Deep Water Ashton -- On the road

Since I was traveling last week to see my family and friends in Florida, I never blogged about my newest Ashton. I finished it in the car on the way back home and blocked it upon my return. I used one of the Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn skeins that I bought at the big yarn sale and a US size 5, 47 inch circular needle. For all of the pictures, I pinned the finished shawlette on my blinds so that you can really see the pattern. Unfortunately, the brightness of the color is somewhat diffused, but the picture on the right shows the color much better than the one above.

Because of the nature of the yarn, the pattern is somewhat wonky as the yarn thickness varies from lace weight to as thick as worsted weight in a few places. I like the wonkyness as it makes any mistakes in the knitting disappear.

I think I am hooked on lace knitting for the moment. In fact, I have already started another Shawlette from a different designer. But that is a post for another day.

Happy Knitting!

Snowtop Mountain Shawl -- My Ashton Shawlette is all but finished!

My Ashton Shawlette is stretched out on my spare bed drying! I am so excited about the results of my first lace project and I am already itching to get started on the next one.

I wet blocked this project. After I finished binding off, I carefully washed the shawl in lukewarm water and shampoo. I know that there are other soaps or cleaners that are good for wool, but shampoo is what I had on hand. I carefully rinsed it and laid it out on a towel, rolled it up and squeezed the water out.

I followed a suggestion I saw on Knitting Paradise and used cotton twine to stretch the top edge of the triangular shawl. I carefully wove the twine in and out of the yarn overs. I then stretched the tip at the point of the triangle and finally pulled out each of the points on the bat wing.

The worse thing will be waiting for it to dry.

Happy knitting!!

Ashton Shawlette continues to grow

It has how grown big enough that I can't stretch it out too much or it will extend past my 47 inch circular. I have finished chart 3 and am about to start chart 4. That means there is only 19 more rows to go before I cast off! Yea!

I have been thinking about how I will block it. I really don't have the money to spend on blocking wires right now. I saw one of Dee O'Keefe's posts where she suggests using cotton yarn in place of a blocking wire for the top of the shawl only.  You would have to stretch it really tight and use pins to keep it in a straight line. Of course you would pin out each point on the two wings.

I am trying to pick which of the other yarns that I bought will be the next shawlette.

Happy Knitting!

Snowtop Mountain Shawl - The Ashton Shawlette

As a member of the message board, Knitting Paradise, I have been the recipient of a very wonderful gift from Dee O'Keefe, lace designer extraordinaire. She has been walking several of us through the process of learning how to knit lace with her Ashton Shawlette pattern. It is almost like being in a knitting class. I search the site for "Ashton" and I come up with several postings with other people's works in process, their questions on the pattern and Dee's tireless assistance and instructions.

Last week, I posted my experience of searching for just the right yarn. While I bought a handful of yarns that could work, my pick for the very first Ashton was the Kauni Effaktgarn wool from Denmark. The color is soothing and the picture does not do justice to the gradual change from dark to light. The colors seem to be all natural colored unbleached wool with the color change coming from slowly spinning in more and more light wool.

The yarn is not too soft, nor is it exceptionally clean as it still has occasional bits of hay and other fiber still stuck in the wool. It has a fuzzy aura to it and I think that it would felt very easily. The 2 ply yarn is not tightly twisted and does split occasionally, but not so much as to make it annoying to knit. I think that this yarn will block out nicely.

I am enjoying this project very much!

Happy Knitting!

Yarn People are Crazy!

Saturday, 7:00 AM, mid January, 14 degrees Fahrenheit  -- and I waited for an hour to get inside. It was the LYS's biggest sale of the year: The "If You Think I'm Counting All This, You Must Be Crazy" Sale was a chance to buy some great yarn at 40% off; but only if you were in line by 8:00 AM.

Unfortunately, I did not go with a plan; I didn't go with a list of what I wanted; I didn't have any patterns. The only thing I had in mind was 400 yards of fingering weight yarn for The Ashton Shawlette by Dee O'Keefe. My feet were burning from the cold when I finally got in the store. And I have to admit, my mind went numb and I didn't know where to start! So I calmed myself down by referring to the short list of yarns that were not included in the sale. I didn't want to waste time looking at yarn that was not on sale. 

Noro! I ran for the shelf that held the beautiful Kureyon Sock Yarn. I grabbed two different color ways: Aqua/Purple and Pinks/Purple. This is a 70% Wool 30% Nylon blend that could be perfect for the Ashton Shawlette! I wanted to make sure that I would have either color to choose from should this be the yarn. Although I have never knitted with this specific Noro yarn, I have knitted two pairs of socks with the worsted weight variety: my road trip socks and my forest footies.

Not completely satisfied with my first possibility, I headed to the back room where most of the sock yarn is stashed. A beautiful variegated yarn caught my eye. This hand-painted 100% Merino Wool from Koigu Wool Designs, KPPPM ranges from a pale apricot through shades of orange into a deep burgundy. Yum! I picked up three hanks totaling 450 yards. This would be a gorgeous Ashton Shawlette in beautiful fall colors.

No sooner had I picked up the Koigu, then I saw a beautiful Kauni lace weight yarn from Danmark. There were several delicious colors, but I liked the chocolate to off-white that will have a self striping effect to most knitted items.

Wow! I had so many wool choices at this point -- maybe I should look at something different. Louisa Harding Yarns; Mulberry in Midnight Blue. The 100% silk yarn is so silky and slippery that the yarn ball won't stay together, but the yarn has a wonderful shine to it. Could this be the yarn for the shawlette?

Back past the Noro shelves. What was that? Did I miss seeing that the first time? I was so busy looking at all of the sock weight and lace weight yarns, I missed the beautiful bulky Noro yarn Hitsuji. Now why, if I was looking for yarn for a lace shawl, would I want to look at a bulky yarn? But it looked so good, with the rust and green and goldenrod colors. Hmmmm. What to do? What to do?

So what did I bring home?

ALL OF IT! Happy Knitting!