more opaque.  (Linings tend to be mostly separate from the main garment, only attached at the top edges and hanging on their own for the most part.  Underlinings are used with each piece of the garment, being sewn into the same seams and hemmed as though it were part of the main fabric - almost like a fusible interfacing, but it's not fused, if that makes any sense.  Also, I'm trying to define these things without caffeine.  Sorry.)  I've never done an underlining before but since both the main fabric and the underlining fabric were cotton (and cotton sticks to cotton), it worked pretty easily.

I sewed it very carefully and double checked all of my directions in an effort to avoid whatever happened with the gray Moss Skirt, and the white Moss Skirt came out perfectly!

I didn't do as much topstitching on this skirt as I had used with the previous two that were a twill fabric, but this one didn't seem to need as much.  As soon as we're past Easter, I've got a cute skirt all ready to go!

The next thing I made was a super fast project.  These are the Lexi Chick Boxers from Evie la Luve on Etsy.  They are a bias cut boxer short and I decided to make them in flannel.  The directions don't call for flannel and flannel probably has a bit too much body (they'd probably be more flattering in a softer, drapier cotton), but they're cute and soft and really comfortable.  I'm going to make them again in one of the lighter weight fabrics the pattern actually calls for, but these worked out pretty well and they'll be great to sleep in.  The elastic waist band in this pattern is done differently from what I've done before, but I really like.  It doesn't use a casing, it kind of gets stitched twice so there's no twisting or elastic weirdness even if you aren't using non-roll elastic.

Finally, I made a pair of Bella Panties, also from Evie la Luve.  These were made in stretch lace from Tailor Made Shoppe (also on Etsy) and I decided to use the Leopard print lace since I'm not very experienced with lingerie fabrics and trims.  I thought the print might hide any issues I had.  As it turned out, I didn't have any issues making them, this is a super easy pattern!  I did mirror the lace itself, but the leopard print doesn't repeat the way the lace does, so that didn't mirror.  These were a fun, fast project that's completely different from what I usually sew.  These are my first panties, but they won't be my last!

Colors!

I'm still working on the second section from Clue 1 on my Westknits Mystery KAL.  (In other words, I'm still on last Friday's clue, but I did download today's clue and can't wait to start it!)  I'll be working on finishing Clue 1 and getting through Clue 2 this weekend.  I think I'll only blog this on Friday so I'll only be showing the previous weeks clue, for those of you who are also knitting this.  I don't want to spoil anyone's fun!

Here comes the picture, so go watch a cat video if you don't want to see it!


The picture is below!



Last warning!

I'm in love with playing with all of my colors.  The way they're all blending together is just so much fun!  I've started blending back to the darker colors now, but there might be another colorful stripe again before I'm through with this section.

Have a great weekend!  I hope it's a colorful one!

Ashburn

 

Here is my finished Ashburn!  I didn't give it a hard blocking, just smoothed it out gently when it was damp.  It's approximately 12 feet long (not really, but it's crazy long) and I didn't think it needed to be stretched out any more.

It's knit in Miss Babs Yummy 2-Ply in the Field Mouse, Rainforest and Forever colorways.  These were sold as a Trio so they'd been matched up for me.  All three of the leftover colors are now in the Gypsy Mermaid bag with my other yarns for that shawl!  Ashburn was a fun project and I enjoyed the different stitches.  I could see knitting this again in different colors at some point.  I think it would be pretty in grays.

Another Something New!

Over my years of knitting, I've found that if I have too many projects going at once, nothing gets finished and it stresses me out.  One sweater, one shawl, one pair of socks (or mitts), and a crochet project seems to be just enough going on at one time (we won't count weaving, spinning or sewing in the totals, OK?)  So when I finished Ashburn and started Zephyr Cove, that was one shawl started for the one shawl finished.  Perfect balance!  Except that I decided to start another shawl in addition to Zephyr Cove.

I kept seeing Stephen West's new Mystery KAL, Marled Magic, show up on my Ravelry feed.  Normally I might look at it and if it was something I thought I might be interested in knitting at some point in the future, I add it to my favorites.  This time though, I saw that the MKAL was geared towards stash busting.  I had just resorted and reorganized my stash and knew I had many leftover partial balls of fingering weight yarn.  I checked the required amounts in the pattern, went up to the stash and started pulling yarns.  I know myself well enough to know that if I'd just grabbed every leftover fingering weight yarn I own, I wouldn't be very happy.  I knew I needed to narrow down the color selection a bit.  I decided to start with my cool colored leftovers which are all medium dark to dark (all the lighter cool colored leftovers have become part of the Meditative Blanket).  I had a lot of cool colored leftovers from green to blue green to blue violet to deep, moody violet.  I decided to start with these colors and then add in some sparks of other colors and I decided to go for a kind of Gypsy Mermaid theme.  This meant adding some algae colors, bronze, anything a mermaid might find in the ocean, whether it lives there or just ended up there due to a shipwreck.  I also added a little bit of hot pink because I liked the way it popped with the cooler, darker colors.  When I finished making my pile of yarn this is what I had:

I weighed it all to make sure it I had enough - I have twice as much yarn as I need!  Clearly I've got plenty of colors to pick and choose from, so I bagged it up and cast on!  I've never knit a Stephen West design although I have a couple in my library, and while I know I'm taking a chance on a Mystery KAL, I've got the opportunity to bust some serious stash with this project.  If it ends up way too crazy, I can always toss it over my pajamas when Max and I cuddle in for some Netflix.

The first clue came out last Friday and I've done the first section of it (there are two sections).  If you're doing this KAL and you don't want to see the first clue, turn away now.


Seriously, I'm about to show you a picture of what I've done so far, so if you don't want to see this, walk away from your computer.


Last chance to look away!


Ok, so here is my first section of Clue 1.  I'm loving how it looks so far and it's so much fun playing with all the colors and somehow, when I laid it out to take a picture of it, all the yarn tails (which are there for a reason and will be dealt with later) made a little loopy thing and I have no idea how it happened only that it did and maybe it was magic?  I don't even know, I'm just having fun here.

 

I will be working on getting the second section of Clue 1 finished before this Friday, when Clue 2 is released.

Cast On!

 

Since I finished my Ashburn (blocked photos coming soon), I've cast on another shawl!  This is Zephyr Cove.  I've actually had the yarn for this shawl for several years, I just haven't ever begun the knitting.  I'm knitting it in Frabjous Fibers Cheshire Cat in Curiouser and Muchness.  If you look at the top corner of the photo, you can see the little leaf that begins this shawl.  I loved the little leaf the first time I saw this pattern.  I'm easily amused by things like little leaves though!

Tinker's Puzzle

 

Inspired by the puzzles forged by blacksmiths of old and found in taverns to amuse and confuse patrons, Tinker's Puzzle socks are rich in texture without being difficult to knit.

Directions are both charted and written out so you can choose the way to knit them that works best for you.

 

Knit from the cuff down in fingering weight yarn (Malabrigo Sock in Aguas is shown in the sample), they fit an average woman's foot.

Here is a link to the Tinker's Puzzle Ravelry page!

Pattern is available on Ravelry as a pdf file.  You do not need a Ravelry account to purchase patterns there, but if you have an account (and are logged in at time of purchase), all pattern files purchased through Ravelry are saved in your Ravelry library forever.  

Ashburn

 

I finished knitting my Ashburn!  I've got a bunch of ends to weave in and then I'll probably steam it (it doesn't need a true blocking), but the knitting is finished.

This was a fun pattern to knit.  I loved working the texture in the center section and working with three colors was fun.

Once I get it all finished I'll get a better photo with the colors corrected.