Archives for March 2013

First off, congratulations to Cathy, who was chosen to receive my review copy of Easy Openwork Knit Tops by Kennita Tully. Cathy has been emailed.

Now, my work in progress:

At this point, it is about 56″ long. I have 60 grams left of the rainbow yarn.

I started out with 284 grams of rainbow yarn, so at this point the end is in sight! Well, not really the end: I will still have lots of edging knitting to do after I finish the body of this piece. But it won’t be too much longer before I finish the body, cut open the steek, and start the edging!

Lucy is waiting for the Easter Bunny  to show up. I don’t want to burst her bubble.

Still knitting my rainbow . . .

But I also have an FO!

A wee catnip mouse, knit from the nose down. It is made from sportweight Cormo wool left over from a cardi I knit earlier in the year. It’s a gift for a co-worker who adopted a kitty last weekend.

I received a review copy of Easy Openwork Knit Tops by Kennita Tully in the mail this past week.

This book contains patterns for 5 projects that are geared towards newer knitters. They all use openwork stitches that are easy to execute and memorize. This book is proof that lace is not necessarily difficult. They all use relatively easy stitch patterns and have simple silhouettes so they would be relatively easy to knit.

And they are pretty. This is my favorite:

Isn’t that a great piece? It’s knit from a DK weight viscose/cotton blend yarn (SMC Select Reflect) so it’s nice and drapey, and the pattern is written for 6 sizes (as are the other 4 patterns in this book) from small to 3XL (chest measurerment 33 — 52″).

The other 4 patterns consist of:

An open lacy vet knit from Habu Textiles Wool Stainless Steel, pictured on the cover — see photo above.

A drop-stitch cardi knit from Berroco Lago:

A twinset knit from Berroco Captiva. The jacket is cropped and lacy.

The tank is plain with some lace detail at the hem.

There is a guide to yarn weights in the back to help you in subbing in different yarns, as well as standard abbreviation and an illustrated section of basics.

Who’d like my review copy?

To be entered in a drawing to receive my review copy of Easy Openwork Knit Tops by Kennita Tully, leave a comment on this blog post by 11:00am Eastern time on Sunday, March 31, 2013. I’ll choose a comment at random and sent my copy to the commenter.

Lucy is waiting for me to declare it dinnertime.

My plan for today:

Lucy’s plan for today:

I am almost all the way through one repeat of the color changes in my rainbow colorway Kauni yarn.

At this point, the piece measures 21″. The skein of rainbow Kauni I am using weighed 264 grams before I started knitting, and as I wound it, I noted that it contained three complete repeats of the rainbow of colors. I weighted the skein at this point, and it weighs 180 grams. So I am right on target here. I have a third of the length of the piece done, I’ve used one of three colorway repeats, and have used almost a third of the yarn by weight.

I love it when things work out.

The foreground yarn, the black Kauni, is put up in 150-gram skeins. I know I’ll need two of them, and mot likely part of a third skein, since I am going to work the edge in black

Because this piece is a bit too large to easily carry to work I am going to wind up this yarn and start a smaller project.

Lucy can’t wait to find out what it is going to become!

Well, that might be an exaggeration.

Thanks for all the lovely comments about my Oregon accessories set. I can take no credit for choosing the colors, as it was a kit purchased from Virtual Yarns. I just followed the patterns.

Here’s something of my own design I’ve started:

In my last blog post I had a photo of some yarn: some rainbow-colorway Kauni, and some solid black Kauni. I had the idea to make a rainbow-colored wrap.

I sketched up a design and got to work. It’s going to be a rectangular shape. and to make the stranded knitting easier, I am knitting it in the round with a steek:

That strip of checkerboard is the steek: 10 stitches where I alternate colors. I am knitting the wrap as a circular piece and when done I’ll cut down the middle of the checkerboard lengthwise to open the piece up into a flat rectangle.

Because the Kauni yarn is a hairy shetland-type wool, it is perfect for steeking and will not unravel when cut. I’ll steam block it after cutting, and that will slightly felt the ends, making it even further unravelable.

I’ll then pick up and knit an edging all the way around the rectangle.

I do love stranded colorwork. It’s one of my favorite things to do in knitting. Here, just for fun, is a photo that shows the inside/wrong side of the knitting.

So this is my knitting future for a while. I have lots of yarn and plan to knit to 60″ long or so. I’m using a 3.25mm needle and getting 7 stitches and 8 rows to the inch, so it is fairly fine work.

In other news, I sucked it up and did my taxes and e-filed them today. Lucy finds this very stressful, so she is now resting!