Monthly Archives: September 2017

Willamette Falls Shawlette

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Willamette Falls Shawlette

Pattern

Willamette Falls Shawlette by Shelia January from the 2015 Rose City Yarn Crawl collection. Note that there is errata for this one.

Unblocked:
Willamette Falls Shawlette

My project

My project on Ravelry

I added another section just before the end so that I’d use more of the gradient, because it seemed a shame to finish it early and I wanted the “waterfall” edging in white. I haven’t written up great pattern notes, but you can see the extra section in the photo below. It’s the one with the V shapes just before the waterfalls start.

Willamette Falls Shawlette

As it was, I just barely made it work:

Cast off and won at yarn chicken! ? #knitting

A post shared by Terri Oda (@drterriko) on

Yarn

Wollelfe Fingering Merino/Silk, 65% merino 35% silk.

This stuff is glorious, and less kinky than other gradient yarns so your knits look pretty decent even un-blocked. (I hear Fierce Fibers really has the straightest gradients, but I haven’t had a chance to knit one of hers up yet. There is one waiting in my stash, though!)

Wollefe Yarn

I’m a sucker for silk blends because of the softness, and this yarn definitely does not disappoint in the softness department. It was also easy to work with, has a really nice gradual gradient that appealed to me, and as one might expect, it’s a bit lighter than a pure merino which makes it a great weight for wearing in my office as the weather warmed up.

Willamette Falls Shawlette

Summary

This was a great spring knit for me after I got back from India and was very much enjoying Portland-style May weather. (Even February in India was too hot for my Canadian blood!) Beautiful yarn, interesting and varied pattern. I wanted to get some posed pictures with it by the waterfalls, but alas, a busy summer followed by the Eagle Creek fire devastating the Columbia River Gorge means I probably won’t get those for a while. Still, one day! In the meantime here’s an in-progress photo:

Lionberry Shawl

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Here’s another project that’s become a new staple in my wardrobe!
Lionberry Shawl

The fuschia looks glorious with black or grey, and since a lot of my free tech shirts come in those colours, it works out to upgrade my look without replacing too many clothes. (Of course, I wear it with other colours too.) Here it is with a grey Carlsbad Caverns souvenir t-shirt:

Lionberry Shawl

Yarn

Scrumptious 4-Ply by Fiberspates

I’d been admiring this yarn in the shop for ages before I finally bought some, because the silk content makes it positively glow with those rich colours, and it’s a delight to sink your fingers into. Luckily for me, it’s also lovely to knit with: soft but it’s only got a minimal halo so textures still pop, and it was a dream on my needles. It’s also glorious to wear — so soft, so light. Surprisingly, I haven’t seen much pilling or problems with my finished object either. Even unblocked, you can see the textures:

Lionberry Shawl

And blocked it’s even better. Technically this is a dk weight, but I used it with a fingering-weight pattern without trouble. I’m imagining the colourwork sweater I could be wearing and my resolve on not buying more until I’ve used my second ball is slipping…

Lionberry Shawl

Pattern

Lionberry Shawl by Narniel of Endor

This is a great free pattern with a whole slew of different textures. I wanted something to show off the yarn that was designed for under 400yards of yarn so I wouldn’t have to play too much yarn chicken. I particularly like the long curly ends on this shawl, which were fun to block and photograph, and look fancy when worn. My only complaint is that the pattern is all written, no charts, and thus it was sometimes kind of hard to figure out how things were supposed to line up. I spent a lot of time looking at included pictures for details. But hey, free pattern!

Blocking! #knitting

A post shared by Terri Oda (@drterriko) on

This became my travel knit for my trip to India for PyCon Pune (where I gave the keynote on open source security!). It was challenging enough to make for an interesting knit in transit (that’s a long set of flights!), but during conference talks I had to be super diligent about marking the pattern, using stitch markers and noting the stitch counts so I didn’t get off track.

Unblocked:
Lionberry Shawl

Blocked:
Lionberry Shawl

Overall: this is a great pattern and a great yarn. I rarely do patterns twice, but I might consider trying skysweepings by the same designer. And as for the yarn, well, I may be making a Very Expensive sweater when my resolve crumbles!

Go Tell the Bees

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Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

This was my second rainbow for pride month, because once you’ve accidentally started such a great theme you might as well stick with it! Here’s the two projects together:
Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

Yarn

Bling Bling Sister, a sparkly rainbow gradient from Alexandra’s Crafts. Probably acquired at the Oregon Flock and Fiber festival. You can’t see the “bling” in all my photos, but there is a little thread of silver sparkle in there and it looks great especially as it catches the light.

Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

I’d been saving this yarn for something special and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a bit more kinky than the last gradient I used from Wollelfe (I haven’t written up that project yet, sorry!), so it really really needed blocking when I was done. Here it is looking lumpy in the PDX airport:

Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

However, even a slightly inadequate travel “block on a towel in my mom’s living room” got it looking great:
Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

Pattern

Go Tell the Bees by PDXKnitterati.

PDXKnitterati’s been one of my favourite designers since I first cast on her Fern Leaf Shawlette, which is still the bit of knitwear I wear most. (If you’ve seen me at a conference in the past year, I’ve probably been wearing it!) Her patterns are always beautiful, easy to read, well-tested, and she’s got lots that are in that perfect balance of complicated enough to be fun or to teach you a new skill, but with simple enough bits that I can still get lots done during standards meetings, on commuter rail, or hanging out in the hammock in my backyard. Or in this case, on the couch I gifted to my parents when I left Canada:

Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

Also, if you ever get a chance, she runs really great knit-a-longs on ravelry for some of her new pattern releases. Her fans produce beautiful inspiring work and she encourages us all to post pictures and even awards prizes! (I even won some beautiful bee stitch markers and candles!) It’s really fun to be part of her community there for a few weeks. Here’s a picture to commemorate the excitement of my first bees emerging from the pattern:

Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

I’ve got quite a few more pdxknitterati patterns in my queue, and just going through these photos again has me itching to cast on something else from her catalog!

Project

This one was cast on in Oregon and finished in Ontario, and it gathered comments from people across the continent because of the bright yarn and the great pattern.

From those first few rows:
Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

Through realizing I had a perfect honeycomb bag for my project thanks to my friend M:
Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

To taking finished object pictures in the light rain in Ottawa:
Go Tell the Bees Knit-a-long

This one was a super satisfying project, and a beautiful finished object that is quickly becoming one of my favourites to wear.

Bounce Blanket

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I wound up knitting rainbows through pride month, which was fun. This one was an accident (I just like rainbows) but once I realized I did go out of my way to dig out a rainbow ball for my next project. :)

Yarn

Bounce Blanket kit from Knitted Wit (“Little Black Dress” colourway, Stroller size)

This was a splurge purchase to celebrate selling off a bunch of my initial stock grant at work. Despite having been in tech for many years, this marks the first time I’ve actually had stock vest and get sold!

Bounce Blanket

My one complaint with this kit is that it wasn’t a perfect gradient — that stupid green skein on the end didn’t quite fit, so I left it at the end where it wouldn’t bug me too much. But I love the yarn, and with the exception of that irksome green, loved the colours. It also was quite generous in terms of amounts: I could easily have made this blanket wider than the stroller size only I legitimately wanted this to fit in a stroller and there’s not much advantage to having it wide enough to drag. So I’m debating a nice rainbow-y project to do with the leftovers. There might be enough for a stripey baby sweater to match!

Pattern

Bounce by TinCanKnits.

This is not a hard pattern, but interesting enough with the rainbow colours that I didn’t get bored! I’ve now done a number of patterns from this team now and took advantage of one of their sales to pick up a few more to try.

Bounce Blanket

Photos

In progress:
Bounce Blanket

Bounce Blanket

In progress with temporary dog (we were pupsitting and it turns out he’s a great knitting companion):
Bounce Blanket

Pre-blocking:
Bounce Blanket

Bounce Blanket

Blocking:
Bounce Blanket

I’m setting this to publish the day the baby it’s for is due to arrive, but I hear babies rarely adhere to schedule so no pictures with said baby for a while. :)

Medallion hat using Jimmy Beans Big Beanie Bag – April 2017

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I’ve actually *just* as of September cancelled my Big Beanie Bag subscription, because I’m anticipating a busy fall and my projects have piled up to the point where I need a break. Still, I have managed to knit some of them up!

April’s Bag looked like this:
20170418-IMG_2010.jpg

And here’s a photo summary of what I made with it:

Last off the needles: My @jimmybeanswool Big Beanie Bag for April! I started casting on for the included pattern but then decided to go a bit more fancy and pulled out a pixel editor to make a pattern on my phone. #teampixel #knittersofinstagram #knittin

Basically, I started casting on for the included pattern, realized I wanted to do something a bit more fancy with the yarn, and made up a new pattern on the spot with more colourwork and a shorter shaping. I’ve become a huge fan of having little hats that can live in my coat pockets so the pompom also had to go. This one became a present to my grandmother, since my Mom mentioned that she could also use a lighter fall pocket hat, and I thought the colours would suit her the minute I took them out of the bag. Such pretty heathers!

Jimmy Beans Beanie Bags - April 2017

Yarn

The yarn is all Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok. I love the lightly heathered colours, and they were soft enough for hat use for my tastes. This was a great yarn to sample: gorgeous colours, nice to work with. I’m not sure if I’d go out of my way to find it again since I’m spoiled for choice in the Portland area, but it was definitely a treat to get it as a sample!

Pattern

This was pretty off-the-cuff and untested, but here’s a rough pattern:

Needle size: 8.
Pattern is in multiples of 8. If you need it bigger or smaller, add or subtract in multiples of 8.
(My head is 24 inches, for reference. Do a gauge swatch, calculate from there.)

Brim:
Cast on 104 (13×8) in the round using main colour.
Knit 1.5 inches of 1×1 twisted ribbing (it doesn’t have to be twisted, but I like the way it looks)
Knit 1.5 inches plus a few rows so the turned brim doesn’t cover the pattern of straight stockinette.

Colourwork:
Follow colour chart as below or written pattern:
20170907-Screenshot_20170907-173525.jpg

MC-G = Main Colour (in this case, light grey)
CC-V = contrast colour one (in this case, dark violet)
CC-F = contrast colour two (in this case, fuchsia)
CC-P = contrast colour three (in this case, pink)

First band of colour is dark violet:
Row 1: {k3 in MC-G, k3 in CC-V, k2 in MC-G} repeat 13 times
Row 2: {k2 in MC-G, k2 in CC-v, k1 in MC-G, k2 in CC-v, k1 in MC-G} repeat
Row 3: {k1 in MC-G, k2 in CC-v, k3 in MC-G, k2 in CC-v} repeat
Second band of colour is fuchsia:
Row 4: {k3 in MC-g, k3 in CC-F, k2 in MC-G}
Row 5: {k1 in MC-G, k1 in CC-F} repeat
Row 6: repeat row 4. That is, {k3 in MC-g, k3 in CC-F, k2 in MC-G}
Third band of colour is pink:
Row 7: repeat row 3 only with pink in place of fuschia
Row 8: repeat row 2 with colour substitution
Row 9: repeat row 1 with colour substitution

Tie off colours and continue in main colour.
knit 1.5 inches of stockinette (or desired height for your head).

Decreases:
If you did more or less than 13×8 = 104 stitches at the beginning, you’ll need to adjust things accordingly. (e.g. if you did 12×8, you’ll start with a k11 instead of a k12)

Row 0: {k12, k2tog} repeat
Row 1: {k11, k2tog} repeat
Row 2: {k10, k2tog} repeat
and so on down until you get to a few stitches left and can tie them all together nicely.

Here’s a somewhat lousy picture of it on my head (before I blocked it, in case you’re wondering why it looks a bit wonky):
20170504-IMG_20170504_191433.jpg

And post-blocking:
20170514-IMG_20170514_103425.jpg

I gave this to my grandmother when I was out visiting in July, but I imagine she hasn’t had much chance to use it, so who knows if she’ll really like it! It was fun to knit, though, and I hope it’ll be useful to her as the weather cools.

Incidentally, I’m going to miss my yarn subscription: Jimmy Beans really did a nice job of giving me something new to try every month. But I was having trouble finding a few days to a week or so out of every month to actually do a new project. I imagine you’ll be seeing me write up random projects for quite some time before I run out of beanie bags, though, so taking some time off is the right choice even if I’m going to miss the new-yarn-every-month aspect. I did notice that Yarn Of the Month has a new owner and I’m tempted to try it out again, since 2 tiny balls of yarn for swatching is much easier to fit into my schedule, but I’m holding fast to taking a break for now. :)

Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Crochet-a-long

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My current projects are gifts, which means this is a great time to catch up on some backlog projects!

Rose City Yarn Crawl 2017 MKAL

This was the Mystery Crochet-a-long from the Rose City Yarn Crawl 2017. They do their mystery-a-longs as 4 clues, spread out over the time before the crawl starts, and I loved the 2016 Crochet mystery-a-long so I thought I’d do the crochet version again this year. Not as many people do the crochet version, but I enjoy the fun of wearing mine out and it’s a bit of a secret handshake for meeting fellow adventuresome crocheters on the crawl.

Unfortunately, while I actually like the finished piece just fine, I found the 2017 crochet-a-long to be largely a disappointment. Part of the mystery-a-long fun, for me, is learning new stitches and watching the design unfold. But in this case, clues 1-3 were pretty much the same, and even clue 4 was pretty much “now do the same thing only along the edges” instead of something interesting. It was boring and the mesh crochet required just enough attention that it wasn’t even a pleasant no-brain knit to do while watching tv. As each clue revealed, I found myself resenting the piece more and more.

I used my favourite crochet yarn for this, Teresa Ruch Tencel, which is really the only thing that redeemed the pattern for me. Also, I started a little late (on account of being in India before the crawl and wanting to make something actually fun on the plane instead of being irritated) so I got to see a friend’s piece at knit group (before she gave up and disgust and frogged it) and I used some of last year’s leftovers to put some stripes into the pattern to highlight the two rows that actually were slightly interesting. As a result, I got something with pretty waves of colour highlighting the scarf’s only design feature.

Rose City Yarn Crawl 2017 MKAL

I wasn’t too happy with it on the crawl, but was trying to not say anything too harsh on social media right then, because the poor designer put a lot of work into this, and I know from previous years that people tell the RCYC team that they want easier crochet patterns. I assume that’s because there aren’t that many experienced crocheters out there, so a lot of people who attempt the MCAL are relatively new to crochet. Still, now that some time has passed, I’m willing to say that as a more experienced crocheter, this was a very disappointing MCAL experience. I was expecting a pattern below my skill level, but a mystery-a-long without any mystery was a huge disappointment to me. This is an acceptable beginner-compatible pattern, but a lousy MCAL.

Still, disappointment or no, the yarn is lovely, my colour mod made it pop, and the lightweight tencel has made it a great summer piece for the office that didn’t leave me dying when I walked home during our heat waves. I’m never going to make another one of these, nor would I recommend this pattern to anyone else, but at least I can enjoy it as a 2017 yarn crawl souvenir that I’ll be wearing for years to come!

Rose City Yarn Crawl 2017 MKAL

Jury’s still out on whether I’ll bother doing the mystery crochet-a-long or not next year, though. I guess I’ll see how I’m feeling when it gets released!