Moon Shadows Shawl

 Happy New Year!

This is my last finished item of 2015!

Pattern: Moon Shadows designed by Romi Hill

Size: Large

Yarn: Main Color is: The Periwinkle Sheep in Silky Single in the colorway The Rising of the Moon

Contrast Color is: The Periwinkle Sheep in Silky Single in the colorway Ominous

Needles: US Size 5

Started on: Dec. 7th

Finished on: Dec. 29th

Comments: This is my "M" for my Lace A-Z Challenge. This means I'm officially halfway done with my challenge! Woohoo! The pattern was clearly written and fun to knit. The yarn was so soft and squishy. I really enjoy knitting with single ply. I know it tends to not be as strong and long lasting, but I think in a shawl it's just fine. I really love knitting with it. And I love The Periwinkle Sheep. The colors it comes in are simply stunning! I did run out of yarn on the contrasting color because I estimated the yardage I would need wrong. The dyer was kind enough to send me some more yarn, so that I could finish my project. My favorite motif in the shawl is the hem border. This shawl I'm going to keep for myself.

Little Falls Shawl

Pattern: Little Falls Shawl

Yarn: The Periwinkle Sheep Wink Lace in Crystal Blue

Needles: US Size 6

Started on: Nov. 23rd

Finished on: Dec. 4th

Comments: I love this yarn especially the sparkly bits that twinkle. The pattern was fairly intuitive which made the knitting very fast. This is my "L" in my Lace A-Z project.

Kimani Shawl

Pattern: Kimani designed by Dee O'Keefe

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in Blue Gingham

Needles: US Size 6

Started on: Oct. 21st

Finished on: Nov. 1st

Comments: This is my "K" shawl for my Lace A-Z Challenge. I really enjoyed knitting this because the pattern was easy to follow. I also used one of my favorite yarns, Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light. It's single ply, which I generally an not a huge fan of, but I like working with this yarn. It comes in beautiful colors and it feels soft and sturdy at the same time.

Juneberry

Pattern: Juneberry designed by Brooklyn Tweed

Yarn: The Periwinkle Sheep in Merino Silk in Rose Quartz

Needles: US Size 7

Started on: October 3rd

Finished on: October 16th

Comments: This is my "J" for my Lace A-Z project. This shawl is very difficult to photograph the true color. It's a bit more pink then the picture shows.

It was a fairly quick knit. I thought this pattern had nupps in it. But after reading the pattern, I learned they were bobbles. Bobbles are much simpler, quicker, and less annoying to knit. My favorite part of the pattern to knit was the knitted on edging. I really love the way the knitted on border looks.

Irene Adler

Pattern: Irene Adler designed by Through the Loops

Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in Mrs. Dalloway

Needles: US Size 5

Started on: Sept. 6th

Finished on: Sept. 19th

Comments: This is my "I" shawl for the Lace A-Z Challenge. This blog post is a bit late because I wanted to make sure the recipient received the shawl before blogging about it.

This was quite a challenging knit. The yarn was a sticky laceweight single ply, which made it difficult to frog and easy to accidentally drop stitches. The yarn also tangles easily due to the stickiness, so I had to be extra careful when handling the yarn.

When you reach the lace section, there aren't really any rest rows. So it's patterning on both sides. It took a lot of concentration and I had to refer to the charts all the time. Despite all of this, there's something to be said about patterns like this. Something that's zen about needing to focus all your energy and thought on one thing one project. It felt like a good exercise in concentration. It's nice that it's all done. I think I will miss working on it, just a little bit.

Holbrook Shawl

 Pattern: Holbrook Shawl designed by Dee O'Keefe

Yarn: Jade Sapphire Cashmere Silk in Lupine

Needles: US Size 5

Started on: April 3rd

Finished on: June 13th

Comments: This is my "H" in my Lace A-Z Challenge. I really enjoyed knitting this one. I particularly like knitted on borders. This was my first time using this yarn. This yarn is some of the most precious in my stash. It was lovely to knit with the cashmere silk blend. I love how it turned out. This is also the last item from my basket dash! Yay!

Glenallen Shawl

 Pattern: Glenallen Shawl designed by Dee O'Keefe

Yarn: BMFA Laci in Rose Quartz

Needles: US Size 3

Started on: April 13th

Finished on: June 5th

Comments: This is my "G" for my Lace A-Z Challenge. This also counts as another item from my basketdash! The yarn is leftover from the Blooming Stitches shawl. Somewhere in the middle I lost momentum on this shawl and started knitting on lots of other projects. It was very hard to come back to this shawl. There were sooo many stitches towards the end. The rows were very long. The pattern is pretty and I love this yarn. I think Laci is my favorite yarn from BMFA. It's soft and light and comes in lovely colors.

Fellowship! The Shawl

Pattern: Fellowship! The Shawl

Yarn: Neeley's Knits Gradient set in The Golden Compass

Needles: US Size 6

Started on: Nov. 18th

Finished on: Nov. 24th

Comments: This is my "F" for my Lace A-Z challenge. The shawl was inspired by the LOTR Fellowship story. The shawl is broken up into 9 sections, each section is designed/named after one of the 9 characters in the Fellowship. I knit on this monogamously. I absolutely loved knitting this project. Knitting each different section and changing yarn color every few sections really helped to keep my interest. I am really pleased with the finished results. It's even more beautiful then I imagined it would be. This is my favorite piece I've knitted in a very long time. Neeley's Knits yarn was a dream to work with. It was so soft and the colors were amazing, it was hard for me to put this shawl down at all.

Elizabeth Shawl

Pattern: Elizabeth Shawl

Yarn: The Periwinkle Sheep Wink Lace in Thunderstorm

Needles: US Size 4

Started on: June 17th

Finished on: June 28th

Comments/Modifications: This is my first project finished for the basket dash. It's also my "E" for my Lace A-Z project. I love the color of this yarn. It's also got pretty sparkly silver bits throughout the shawl. The pattern was straightforward and intuitive to knit, even though I had to refer to the charts constantly. The shawl pattern is also nice as it doesn't have many repeating charts. This helps to keep things interesting. I really love the size it turned out to be. There was a little bit of a nail biter at the end as I was beginning to worry that I might run out of yarn. Luckily that didn't happen, I also love feeling like I used up as much of the ball of yarn as possible (without running out). I love this shawl and can't wait to wear it.

FO Friday: Dinner in the Eiffel Tower

Pattern: Dinner in the Eiffel Tower

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh DK in Denim

Needles: US Size 7


Started on: June 6th

Finished on: June 17th

Comments/Modifications: This shawl is my "D" for my Lace A-Z project. I knit this pattern using size 7 needles instead of the recommended size 6. I wanted the shawl to be a bit larger than the pattern size. This was a fun knit. It had some mindless knitting sections as well as some sections that required concentration. I love the yarn and pattern combination.

Caliz

Pattern: Caliz from Romi Hill

Yarn: A Verb For Keeping Warm Metamorphosis in Sugar Jets

Needles: US Size 8

Started on: May 28th

Finished on: June 2nd

Comments/Modifications: This is my "C" for my Lace A-Z project. I knit this pattern as is. It was a really quick knit. This yarn was originally from the 2011 Cookie A sock club. I didn't like the color at first, but it's growing on me.  The second photo shows the true color of the shawl. The yarn is a merino silk blend that feels quite sturdy and has a nice shine to it.

FO Friday: Blooming Stitch Shawl

Pattern: Blooming Stitch Shawl from Mary White

Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Laci in Rose Quartz

Needles: US Size 5

Started on: Jan. 20th

Finished on: Feb. 6th

Modifications/Comments: This is my "B" in my Lace A-Z Project. I knit the larger size. I learned how to make a blooming stitch/star stitch. It was a lot more fussy and complicated than I expected it to be. I also had to learn single crochet and how to cast off using crochet. Someone on Rav had a link to a great youtube video that showed me how it was done. It wasn't difficult, but at the same time I don't think I could have learned it without an instructional video. I'm also very slow at crocheting, so it took some time to complete the bind off.

The shawl is kind of crescent shaped, I found it weird and tricky to block. I'm not sure I got it blocked exactly the way I like. I think the pattern and yarn worked well together. I have a ton of yarn leftover which will be used for another shawl in the near future. The actual yarn is much pinker than the photo shows. It's hard to catch the yarn's true color. Overall, I am pleased with how it turned out.

FO Friday: Artichaut

 Pattern: Artichaut from Anne Hanson and Twist Collective

Yarn: Briar Rose Sea Pearl in Colorway 556

Needles: US Size 7

Started on: Aug. 30th

Finished on: Sept. 18th

Comments/Modifications: I did end up running out of yarn with two rows left to knit. I have another skein of this yarn in the same color way that I'm using for another project. I ended up using some of that yarn to finish up this shawl. There are no dye lots for this yarn, but I think it ended up matching up very well.

This is my first project for the Lace A-Z Challenge. Due to shortage of yarn, I ended up knitting 5.5 repeats of the main body - which is an in-between size. It still turned out way bigger than I expected.

The Briar Rose Sea Pearl yarn is very luxurious, shiny and soft. On the other hand, I found the yarn to be a bit splitty and slippery especially because I used metal needles. Overall, the yarn's good qualities outweigh the bad.



This pattern was challenging because there was patterning on the wrong side. I had to concentrate and refer to the chart often during knitting. There was a good number of p2tog through the back loops. Also I chose to knit this in a dark color, which made it slow and difficult to see and knit with at night. I am pleased with how it turned out. I think the yarn and pattern compliment each other very well.

Lace A-Z

 I've decided to start my Lace A-Z challenge. This is the challenge to knit a lace project beginning with each letter of the alphabet.