I’d like to show you all the few things I’ve knit, but I gave most of them away and without photos. But I have a new macro lens for our camera, and I have been taking photos in our garden. We are in stages moving to a lawn-free garden since green lawns in California make little sense even when we don’t have a drought. With our garden we are trying to attract bees and hummingbirds, and they seem to like it!
I am not afraid of bees, so I just sit still with my camera, and snap away. We have several different species visiting our flowers as soon as the sun is up.
I am knitting too! I have about 70 zillion WIPs right now, but I am nearing the finish on one that is turning out quite well. I saw a sample of Aranami by olgajazzy at Yarns on First in Napa last summer, and I was smitten. The sample was knit in Cascade 220 fingering, and the store had all the shades from white to black to knit the shawl.
I am almost done with the darkest grey, and then I have the black to knit. I like grey so much that for once I actually went with the color scheme on the pattern. This is a fun, easy modular project, but it is not for the knitter who hates weaving in ends.
Well, I hear the call of the needles and string, so I am off to knit a few rows.
Happy Knitting!
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I finished Nelosys (Never-ending Left-over Sock Yarn Shawl) way back in June, and just didn’t get around to blogging about it. I kept thinking I could get in a modeled photo shoot. However, that hasn’t worked out, and the blocked shawl lying neatly folder on my work counter finally shouted, “Just take my &*%#%@* photo and blog me!” All-righty then.
Those of you who don’t remember my posts of last April (if you do, you need help), Nelosys is a shoulder shawl of my own design, which I knit using left over sock yarn. I chose my cool-colored leftovers, transitioning to a new color through 3 rows of garter stitch so that purl ridges formed on the right side (row 1 in old color, rows 2-3 in the new color). Each new new colorway has at least one color in common with the old. This caused a shift from blue-purples to blue-greens and back ending with purple-greys on the outside edge (the shawl is knit top down from the center with 4 increases every right side row).
From the top:
1. Claudia Hand-Painted, Walk in the Woods: stockinette
2. Shibui sock yarn, Midnight: seed stitch
3. Fleece Artist Merino, Midnight: crossed stockinette
4. Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, Peacock: rice stitch
5. Fleece Artist Merino, Nova Scotia: fleck stitch
6. Fleece Artist Merino, Hercules: moss stitch
7. Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, Black Pearl: garter
I knit the shawl with size 5 needles, but bound off using size 7 needles. I didn’t pin for blocking, just laid it out nicely after a nice bath in my shampoo for color-treated (cough! cough!) hair. It is 54 inches along the top hypotenuse, and 27.5 inches from the bottom tip to the top edge. I was out of cool-colored sock yarn at this point, so I’m glad I got a shawl of a usable size. All in all, I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. We keep our house very cool, and I wanted something to keep my neck and shoulders warm when knitting or reading. This should fit the bill!
I’m not ready to start a second Nelosys, but I’m getting a good collection of leftovers in bright colorways…
Happy Autumn!
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