Ashley Cowl

Hi all -

To occupy my hands while watching March Madness, I decided to work on a simple cowl. I got the yarn and pattern from Craftsy using a 50% off coupon, so it was a thrifty project as well as a fast knit. The pattern is Ashley Cowl by Patty Nance and the yarn is a pretty self-striping wool. It was a really easy knit. In fact, the pattern just basically told you how many stitches to cast on, then gave you a simple 8-stitch pattern to repeat until you have 5 yards of yarn left, then bind off. I was a little frustrated because 5 yards was not enough yarn for the bind-off so I had to unbind-off and unknit a bunch of work to get the 10 yards of yarn that was actually needed for the bind-off. But it still turned out pretty, didn't take much time and was a perfect mindless knit to do while watching basketball.

Here is what the cowl looked like when I finished the bind off:

Not much to look at at this point! I'm usually lazy about cowls, hats, etc and don't bother with blocking, but I couldn't do that with this one. So I soaked it in lukewarm water with wool wash and then spread it out on the cheap Costco floor mats that I use for blocking:

This was my first chance to try out my new Knit Blockers and I have to say that I love them!

It was really easy to hold several inches of the cowl straight with the blockers. They have white ones at Craftsy, but I decided to spend a couple more dollars to get the pretty rainbow-colored ones that are only available at Jimmy Beans Wool. Aren't they pretty? And here's how pretty the cowl looks after blocking:

These colors are perfect for one of my nieces so I'll probably save this for one of her Christmas presents.

On the basketball side, my team (University of Kansas) made it to the Final 4. Wish them luck this weekend! Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!

Nancy

More Homeless Shelter Knitting

Hi all -

I've been really busy working on my homeless shelter knitting. I'm feeling really good about the bag of stuff that I'm accumulating for them! I'll save everything up until fall and then drop it by so they don't have to worry about where to keep these things over the summer.

My first project was the Sailor's Knit Cowl from a pattern by Gretchen Tracy:

I think a cowl like this is a great idea for a guy. It's not feminine; it doesn't slip around like a scarf; and it can be pulled up to cover the face and neck when it's really cold. I imagine I'll be making more of these with different stitch patterns.

I also made a Field of Wildflowers hat from the pattern by Joji Locatelli:

As you've probably figured out by now, I really like to play with different stitches to create different textures!

Then I made a fun scarf:

This is the Madison Scarf pattern by Kris Basta. It's a companion pattern to the Gallatin Scarf pattern that I love so much.

Next I pulled out some more of that pink yarn that I want to use up and made a River Rush Slouch Hat from the pattern by Gretchen Tracy:

And a That Easy Guernsey Hat from a pattern by Christine Roy:

Those used up about another skein of the pink yarn, but I still have about 10 skeins of that yarn to go....

Next I moved on to a fun yarn and made a Sweet Memories Cowl from the pattern by Jacinta at embracingitall:

And I finished off that skein with a pair of Autumnal Mitts from a pattern by Jo Bangles:

It's fun to be able to play with all of these little projects! I'll keep collecting them and sharing them with you in bunches.

Now I'm getting ready to knit a swatch for my first sweater. This will be my first serious swatching where I also have to block the swatch before measuring. Wish me luck! It might be a while before you see anything from this project since I'll be waiting until there's enough progress to make it worthwhile to share.

Now back to March Madness and knitting! Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!

Nancy

Like a Cowl

Hi all -

March's Lola's Choice project from Laura Nelkin is a pattern called Like a Cowl. These projects are a surprise so you don't know what you're getting until it arrives in the mail:

This pattern is a cowl, but it has a strange shape, hence the name. You start by knitting the bottom border which has all of the beads:

I do love beads and this yarn is gorgeous! You then start shaping a bandana-like front using short rows:

You continue to add shaping with more and more short rows:

Once the shaping is completed, you knit up the cowl to the top:

And, finally, you bind off with Laura's really cool I-cord binding technique:

I love the way I-cord binding looks! But I haven't decided if I like this pattern or not. Sometimes I look at it and think "That is so cool!". Other times I look at it and think "That is so weird looking!" I definitely feel ready to hold up a stagecoach with this!

I blocked the cowl to flatten out the bottom of the "bandana" since it was curling, and I somehow elongated the bandana part at the same time:

I didn't notice this when I laid it down to dry so this is the current shape. I really don't like this shape so it looks like I'll be trying again with the blocking! A good lesson to me to pay attention to the entire shape of the piece when blocking and not just look at the portion that I'm worried about. I had basically just laid the piece on the mat and slid things around to get it symmetric-looking, then put 3 pins at the point to keep that flat without stepping back and looking at the whole thing. Now I know better.

Nancy

Navigatrix Progress

Hi all -

I've been continuing to watch basketball and knit. One of the projects I've been working on is my Navigatrix scarf from a pattern by Laura Nelkin. I received all of the supplies and the pattern for this scarf last year as part of a mystery knit-along, but didn't get around to making it with the group (partly because I was still feeling a bit intimidated that the pattern would be too difficult for me and I would really mess it up). But I decided to dive in and finish it now, so I've been working my way through it.

This pattern was written as a mystery, so it has a really interesting construction. You first knit several square "rays" (I think because they look like manta rays), then you join them to make a scarf or a cowl. I have my initial rays finished.

My first ray is the "Chevron Ray":

This was an easy ray and was a good place to start to see how all of the rays are made.

My second ray is the "Slipped Ray":

This one was a little more difficult because the increases were in different rows than the decreases, which confused me at first. But once I figured that out, it was all smooth sailing.

My third ray is the "Slipped Ray":

This was the second one in the pattern, but the instructions were just a little block at the top of a page so I missed it at first. This one was easy to knit, but added beads (they'll show up better when the finished project is blocked). It was good practice at using beads that are strung on the yarn before the knitting begins and I feel much more confident with that now. I have a bit of trouble getting the bead to sit at the right place while I'm knitting, but I now am comfortable with moving the bead to the correct place after the knitting when I have to.

My fourth ray is the "Senshi Ray":

This was a much more difficult ray to knit because of the tiny chains and the twisted stitches. And this one has beads that are placed on the stitches using a tiny crochet hook while you are knitting. It sure is nice to not have to count out all of those beads at the start and have that weight on the yarn as you knit!

My final ray is the "Nuppy Ray":

This one add nupps, which I had never done before, and also has the beads that you add with a crochet hook while you knit. The nupps are a bit niggly to knit, but I think they turned out nice. I think they could be a little bit smoother, but it will take experience for me to figure out what I need to do to get that. And they might look smoother after the blocking.

I think it'll still take a while to get this project finished. Where you join the rays together, you use sections of the same stitches that are used in the rays themselves. You can either join the rays in a circle to make a cowl or can leave one join out to make a scarf. You can also, if there's enough yarn, make one more ray to make a longer cowl or scarf. I'm leaning towards making the longer scarf, but I'll start the joining process and see how things look and how much yarn I have before I make that decision.

I thought I would also talk about the Ravelry web site in this post. My good friend had told me about this site when I first started knitting and I had been using it to find new patterns, but I've been playing with it more this year and it's really incredible. If you are a knitter, I highly suggest you check it out! It's a free site. You can create an account for free, and in that account you can store all sorts of information. My initial use of Ravelry was to just search for patterns, mostly free, that I would download and store on my computer. I thought that was wonderful and made the site extremely useful to me on its own. They also have a library of your knitting patterns where they put all of the patterns that you have purchased on the site so you can download them at any time. Again, a nice feature and I was also adding free patterns to this library that I thought might be nice to use for my homeless shelter knitting. This is all I'd done with Ravelry for the last year or two that I've been a member.

But this year I decided to join a Laura Nelkin knit-along. For this knit-along, I had to start using more of the features of Ravelry. The first thing I had to do was start keeping keeping track of my projects on the site. This is a neat feature. For every project, you can create a page with pictures, the pattern, information about needles and yarn and any notes that you might want to make. It's really nice and I'm really enjoying keeping track of all of my projects now.

Another feature of the site is a utility for keeping track of your yarn stash. I've been buying a lot of yarn on sale to use for homeless shelter items, so my yarn stash has grown quite a bit. So the stash feature started to appeal to my OCD tendencies and I decided to try it out. I bought some new yarn when I was in Kansas City last week and decided to put it into my stash on the web site. You can record the manufacturer, yarn type, colorway, lot number, where and when you bought the yarn and more. You can also take pictures to store with the information so you can look at your stash online and see what you have. A feature that I didn't expect is when you are looking at a knitting pattern, Ravelry will look in your stash and look at the projects others have made with that pattern and let you know what yarns you have that others have used for that pattern. And you can look at the pictures of their project to see how the yarn looks. Pretty cool!

The other day I was thinking about my books of knitting patterns. I really don't use them much because it's so much easier to search on the Ravelry site for patterns than it is to look through my books. The I had a lightbulb moment. Could I put my books into my Ravelry pattern library and search them, too? Why, yes you can!! So I figured out how to add my books to my library and now I can just search online for something like "fingerless mitts in sport weight yarn" and I can see all of my patterns, whether in my books or in my online library, and decide what I want to make, then click on the pattern page and see if I have any yarn in my stash that might be good for that pattern. Incredible!!

And, as a cherry on top, I have apps on my iPad where I can connect to my Ravelry account and download the online patterns to my iPad and knit from that, so I no longer have to print everything out and waste all of that paper! I'm sold!

Well, that's all for now. The Jayhawks play in the Big 12 Tournament finals today so you know where I'll be! And next week March Madness starts so you will find me plopped down on the couch with the games on and some knitting in my hands!

Nancy