Heartland - first section

Heartland Lace Shawl
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

Here's the first photo!

I learned a new thing. Apparently, when you have a garter stitch edging, the best way to start out a shawl is by making a "tab".

In this case, I had to cast on 2 stitches, then knit 7 rows of garter stitch (that's knitting every row). Then, I turn the piece of knitting on it's side and pick up 3 stitches (one in each purl row) and then 2 in the 2 original stitches - making up a total of 7 stitches.

At first, when I read this explanation, I was a little confused and couldn't visualize it so I made one on some practice yarn and it was simple to understand once I followed the steps.

So far, I've only had to tink back 2 rows when I missed some YOs.

One thing that I realized almost immediately was that I cannot do this and talk or watch tv or whatever. I have to concentrate on the directions so no taking this to knit night or to work on while commuting.

Also, during my research, I noticed that many people talked about "life lines". This is a thin length of string (or someone even recommended dental floss) that you thread through the loops of one of the purl rows. You do this every few rows and can remove the prior one when adding a new one, if you prefer, always making sure to note which row you have lifelined. The purpose of it is to save yourself a ton of aggravation if you have to frog back some rows. Since the lace pattern will have many YOs and SSKs/K2TOG, it's really hard to keep track if you have to frog. With the lifeline, you simply rip back up to the lifeline and thread your needle back in and then start again from there without having to worry about dropped stitches.

I'll probably not work on this again until next week.

Heartland Shawl

I decided! I'm making the Heartland Lace Shawl. I cast it on last night and knit up the first section. I started out with 2 stitches and I'm up to 59.

I'm going to try to document my progress so photos will be coming soon.

My first shawl

Ok... this is it. I decided about 2 months ago that I wanted to make a shawl for my mom. I know I would most likely never wear one - well, maybe I would, with a dress... but I hardly wear dresses. I do know that my mom would wear a shawl. She has made a couple for herself (she crochets).

I wanted to start with something pretty, yet very simple for my first shawl. There are tons of finished shawls on Ravlery and that's where I was able to see the many different yarns, colors and sizes many different shawls. Anyway, after much browsing and researching, I narrowed down the choices to 2 simple shawls by the same designer. Since a lot of people use Flickr to post their images on Ravelry, I did a search on them and here are the Flickr results: Heartland Shawls and Swallowtail Shawls.

Fleece Artist Somoko Yarn
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

Then, the other day when I went into my LYS because of a 40% off moving sale (they are relocating to about 1 block away and say that with the sale, they won't have to lug so much stuff to the new store) I found some beautiful yarn. There was only one skein and it was beautifully hand painted. Amid the other sale choices, I decided that this yarn was PERFECT. In fact, I loved it so much that I PAID FULL PRICE: $25 for the one skein. I was a little freaked out. I really hate buying anything for full price, let alone one measly skein of yarn.

Isn't it pretty?

Fleece Artist Somoko #2
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

I got home, excited about this yarn 'cause I knew that I would get a great pattern of colors only to find it's not enough yarn!!! Argh!!

I still can't make myself return it though, so I'll have to see what else I can make.

*sigh*

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Pattern Links:

• Swallowtail Lace Shawl
• Heartland Lace Shawl

Still knitting along...

I'm still knitting! I thought maybe I would stop, that it would be another fad. After all, I knit a whole bunch a long time ago and the stopped... But I think I have learned a whole lot more this time around: the fact that I knit "combined" which is why my decreases were not coming out the way they should have and various techniques like how to knit in the round, Magic Loop and some different cast-ons and bind-offs. I knit my first pair of socks. So I'm a lot more conscious of the various elements of knitting.

There are so many resources on the web, it's incredible!

Baby Kimono
Originally uploaded by vampirefan

Lately, I seemed to be stuck on repeat. I knit 5 Jayne hats for our Can't Stop the Serenity screening here in Chicago and they were well received, which was gratifying. I also made about 9 miniature Jayne hats with pins on the back. Those all sold, albeit slowly, but by the end of the night they were all gone.

Saartje's Baby Booties - with Mary Jane strap mod

Originally uploaded by vampirefan

S

o, I have finally been able to get back to my regular stuff. I started a baby kimono back in January in anticipation of my new niece, who should be arriving in September. I just about finished it. Just need to add on the ties. I also knit some matching baby booties and those just need for me to sew on the buttons and button loop. I knit them in the round per a helpful mod pattern and knit with Mary Jane straps according to another pattern mod.

Pattern Links:
Saartje's Bootees (Look for the link on the right-hand side of her blog.)
Sachiko Kimono Sweater

Too much yarn!

I've been buying more and more yarn lately. Loopy Yarns had a great clearance sale recently. They said they were sick of looking at the 60% off yarn already and to please come take it away for $1 a skein! Needless to say, I went as soon as I could and made away with a nice amount of yarn. I was able to find 12 skeins in one color so I gave those to my Mom. I've just updated my Stash page at Ravelry and now I have 55 skiens and still need to enter a few more.

Some of the clearance yarn is made up of only 1 skien of the particular type and/or color and some were 3 or 4 skiens of the same yarn but all different colors. I figure I use the different colors to knit a striped item, or use them for color work.

I also picked up a slightly tangled skien of sock yarn and I plan on using it to practice various sock toe up methods as well as some heel methods. I'm still a bit confused about short row heels and toes. They seem to be a great way to make a toe-up instead of starting with, say, a figure 8, and having to increase. I always get these ugly bumps with doing the increases. There are so many short row methods out there and I have to say that I became more and more confused. It seems that all the instructions assume you know how to get to the these things called wraps, and maybe it's easy, but I couldn't quite get a handle on it. I'm still searching around and now that I have fast internet at home, I can watch the videos about it.

Meanwhile I have 4 works in progress and need to finish them before I start another one with the new yarn.

I also ordered some circular needles recently and I'm really happy with them. They are bamboo and 40" long and very flexible. I've learned to do the Magic Loop method so they are perfect and the set of 15 cost me about $30 which is not bad at all.

I'll probably be getting rid of my Boye interchangeable needles which have very stiff cables.