Life is a picnic, and most poor suckers don’t have any yarn.
Because everyone (else) seems to be freezing… because it’s Friday and because I’ve had a yucky week and I want to make someone smile….
Today we will have a Friday Freebie. The Cordelle pattern is free today. Go and get it. And don’t say I never gave you nothing!
Today’s post is brought to you by the letter D. Destash. Cleaning out the old yarn stash and getting rid of some stuff. See I always feel the need to buy yarn while on vacation and then I never use it. Well not never – but rarely.
Not all of this is vacation yarn of course. The 6 skeins of Dream In Color Classy – well I don’t know what I was doing. That ain’t my color. At all. My poor buying choices could be your gain. If you buy multiple items, we can combine shipping and reduce costs. So there you go.
So on the drive to and from Orlando I had some prime knitting time. It was all during the day, so I had plenty of light. Plus we are listening to a fabulous audiobook – The Amulet of Samarkand – the first in the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathon Stroud. I love it when we find books that the whole family enjoys.
So anyhow, I showed you the shawl concept the other day. It was a failure. A kind of pretty failure, but a failure nonetheless. It turned out to be upside down of what is was supposed to be shaping-wise. Yes, I know that doesn’t make any sense. But there you go.
So for the entire ride to and from Universal I worked on it. I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea. It is/was brilliant. It’s just poorly executed at the moment.
Do you see the portion there in the bottom center that sort of looks like it is framed by a rectangular shape? Yeah, that. That part sucks. The rest of it I’m pretty happy with, but that part? Not so much. But I think I know exactly how to fix it. And the beautiful part of the fix is that it makes the entire cast-on/set-up process about ten times easier. Oh and just for the record, this is not an easy pattern. You gotta pay attention. But I think it’s gonna be so beautiful it will be worth it. Time will tell though.
Oh and if you’re knitting along with the November Mystery Socks, clue three was posted today. Just one more clue to go and then I can reveal my inspiration and the name!
Well after three days of stitch dictionaries and swatching and evil housework that steals my mojo… I think I’ve finally made some progress. I have a solid idea and chart for a new shawl. It’s also kind of innovative – at least in so much as I’ve never seen anyone else do it quite like this. I hope it works. But now we have the million dollar choice. The yarn. It’s gonna be a lovely blue-green, this much I know for sure. But which coveted, highly sought after, high-end luxury, blue-green yarn should it be?
In this corner we have the Sanguine Gryphon’s Skinny Bugga in Signatus Lacewing.
What does this contender have going for it? Well for one thing I *adore* the base. Love it. Like the wedding is next Sunday. I have remnants of regular Bugga leftover from my Renita and I use it over and over for swatching because it’s just so danged nice to work with. It’s an MCN yarn and has 450 yards to 4 oz. So it will make a good size shawlette.
But it’s up against Wollmeise.
Pfferminz Prinz. (I think I spelled that right). It’s 100% Merino (I think – I lost the tag!) and it’s over 550 yards. So it would make a more substantial shawl. And this shawl will be involved enough that it would be worth it to use more yardage. But I honestly don’t love the cottony way it feels as you are working with. And even though I tinkered with the blur up there, it’s really that lovely of a color.
So what do you think? (Pam – I know what you think!) Which yarn should I do? The little bitty swatch in the background is not indicative of what the pattern will look like – that’s just a possible transition. And when it comes down to it the yardage isn’t that different. Thoughts? Decisions, decisions.
I actually don’t know how many wpm I type anymore. I remember I was pretty fast back in the day. I probably type faster now than I used to because I type all. the. time. Seriously. Just to let you know, I think I spend more time typing, editing, and charting patterns than I actually do knitting any of them. And I’m a seriously slow knitter. Like crazy slow.
So there’s a lot on my plate right now and I’m just trying to get it all done. I’ve got some designs due places and I really need to get some submissions out. So I plotted out my week. I do a lot in a week. A lot of running, a lot of meetings. But I’ve figured out where I have extra time and got a good idea of where I’m wasting time. So hopefully this will help keep me on track. Speaking of staying on track, it’s already November 7th and I haven’t filled in all the squares on the big family calendar. Must get to it!
And oh yes, I should apologize now. It’s November, the crazy month where we try to blog every single day. So I’m a Judy Joiner. Which means you, my faithful readers will be subject to quite a bit of braindump. Forewarned is forearmed.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… no wait. About a year ago on Ravelry I got put on the list for mystery designers – for a sock group! It seems like I never do socks anymore. In fact, having the old 2.5 mm sock needles in my hands felt downright foreign to me. But I’m doing it. I’m knitting socks again. And lucky for you, the pattern for these socks is free. It’s a mystery knit – which means you get a clue every Monday – the first clue came out on November 1st.
If you join the Solid Socks Group on Ravelry they even have prize drawings for completing different solid socks. My socks are in Shibuiknits Sock in the Finch colorway – otherwise known as screaming yellow zonkers.
The sock comes in two sizes – small/medium and medium/large – a 60 st cast-on or a 72 st cast-on. So you can use the yarn and needles that you want if you’re familiar with how certain cast-on number fits you. So come on over and join the fun.
Needles: Size 1.5 needles (2.5 mm)
Yarn: Shibuiknits Sock in Finch, 191 yards to 50g, 2 skeins
Size: Small/Medium (60 st cast-on) or Medium/Large (72 st cast-on)
Gauge: 30 stitches and 44 rows = 4 inches in stockinette in the round
Notes: Worked from the cuff down – offered in written & charted format. One clue will be released for the first four Mondays in November.
The November Solid Socks Mystery on Ravelry – free!
The actual final finished object of the Pink Phoenix pattern gave me some gas. There was a dog involved and a lot of sickness, and too much walking and not enough time to re-knit what was undone. But it’s finished. And I’m really, really happy with it!
The interesting thing about this shawlette is that when it comes off the needles, it looks like 3/4 of a square. But when you block it like so….
You get a lovely shape that looks like this:
It drapes perfectly around your shoulders and isn’t too deep. Plus a bonus for those of us with junk in the trunk – it doesn’t have a big ole arrow pointing to your bum!
If you wanted to make this bigger you could easily add more repeats of the 28-row lace body pattern. Just make sure you have enough yarn to do the 10-rows of edging afterwards.
Needles: Size 6 needles (4 mm)
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in the Light of Love colorway, 440 yards to 100g (I only used about 2/3 of the skein)
Size: Sample blocked to 64″ wide and 17″ deep
Gauge: 18 stitches and 24 rows = 4 inches in blocked stockinette
Notes: Worked from the top down – offered in written & charted format. $2 from the sale of this pattern will go to the Komen Foundation.
The Pink Phoenix Shawlette on Ravelry – $7.00 USD 
ANNOUNCEMENT: Something special is coming. It looks like I’m about $710 short of my $2300 goal for the Komen 3-Day for the Cure. And if I don’t make my goal (or pay the difference) I don’t get to walk. So… October is Breast Cancer Month, right? The first week of October we’ll be having a Boobie Blitz! So watch this space.
WARNING: If you are not done with the Daphne Ann Mystery Shawl and want to be surprised, don’t read this post!
Doing the mystery shawl was so much fun. I mean a crazy amount of fun. I have an amazing tech editor, and the folks who participated were just wonderful. I know some folks are still plugging along, but we got some fabulous finished objects out of it!
I will definitely be doing this again. But the next one will be on a grander scale. For this time around we only used one skein of Dream In Color Baby – 700 yards to 100g. It’s really kind of a light fingering as opposed to a true laceweight in my opinion.
The shawl is composed of five clues which have now been compiled into a single pattern. The cool thing is that all the discussion and help is still available on Ravelry in the PicnicKnits group.
Each clue is comprised of about 130 yards of knitting – so you can easily knit up a clue in a weekend! The shaping of this shawl makes it sit easily on your shoulders and each clue flows smoothly into the next without the tier effect you sometimes see in mystery shawls.
Oh and the name! I nearly forgot. The shawl is named after a character on Scooby Doo. Because while I was brainstorming for mystery shawl ideas I kept thinking of Mystery Incorporated and Scooby Doo. Those who know me well know I have a small to major obsession with all things Scooby. So the Daphne Ann shawl was named for Daphne Blake and the purple/pink colorway reflects her fashion sensibilities!
Needles: Size 6 needles (4 mm)
Yarn: Dream In Color Baby – Punky Fuchsia Colorway – 700 yards to 100g
Gauge: 15 stitches and 25 rows = 4 inches in blocked stockinette
Notes: Worked from the neck down – offered in written and charted format
The Daphne Ann Shawl on Ravelry – $9.50 USD
I wish it were frosty here. I think it’s supposed to hit 97 degrees. September is not autumn in Florida. September is the month when Mother Nature sees if there is anyone left alive that she hasn’t burnt to a crisp. But this isn’t about weather, not directly anyhow.
This is about the Frosted Goblet Shawl. It’s now available for download from the PicnicKnits Ravelry Store. It’s been six months since it was published in Yarn Forward and I’ve had lots of folks ask about it, so now is your chance!
A beautiful shawlette worked in dk yarn, you start from the bottom up, but because you are using dk yarn and larger needles, you don’t have to cast on tons of stitches. Once the lace is worked the rest of the knitting is easy tv knitting and you end up with a beautiful warm shawl!
Needles: Size 8 needles (5 mm)
Yarn: Artesano 100% Alpaca DK, 50g/100m/109yd, alpaca, color Anemone, 4 balls
Size: Sample blocked to 60″ wide and 25″ deep
Gauge: 14 stitches and 24 rows = 4 inches in blocked stockinette
Notes: Worked from the bottom up by casting on all the sts for the lace. Offered in charted and written format.
The Frosted Goblet Shawl on Ravelry – $5.50 USD
Spent being the operative word. As in spent money. I didn’t really plan to go to any yarn stores on vacation. I have more yarn lined up for projects than I know what to do with. And my brain is about to explode with the ideas. But the man wanted to stop at a brewery he had visited a few weeks prior to pick up some of their “hop bomb” beer. And there was a yarn store right there! Unfortunately I could not buy anything at this store. They were having a knit-in of some sort and couldn’t be bothered to greet me at all. Although I did get some dirty looks. And just to make sure they wouldn’t get any of my money, they had photocopies of knitty patterns for the taking. Which is a big knitty no-no. (Yes, I reported them).
So I thought I was safe. I didn’t need any yarn anyhow. Until I got to the hotel in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. There was a free magazine in the lobby. Do you know what was on the cover of the free mag? A yarn store! It was fate. And the store was only a few miles from the hotel. So I went there, praying for a better visit. I was not disappointed.
Klose Knit is fabulous. It’s an old converted house, and it’s beautiful and cozy and welcoming. They were having a knit-in and they invited me to sit and knit. The owner walked me around to show me things. They even offered me pastries if I didn’t have time to stay.
So I had to buy just a few things.
And then she mentioned she had Malabrigo Sock in Light of Love, which I can never get my hands on. Apparently I can’t photograph it either, but it’s going to be perfect for my 3-Day Breast Cancer Fundraising Shawlette that I’m designing.
So I was happy. The good yarn store balance had been restored. I had such a lovely time at Klose Knit. If you’re in the area – or a reasonable drive – you must go! And I was happy in my yarnie world. But then I did a little google search. And there was another yarn store in the area. This one even closer to the hotel. So I left the menfolk in the room and decided to make a quick trip over.
Needleworks has more buttons than I’ve ever seen in one place. I found the perfect buttons for a sooper seekrit project. They have a huge store. With sweater quantities and more of all sorts of gorgeous yarns. The yarn above is made for dyeing, but I thought it would be perfect undyed for a winter shawlette or capelet. Oh and did I mention it’s baby llama? It’s luscious!
Oh and they were having a knit-in too! Everyone said hi and was super friendly. They do a potluck on the day I was there and invited me to stay for lunch! I wish I could have, but I spent an hour picking out perfect buttons, so I had to run!
So now, things are even better. One very bad yarn store, two really wonderful yarn store experiences. I was good. I needed no more. But then the non-knitter we stayed with on the way home recommended a store. She doesn’t even knit and she recommended it? I had to go!
River Wools is also just fantastic. The lady at the counter was lovely and welcoming – showing me around and helping me find stuff. They had tons of gorgeous yarns. Right in downtown Terra Haute, Indiana. I had a lovely visit while the menfolk were off buying square donuts – which were pretty darn tasty by the way!
So there you go. A 75% success rate. Three really wonderful yarnstores where they knew how to treat people and had delicious and beautiful yarns. So if you’re in the midwest, all three of these are worth a road-trip and convenient to some major highways. Three thumbs up!
