Naturally Vienna Draped Vest - FC 56

I saw this really cute draped vest pattern somewhere online - cannot remember where, unfortunately.  Just had to make it, although finding the yarn was difficult and, again, I cannot remember where I purchased it but probably from New Zealand or England, but it could have been from Elann in Canada.  This a Naturally branded yarn by the name of Vienna, in an Aran weight.  It is a tweed that is 67 percent wool and 33 percent acrylic with a luxurious hand.  It requires hand-washing and drying flat.

This was a very fast project to knit.  It has only 3 pattern pieces, since it's a vest.  The fronts are the main parts, since they wrap all the way to the back, under the arms, and then connect to the center back panel.  The colllar has extensions; the pattern says to make them 5.5 inches for a medium.  That is an error.  It would make an 11-inch back neck.  I made the extensions 2.75 inches each and grafted the stitches together at the center back of the neck, reversing the grafting for the rolled edge, then attaching the extensions to the back neck.

The colorway I chose was Shade 608, which is tans, browns and off-white.

Euroflax linen and silk scarf

Several months ago, my friend Lori Lawson, owner of Capistrano Fiber Arts, decided to liquidate her remaining cones of Louet Euroflax linen.  I promptly purchased five cones, black, gray, mustard, plum and rust, thinking that I could make a lovely woven project from those five colors.  It took me months to come up with a draft and the color sequence, but I finished my scarf yesterday.  I used a 20/2 Valley Fibers black silk for the weft and the linen for the warp, sett at 20 epi and approximately 30 ppi.  It ended up, after wet finishing, to be about 60 inches in length and 9.5 inches in width.

I worked out the pattern in Fiberworks software.  It's a rather simple 8-shaft point twill.  The only tricky part was working out the color sequence with the threading, to get the breaks to show up where I wanted them to be.

Dale of Norway Markblomst Baby Sweater

I had a neighbor who was pregnant this summer with her third pregnancy, a long-awaited baby girl.  As it turned out, it was a difficult pregnancy medically, so I decided to make her something very special, a Dale of Norway baby sweater and hat.  After beginning the project, however, I attended the Golden Gate Fiber Institute 2010 at Point Bonita, CA, working for 8 hours a day with my hands, with a drop spindle, spinning wheel, and double-pointed knitting needles.  A week after I returned home, I started experiencing nerve damage, ulnar and carpal tunnel injuries.  For at least a month, I could barely knit without my hands going completely numb.

Unfortunately, because of the medical issues, the baby girl was born early and needed to be treated in the NICU due to lung immaturity.  In the meantime, my hands gradually got better, and I finally finished the little garments and am going to gift them to my former neighbor this week.  I'm really looking forward to seeing her reaction.

Patons Classic Wool Fair Isle Tote

I converted this Patons pattern from hand-knitting to machine knitting and decided to knit it with some of my handspun yarns from my ever-growing stash of handspun. It is a tad tricky to machine knit because the main and contrast yarns keep changing every 1 to 4 rows, so I input it into the computer hooked up to this bulky electronic knitting machine and knit it with Designaknit from the screen. That way, the program kept me apprised of which yarns to change and when to change them. Slow going but a lot faster than hand-knitting it. Took about an hour to knit the 71 rows, changing yarns, on average, every two rows.

The needlebed wasn't large enough to do the entire width, so I have another width to do tomorrow. Then I will attach them to each other, attach the cicrcular bottom I've already hand-knit, then put the top stitches on a circular needle, remove the green waste yarn from the top and bottom, knit the top edge and handles. Then I will felt the entire thing and, perhaps, line it. Should be a lovely tote bag.

When I completed this bag, I felted it in my washing machine, just to full it slightly and hold all the yarns together neatly.

This pattern was adapted from a free download available at: http://www.patonsyarns.com/totetofelt/ClassicWool_FairIsleTote.pdf

Mini Mochi Flower Garden Scarf

I happened to go to The Yarn Lady in Lake Forest a couple of weeks ago (Dec. '09) -- really cute shop, friendly and helpful staff, with lots of natural fiber yarns. This was not my first time there, but I went there that day to pick up some Kureyon sock yarn to do a machine knitted scarf pattern that was in the last issue of Knitwords Magazine. Anyway, I saw a beautiful crocheted scarf on a mannequin right by the front door, done in Crystal Palace's Mini Mochi yarn and asked about the pattern. Turns out the pattern is free at Crystal Palace's website, http://www.straw.com/. It's the Flower Garden Shawl pattern. I purchased four balls of Mini Mochi in colorway 110, Jungle, guessing at how much I'd need to do the scarf. I was off by one ball; I only needed three. I made 30 flower squares, which after the edgings, brought the scarf to about 75 inches. You could add squares to make it longer or crochet less squares to make it shorter. This was such fun and almost addictive, crocheting these squares. I hadn't crocheted more than an edging or two in over 30 years, but one doesn't really forget the process. Fingers got a tad tired at first, but only the first night. After that, it went smoothly.

I finished all the squares in just a few nights and, then, attached them to each other with an overhand stitch in two evenings. The two rows of double crochet around the entire edge took a couple of evenings but, again, was fun just trying to guess as to which colors would end up where. Mini Mochi comes in a really wild colorway called "Intense Rainbow," which would really be fun to crochet up, just to see the color changes.

Kureyon machine knit and felted handbag

I found the cutest pattern in the latest issue of Knitwords Magazine to make a felted, ruffled handbag from Noro Kureyon yarn. It proved to be a tad challenging, requiring immense concentration but was so worth the effort. I finished the first side in one sitting and the second side the next day. Then I felted it in my front-loading washing machine and let it dry for a couple of days. Over the weekend I made a lining for it and attached the straps. I think it's cute as can be and am going to love using it. It was knit on my Brother KH-270 bulky knitting machine. Bulkies cannot automatically knit lace patterns, tho they can automatically do the tucking stitches, which were tucked for three rows and then knitted back. So the lace is hand-tooled. The ruffled borders are triple strands of Kureyon, which were hand-knitted back, a needle at a time.

SW Merino, Bamboo, angelina, white icicle yarn

I just finished spinning the most gorgeous yarn from a fiber I purchased from squoosh.etsy.com. It's 75 percent superwash merino and 25 percent bamboo, white icicle and strawberry angelina. I spun this extra fine, laceweight singles and then plied them. After washing and setting the yarn, it's a sock or fingering weight yarn. These photos simply don't do this yarn justice, as the photos don't pick up the angelina and icicle highlights that really make the yarn pop.