Butterflies and baby camels

Yep, this is a post about butterflies and baby camels. The shawl I have recently completed is the butterfly part. It's the Mariposa shawl which means butterflies in Spanish. 

This was a very satisfying shawl to knit. One of the main factors contributing to the pleasure of knitting this shawl was the yarn I used, Dyed By Hand Yarns Camel Train Lace. And this is where the baby camel comes in. The yarn is a 50/50 blend of baby camel and silk. Its a great yarn to knit with. The yarn glides through the hand and doesn't split which is very good because its such a fine yarn. I found the yarn gave good stitch definition and lovely drape. I was also able to give the shawl a hard block.

I knitted the shawl on 3.75 needles and used 61g. I have one more skein of this yarn in my stash and I'm looking forward to knitting with it. Just need to find the right pattern.

Three way shawl

Here is a super easy and very versatile shawl, the Chameleon Shawl.

I've been meaning to knit this shawl for ages but couldn't find the right yarn. I started it once with some Tosh Lace but the colours weren't quite right. Then on a visit to Bendigo Woollen Mills I spied some Luxury 4 ply in Bracken and Wild Barley and knew I had the right combination. The 4 ply meant that the shawl turned out quite large but I don't mind that. Its going to be a great winter shawl.

The worst part of the shawl is the edging. Its not at all difficult but like all edgings it seems to take forever. I needed to put it down every now and then and knit something else just to have a bit of a break.

New beginnings

It's the first day of the new year so I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year.

I am going to try to be a better blogger this year. I became very slack in the second half of 2012 and soon fell out of the habit of regular blogging.

So I'm going to start with a brief catch up and share a few projects with you which I completed the last couple of months.

First off, I tried my hand at designing my own shawl and Palm Leaf was the result.

The yarn is Bendigo Woollen Mills 2 ply classic hand dyed by EmilytheEnabler and the needle size 3.5mm.

I had a lovely skein of Yarn Pirate Superwash Merino Sock yarn in Brown Sugar which I didn't know what to do with it. So with the help of fellow Ravellers I ended up knitting a Pogona and this was the result.

I participated in a blue swap on Ravelery. For this swap you have to provide your partner with yarn and goodies all in the colour blue. I decided to knit a shawl for my partner and finally had the opportunity to knit a Boo Knits pattern, Dragonfly Wings.

And to finish off I knitted two shawls for another Raveller as part of a different swap. Another lovely Booknits pattern, Heaven Scent

and Be.Leaf by Kitman Figueroa.

Okay, that's enough to start the year. There are more in the pipeline!

Where has the time gone?

It has been far too long since I have posted. Plenty has happened on the knitting front but I have been too busy to post about it. I'll start with two of my completed projects.

The first is a pair of Leyburn socks which I knitted in Patonyle. I decided that I didn't like the heel with these socks so I substituted with the short row heel used in the Kellswater Socks.

I worked on this while on holiday at the beautiful Wilson's Promontory.

When I got back I worked hard at finishing my Vitamin D. I knitted this is Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 4ply in Ghost. This was a great cardi to knit and has become my favourite cardi to wear.

More knitting news in my next post!

Boo Knits

Ever since I saw the first design of Boo Knits I have been wanting to knit one of her shawls. Her designs are so ethereal and I was waiting for the right yarn and the right frame of mind to knit one of her delicate shawls.

Some  time ago I participated in a colour swap on Ravelry, the red swap, and I received a cone of ColourMart 2/28 Merino. The perfect yarn for a delicate knit. So when the time was right I cast on Almost Autumn.

And here she is:

I knitted the shawl as directed but omitted the picot cast off and did my usual stretchy cast off instead. The lace section is knitted on 4.5mm needles and the stocking stitch section on 4mm needles. The shawl used a mere 24g of yarn!

Gradients

Many months ago I got the itch to try some gradient yarns but I was having difficulty in finding yarns in the colour and weight that I wanted. I then did a deal with a Ravelry friend (who now has a great etsy shop, Ozifarmer's Market) to dye some yarn for me. The base is a very fine merino which is almost a cobweb weight.

And then a few weeks ago she very generously gifted me two more skeins of her lovely gradient dyeing.

Ever since I received the first lot of yarn I have been looking for the right pattern. I finally decided on Longing for Robins Return for my first attempt. This is a shawl that has long been in my queue and I was very happy to finally be able to knit it. I thought the very fine yarn would be ideal for this delicate pattern.

Once I had finished this shawl I was eager to give another one a go and this time I decided on the Leadlight shawl using the Bendigo Woolen Mills 2ply base.

I'm eager to try a few more shawls using gradient yarns, any pattern suggestions?

Almost forgot about this one

Way back in June I cast on Bakau. I thought it would be a quick and easy knit and one that I could take with me on my travels.

And it was indeed quick and easy and while we were in lovely Murramarang I very nearly finished it but ran out of yarn while casting off. I set the shawl aside while I looked for a solution and over time I forgot about the shawl.

Then, a few nights ago, I was knitting Longing for Robin's Return using a gradient yarn dyed by Ozifarmer when I realised that the colour I had reached would matched my Bakau. Now Bakau was knitted in a 4ply Bambaroo and I was using a very fine laceweight for Longing for Robin's Return, so I merely held it double and cast off my Bakau. And I am happy to say that the difference in yarn is barely noticable.

I used 4mm needles and 155g of hand dyed Yarn Workshop Bambaroo.

Sangria anyone?

Way back in July I joined the Sangria KAL. It started well and I shot through the first couple of clues but then we started travelling and my time with the shawl was severely compromised. But whenever I got the opportunity I worked on it. It was a fun shawl to knit and using knitCompanion on my iPad really enhanced the experience. One of the great things about knitCompanion is that it allows you to add whole or partial PDF files to your original file. This is great when knitting a KAL where the charts are released in installments.

But back to the shawl. The KAL was designed so that you had flexibility in the number of chart repeats as well as the the number of charts you wanted to knit. I only repeated Chart A and knitted B to E once each. I knitted the shawl on 3.75 needles but in hindsight I think 4mm or even 4.5mm would have been better and would have given me more drape. The yarn is BWM Classic 2ply hand dyed by Emylly123. I added clear size 8/0 beads.

And notice that spring has come to our garden!

Travel Projects

I think most of us have a favorite type of knitting project we like to take with us when traveling. I tend to take a sock project or two with me. I find they are small enough to carry with me or pack away as needs be. A few months ago I received a lovely project bag through a Karma swap on Ravelry which is ideal for my traveling sock project.

I really like the fact that I can zip the bag shut and therefore keep everything secure regardless of the circumstances. The bag is large enough to take my yarn as well as a Namaste Buddy case and a few other bits and pieces.

So this little bag has had quite a bit of use over the last few months with the various trips I have made. Two pairs of socks have been carted around in it.

The first pair was a pair of Kellswaters Socks.

 The yarn is King Cole Zig Zag and should be hard wearing. I knitted these two at a time on 2.5mm circulars.

The yarn is really too busy to see the detail of the pattern but I find it too boring to knit vanilla socks.

The second pair was a pair of Scylla socks.

These are knitted in Zwerer Garn Opal. And again I knitted these two at a time on 2.5mm circular needles. I like the way the slipstitch shows the colours off. The pattern also incorporates a bit of a gusset which makes for a very comfortable fit.

Both pairs are toe-up. I find these days that I prefer knitting toe-up socks and I will never go back to knitting one sock at a time. No more second sock syndrome for me!

Finally!

I haven't been blogging for a while but I have been busy knitting and traveling.  I joined the Ravellenics over on Ravelry for the duration of the Olympics. This time I entered 2 events: the Toy Toss and the Wips Wrestling.

For the Toy Toss I knitted this sock monkey from Itty-Bitty Toys.

But my main project was for the Wips Wrestling event for which I entered my Summer Squares blanket aka The never ending blanket. Although I officially had time till the closing ceremony to finish the blanket, I had to finish it by 9 August because that is when we flew to Perth. So I knuckled down and knitted like a maniac.

4608.7m later I had this:

The blanket is knitted in Bendigo Woollen Mills 4ply Cotton on 4.5 needles. The pattern is based on The Blue Quartet. I am so pleased to finally have this  off the needles. It also meant that I could take extra enjoyment out of our Perth holiday.

The wildflowers have just started to make an appearance so here is a brief taste.