So Beautiful

I finally finished my Celestarium! I can't tell you how happy this makes me - partly because it's one of the most beautiful things I have ever made, and partly because it felt like it would never, ever be done *laughs*

I love it, I want to wear it everywhere. To the supermarket, to the petrol station, even sat in my office with no one here to see it ;)

 I had quite a few beads, and plenty of yarn, left when I got to the border, so instead of doing the plain knit on border, I added a few rows of k2tog, yo, which gives a nice lattice, and added a row of beads. This plan also gave me the flexibility to block the garter stitch border into points... Which saved the headache of trying to figure out how to block a perfect circle *laughs*

This is an intermediate in-action shot, hopefully to be replaced with a proper picture of me wearing it once my photographer gets home ;)

The way I shaped the edges means it actually sits really nicely on my shoulders, which is great because I had no idea how I was going to wear it! 

I love the yarn (malabrigo sock - and I even have enough left for a short pair of socks!) and the colour, and the beads, and the pattern.... I just love it all, in case you couldn't tell!

It's my first circular project, and my first ever project with beads, so I'm really happy with how it came out.

To Frog or not to Frog

One of my Works in (limited) Progress that has been sat on the needles for a while is a shawl. It's going to be an Ishbel, but there's a small issue... I've made a mistake in the lace, but I have no idea where *sigh* In fact, I have probably made multiple mistakes, so I really don't think I can get away with frogging the lace section.

I felt like I'd done loads and loads of work on it, so I was reluctant to pull it all out, hence why it has sat in my knitting basket in time out for a while. But when I got it out to take a few pictures, it seems I haven't done as much as I thought.

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing *laughs*

Anyway, the shawl in question:

And a better picture of the colours:

The yarn was originally purchased to be socks for my lovely boyfriend. I knit the toes and showed him, and he could see that I had fallen in love with the yarn - he rolled his eyes and asked if I suddenly wanted the socks to be for me *laughs* I said no, actually I thought it would make a really nice shawl.

This is where he gets lots of brownie points - because he immediately agreed that the yarn would be much nicer as a shawl, the colours will look great with jeans, and insisted I rip out the socks and make myself a shawl *grins*

Back To The Needles

After my small knitting hiatus (I had stopped enjoying working on pretty much anything) I'm pleased to say I've been back to the needles...

It's been ages since I took a picture of everything together for WIP Wednesday, but this week I have actually worked on everything that is still in progress.

My Firiel shawl is now past the halfway point, so the rows have started to get shorter. Hopefully it won't take too much longer.

My Reggae Reggae sock now has about an inch of leg - quite a way to go as this is the first sock still, but the colours are bright enough to keep my interest *laughs*

And I'm happy to report that my much neglected Celestarium has finally received some attention *grins*

I'm now ready to start the final round of increases. Which doubles the stitch count and will make each row take approximately forever. But hey, progress has been made (adding about an inch all around), and I count that as a win ;)

Potential Shawls - Roundup

Thank you for such lovely comments on my pretty pink shawl on Friday *smiles*

A couple of commenters mentioned that they liked the idea of a shawl that starts from the longest part and gets smaller as it goes. I certainly liked that feature, so I thought I would post a roundup of some other shawls with the same construction - I've been looking at them for my next shawl project *laughs*

I used the wonderful search features of Ravelry to find shawls with the characteristics "triangle shaped" and "bottom up" - if you click here, you can find the full results. There are also a lot of crescent shawls that start from the lace prtion, but as they still have quite a long cast off, I haven't included them here.

Damask - Kitman Figeroua (the same designer as my pink shawl)

© kitman

Summer Mystery Shawlette - Wendy D. Johnston.

This one is actually a free pattern - as it was a mystery pattern that was released as various clues during its original knitalong, it comes in 5 separate parts.

© Wendy D. Johnson

My Heaven - Patusha

Another free pattern. The image used for the pattern page is pretty but doesn't show what the shawl would look like, nearly leading me to skip past it. Luckily I looked closer, because I think it is lovely.

© bienchensmama

A lot of the other patterns in the search results had "bottom up" in the description, but I can't quite work out if they mean the same thing I do (start with a long cast on and decrease down to a few stitches before binding off). I've included one of these below, because it is just gorgeous *laughs*

Aranami Shawl - Olga Buraya-Kefelian

© olgajazzy

Oh, So Pretty

I should preface this post by mentioning that I don't tend to knit lace, and I don't tend to buy pastel coloured yarns - I'm more of a brights girl ;)

So the shawl I am about to show you for this FO / Creative Friday may come as a bit of a surprise - it certainly did to me *laughs* It started when I bought this yarn from A Stash Addict...

I was drawn to its delicate softness, and when it arrived I knew it wasn't going to be socks. I don't usually have yarn that tells me what it wants to be, but this was adamant it would be lace.

Last weekend, boyfriend and I had a housewarming party, and I decided a week before that, that I wanted a shawl to wear - so this yarn came out of its cosy stashed hiding place and became:

My Pastel Peacock. The Peacock Shawlette pattern starts from the lace, so requires a crazily long cast on - but then it gets faster and faster as you knit it - something I very much liked *laughs* In fact, it was a ridiculously fast project, that only took me 3 days (admittedly I did nothing but knit for much of that time, but that's not really the point).

I am excited to say that there are no mistakes in the lace - a first for me *grins* Usually I have to bodge something somewhere along the way, but this came out perfectly.

The colours are quite hard to capture (aren't they always?!) but the picture below is probably the most accurate. I love how the yarn looks in this pattern, it all fit together just how I wanted it.

All in all, I am in love with this project - it isn't my usual type of thing and that makes it even better I think. Of course now I want to knit all the lace shawls ever, but that's pretty much my way *laughs*

Why Can't Projects Knit Themselves?

I thought that getting my in-progress Celestarium out of its project bag might give me the much needed impetus to pick it back up and make more progress on it...

It sort of worked - I reminded myself just how much I love it. The pattern is inspired, and I adore the yarn I'm using, it makes me think of stormy skies. The beads look great too.

But looking at it also demonstrated just how much more knitting there is to do. Yikes. I'm on the E charts, which means I have another round of increases to go - doubling the stitch count - and then many, many rows of the F charts before I even think about the edging *sigh*

I want to get it finished though, because it is so gorgeous and I want to wear it and bore everyone I come into contact with by insisting they admire it and telling them all about it ;)

I'll get there. I just need to not cast on anything new for a while (I have a second sock and another shawl on to go too). But honestly, how likely is that?!

It's Been A While

Wow, it seems like ages since I participated in a Work in Progress Wednesday/Yarn Along.

I think a fair bit has probably changed - I finished my Berwick jumper/sweater and my Ice Cream Waffle socks (one or both will appear on Friday *grins*) and I have ripped out my diagonal stripe socks. They just weren't working for me and I want to make sure the lovely yarn gets the right pattern.

Also since I last posted a project round-up, I have started and finished a shawl. I'm quite excited about it, but again, I'll save that for a Friday ;)

So, current projects...

I'm still working on my Celestarium, although I haven't actually done more than a couple of rows in weeks. I think the combination of 4 charts plus beading apparatus makes it a bit more of an undertaking than I've been in the mood for lately.

Frogging my socks meant that I had an opening for new socks - I can't not have socks on the needles *laughs* These are my Vegas socks - using yarn I bought in, wait for it, Las Vegas.

I'm really enjoying using this yarn, Tofutsies - it's made of 50% Superwash Wool, 25% soysilk brand fiber, 22.5% Cotton and 2.5% Chitin (apparently made from shrimp and crab shells). Anyway, it's really soft. This is sock 2, I already have the first one finished. 

After finishing my last shawl, I have been quite taken with the idea of knitting lots of them, so I cast on another ;) The pattern is Firiel, and the yarn is Nooch, and it is so very squooshy that I want to buy many, many more skeins *laughs*

It doesn't look like much now, but when it is blocked it'll be lovely, honest!