Daybreak Blocking!!

I couldn't think of a better way to spend New Year's Eve then by blocking my Daybreak Shawl between watching movies with Mr. SpiderKate.  Oh! And I'd like to include a quote from my sister who has complained about the lack of mentions about her in my blog, though her quote was more about how she hasn't received any knitted items from me recently - "I was checking out your blog today.  I saw a lot of items being made, none of which came to my home".   My other favorite quote from her is "You can never have enough hand knit items", which was in response to when I asked her if she ever got sick of me knitting things for her.

Final FO of 2012!

It's my final finished object of 2012!  I'm talking about my Daybreak shawl.  I realized just before Christmas that if I worked on it, then it might be possible to finish it before the end of the year.  Then I realized that the end of the year meant I had less than a week to finish it.  But I was up for the challenge and started knitting away.  Let me just say that some of those final rows were looooong.  Very long.  I may or may not have taken a couple of breaks in the middle of some of the rows.  It all paid off though when I completed that last row!  Though I did postpone doing the bind off until tonight when I really could have done it last night.  Oh well, at least it got done :o)

Yay for being done!!! Okay, almost done :o)

I still have the ends to weave in and it needs to be blocked, but I'm counting it as being done.  I used Ella Rea Lace Merino for my Daybreak in a pink/fuschia color & gray.  I ended up using 58 g (267 yds) of the pink and 73 g of the gray (336 yds).  I knit the medium size, which the pattern said would take 240 yds of color A and 270 yds of color B.  Since I haven't blocked it, I don't know my exact gauge, but I'm probably pretty off since my yarn usage differs from the pattern.  I also modified the edging by adding in those yarn overs, and while they were dropped, that might have slightly affect the amount of yarn used; though the differences in gauge is the real culprit.  I'll post more info about what gauge I got and my final measurements after I get this blocked (which, fingers crossed, I hope to do tomorrow!).

Getting into the Christmas spirit

I'd been feeling kinda blah about Christmas, but then it got cold here.  I mean it finally got cold and my Christmas spirit kicked into high gear, which resulted in Christmas exploding in my living room.  I went out shopping, I got gifts, I wrapped gifts, and I got a couple of packages out in the mail.  I was productive.  It also helped that I realized that I need to have all my Christmas shopping done AND mailed this week.  You see, next week we are traveling to Michigan for Christmas and I knew that if I didn't get things done this week then they were never going to get done.  I only have one more package to mail and at the beginning of the week I had 4, so I'm going to consider this week a success even if I don't get that last package in the mail this week (I definitely will get it out on Monday).

Christmas Explosion

Related to Christmas gifts, Mr. SpiderKate and I had a conversation regarding knitting scarves as gifts for his Aunts that went something like this:

Me: So, what do you want to get for your Aunts for Christmas?
Mr. SpiderKate: You are knitting them the scarves.
Me: No. You said not to knit them anything.  Maybe I could knit them something....if it was quick and easy.
Mr. SpiderKate: Anything with ruffles would be good.

Ah ha! I could knit them each a ruffle scarf that was all the craze awhile back.  Well, they are still a little bit of a craze, but it's calmed down now.  I will confess though - I almost gave up on the first scarf.  It just seemed really hard to get into any sort of rhythm when knitting them.  I persevered and once I was about half way through the first scarf, I got into a rhythm with pulling out the yarn, preparing it for knitting, and then knitting with it.  The first scarf was probably the "hardest" and by the end they were just flying off my needles.

The details:
Ravelry Project Page: Ruffled Scarves
Yarn: Pizzo Lux by Mondial (each scarf took one skein of yarn)
Colors: Various colors (teal/gold, rose/gold, black/gold, & white/gold)
Needles: US 11 (8.00 mm) straight needles (I found that straight needles worked better then using a circular as a straight needle.)
Scarf pattern: CO 8 stitches and knit every row. Bind off when approx. 8 "holes" to end of yarn.  Sometimes I had to fudge the bind off by combining a couple of stitches when I didn't leave enough holes for all 8 stitches to be bound off properly.  For the last stitch I pulled the remaining yarn through the loop and then if I had enough, I tied another small knot - normally I don't do that in knitting, but it seemed like the scarf need the extra knot.  The extra knot isn't noticeable as it gets hidden in all the ruffles.

If you find yourself in need of a very last minute knitted Christmas gift, then definitely give this scarf a try.  It really only takes a couple of hours (or less once you get the hang of it) to knit.

Bulky yarn + big needles = love

I'm not sure how it happened, but November is gone and December is here!  November was pretty busy for me, especially since towards the end of the November I decided that maybe I would knit gifts for Christmas.  Yes, I am that crazy person.  It started with a bulky scarf that I decided to knit for one of my sister-in-laws.  I figured that if I could finish the scarf in a reasonable time, then it wouldn't be that crazy of an idea to knit some Christmas gifts. 

The pattern I used was Lancaster by Kristin Spurkland.  I used the yarn the pattern called for, Baby Chunky by Twinkle/Classic Elite.  Coincidentally, I even used the same color as in the pattern.  I cast on for this project on Nov 18th and cast off on Nov 20th.  It was really that quick.  I'd estimate that maybe it took 5 hours to knit.  Maybe.   I haven't knit a scarf this quickly in FOREVER.  Bulky yarn + big needles might be my new favorite knitting project.   I used all of my skein, which made for a pretty long scarf.  My sister-in-law is tall, so I think it will be a good fit for her. 

There isn't a thing I didn't like about knitting this pattern.  The pattern is well written & easy to memorize.  I was equally impressed with the yarn and found it to be a lot softer than I thought it would be.  I'm fairly sensitive to wool and I think it's even something that I could wear around my neck without too much trouble.  Sadly, I've just gotten around to blocking this tonight, so I don't have any final pictures or measurements yet.  Also, I'm really hoping this doesn't take too long to dry since I need to mail it out this week so that it arrives in time for Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving & Black Friday Sale!

Just a quick note to say Happy Thanksgiving to all!!  Also, I'm running a Black Friday sale starting today and ending Monday night.  Buy any pattern (or patterns) from my Ravelry shop and get 20% off the total order!  No coupon code needed!!  In other news I've created a Ravelry group for my designs.  Check out the group here: SpiderKateKnits Designs.  It's a small group, but hopefully we'll grow and have some fun along the way!

AND in case you missed it, I have a new pattern out: Merlyn.  I did blog a little about it here, but neglected to blog about it again when I released the pattern.  This shawl is a sideways knit shawl with a border that is knit on as the shawl is knit.  If you're looking for a quick last minute Christmas gift, then look no further!  In my post I talked about how much ripping and reknitting I did for this design, so I can attest to just how quickly it knits up.  The shawl was knit with Vice Paradigm on US 5 (3.75mm) needles.  A big thank you goes out to Lizzy Inman of Vice (Yarns) for her generous support!

This shawl design in particular holds a very special place in my heart because it's named after my cat.  Now, I know that it might be weird to name a shawl after a cat, but during the designing phase of this shawl my cat became ill and eventually had to be put to sleep.  It was a very sad time in the SpiderKate household, but we believe that he's gone on to a better place now.  We still miss having the little guy around (he loved turkey day!).  In my mind this shawl was always named for him and I believe it's fitting for this fantastic shawl to be named after such a great cat.

Sleeve redo

I just might be crazy.  Today I ripped out the sleeve I completed in my Rocky Coast Cardigan.  Yes, you read that right.  I ripped it out.  It wasn't easy to rip out either - apparently EZ sewn bind off doesn't really rip out, you have to actually undo it.  Why did I rip it out?  I just wasn't happy with my decreases.  Essentially I was knitting along on the second sleeve and got to the point where I had to decide if I was going to follow what I did for the first sleeve or follow the pattern as written.  I looked at my first sleeve and realized that I really was unhappy with the decrease structure I did.  Basically, I had bunched all the decreases at the end of the sleeve, which just didn't look good. 

Newly ripped sleeve

The good news is that is was pretty easy to rip out and pick up the stitches.  Since I was in progress on the second sleeve and just coming up to the first decrease, I used that as a marker to figure out where to rip back to in the first sleeve.  I think that I got it pretty close to where it should be and if not, then it's close enough for me.  Now I have this crazy idea that maybe I can finish both sleeves by the end of the week....hmmmmm. Oh and perhaps knit a Christmas gift this week.  Actually, I'm pretty sure I am crazy.  Wish me luck!

Daybreak!

The shop is doing a KAL and the pattern is Stephen West's Daybreak shawl.  This is a pattern that I've had in my queue for awhile now, but haven't gotten around to knitting.  The hardest part of this pattern was picking out the yarn.  Let me tell you - I spent A LOT of time on Ravelry looking through all the Daybreak projects.  Probably more time than I should admit to.  Did all that research help? I'd like to say yes, but I think at the same time it just made me more confused about what colors I should do.  Or maybe I just need to knit a Daybreak shawl in every color combination!  Okay, that might be a little crazy.  In the end I decided to look through my stash to see if I had something I could use because at least that would help narrow down the color choices.  

So, I go looking in my stash and I see that I have two skeins of Ella Rae Lace Merino in a fuchsia color. Why do I have two skeins? Who knows!  But it was probably because I wanted it around for design purposes.  Well, since this yarn is actually a light fingering weight yarn and NOT a lace weight, I don't need to have two skeins around for design purposes.  Since I got this yarn from Park Avenue Yarns, I knew that I could find another color in Ella Rae Lace Merino to make my Daybreak.  After much debate and many color consultations, I ended up going with a grey color, which is more of a lavender/purple grey.  With my yarn picked out & wound, I was finally ready to start my shawl.

I finished the first section yesterday and got started on the stripes! Yay! I actually like the stripes part of the shawl better than the first part because the increases are really easy to follow - no counting involved!  I tried to use a marker in the first section to eliminate having to count to the halfway mark for the make one stitch, but it didn't really help out all that much.  I still had to count and check things even with the marker.  My plan right now is to knit the medium size, but I might be tempted to go for the large size...we'll see!

I'm doing one modification for this pattern.  I had to add a yarn over after the first two edge stitches (so before doing the first make one on the right side) AND I added the same yarn over before the last two edge stitches (on the right side).  Now, I can't take credit for this modification, but it's something that I came across in the research that I did when trying to decide on my shawl colors.  I didn't want to have to do this modification, but it was just too hard for me to complete the make one left on the wrong side without the yarn over there.  My edge was going to be waaaaaay to tight without it.  Okay, so what do you do with the yarn over on the wrong side? You drop the yarn over and then pick it back up according to which make one you are doing and then make that stitch.  It's really that easy and saves a lot of frustration when doing the make one left stitch on the WS where you need to purl through the back loop.

How would this instruction look in the pattern? It would look something like this:

All RS rows: K2, yo, M1L, (follow rest of instructions for this row until last two stitches), M1R, yo, k2.

All WS rows: K2, drop yo, M1L, (follow rest of instructions for this row until last two stitches), drop yo, M1R, k2.

Sneak Peek!

I've been pretty busy with design work lately and which means I've been neglecting my blog :o(  If it's any consolation, the blog has been on my mind lately...mostly how I need to do an update.  If this sounds vaguely familiar to you then you've probably talked to me in person about it or I've written it on here before.  Anyhow!  I've been charting my heart out lately.  Obsessively.  It's to the point where Mr. SpiderKate is starting to put his foot down to make me stop so that I go to bed and get some sleep.  It's just soo hard to stop when I'm really excited about this new lace shawl design!  I'd say at this point that I'm 80% finished with charting and just need to knit a swatch of two more charts and I'll have the design down.

In other news I've finished up the design for Vice Yarns Paradigm.  Even bigger news is that I finished writing the pattern yesterday and sent it off for editing!  Yay!  I feel soo good about having this pattern done. Seriously good.  A big thanks goes out to Mr. SpiderKate for taking time out on Sunday to help me with photographs so that I could get the pattern done.  He is seriously the best and most supportive force in my design work.  I think just being able to talk to him about the design process is really helpful because sometimes I just need to voice my concerns over a design and by doing so I figure out the answer.

Did I mention how happy I am with this design? Honestly, I love love love it.  Believe me when I say it was quite the journey to get to this point.  Let me clarify that.  I've always loved the design I had in mind for this yarn because the yarn is really what inspired me to use this particular edging pattern in a sideways knit shawlette.  The journey involved figuring out the best increase scheme for the shawlette.

The first time I start knitting the sample, I realized pretty quickly that my initial increase scheme wasn't going to work and I had to rip back to almost the beginning of the shawlette.  The second time I knit it, I went with a different increase scheme and about halfway through realized that it was going to use up too much yarn, but I forged ahead and kept knitting.  Yes, I knit the whole shawlette.  The good news on this one is that I didn't run out of yarn, but the bad news is that I was left with 1 gram of yarn.  

So guess what I did?  I ripped back.  But before I could rip back, I had to thread an afterthought lifeline.  I'm going to confess, this is the first time I've ever put in a lifeline after the fact, so I was little nervous that it wasn't going to work out.  It was a pretty easy lifeline to put in after the fact because there is a point in the knitting where the lace edging doesn't have any lace per se, but I still wasn't sure I'd gotten it right.  With my newly place lifeline, I starting the ripping process and low & behold the lifeline was in the right place!!!  I was beyond thrilled because it saved me 48 rows of knitting. Yay!  I must say that this yarn holds up BEAUTIFULLY to being ripped and reknit.  This pattern should be published sometime next week, so check back for a post with more details!

Pumpkin Spice Cowl

I have a new design and it's not a shawl!  Gasp.  I know!  While I love love LOVE designing shawls, I've been wanting to branch out to other knitted accessories.  I always thought my first accessory after shawls would be socks, but that turns out not to be the case.  It's a cowl!  This cowl was designed and inspired by both Park Avenue Yarns and the yarn itself.  Michelle asked me to design a pattern that would showcase a new line of yarn by Lang called Arenas, which is a super bulky yarn.

In a rare turn events, I knew what I wanted to name this cowl before I even knew what I wanted the design to be, which hardly ever happens for me.  Usually I have a design nailed down and then spend forever trying to name it.  Names are hard!  In fact, the first design I tried didn't end up working out and after ripping that out, I suddenly had a vision of what I wanted the cowl to look like.  Thus the Pumpkin Spice Cowl was born!   This cowl has the awesome combination of using super bulky yarn & big needles, making it a quick knit ideal for last minute gifts or for when a cold front is coming and you need something to keep your neck warm.  The pattern can be found on Ravelry or is free with yarn purchase at Park Avenue Yarns!

Pattern details:
Pattern: Pumpkin Spice Cowl by Me!
Ravelry Project Page: Pumpkin Spice Cowl
Yarn: Lang Yarns Arenas [53% Wool, 47% Acrylic] 100g; 71 yds/65 m
Needles: US 15 (10.00 mm) for cast on & US 13 (9.00 mm) 16" for body
Finished dimensions: Circumference = 20"/51 cm; Length = 7.5"/19 cm
A great pattern for beginners, you only need to know how to knit, purl and knit the round for this pattern!

My sample used 80 grams of yarn, which is 56 yds of yarn.  You could easily use up more of the yarn to make the cowl by adjusting either the height of the cowl by working more rows of the pattern (i.e. the length measurement) or by increasing the number of stitches cast on by 5 or 10 stitches, which would give a slightly larger circumference.  Or even better, buy two skeins and make two cowls plus a mini cowl with the leftovers!

Beware of the Knitting Monster!

The other night Mr. Spiderkate was messing around with the new camera and took this cool shot of my knitting bag, which we agree looks a lot like the knitting bag eating my knitting supplies.  Thus the knitting monster was born! Beware of the knitting monster, it's been known to eat any and all things knitting related without a second thought.  How cruel ;-)

CHOMP!

In knitting news - I'm working on a new sideways knit shawl design.  Actually, I spent the bulk of yesterday trying to make the stitches in the chart do something they didn't want to do.  I finally came to the realization that no matter what math I used, I couldn't get the stitches to do what I want.  I did fix another issue with the shawl, mainly where to place the increases for the body of the shawl, and as a result I'm pretty happy with it.  I'm knitting this shawl with the very lovely Paradigm yarn by Vice.  Seriously, this yarn is gorgeous and the color is out of this world.  I'm not ready to share a photo of the design yet (I will soon, I promise!), but I'll leave you with a photo of this beautiful yarn.