Starfish shawl

My new shawl. Let me show you it:


I've had the Starfish Shawl pattern from Knitting Nature in my Ravelry queue for almost 2 years. Every time I looked at it, I'd see the words "CO 730 sts", and just couldn't bring myself to start it. I eventually figured out that I didn't want mine to be as large as the original, since anything that's too over-sized just looks ridiculous on me. I ended up downsizing it by about 6" in diameter, and only had to cast on 625 sts. ("Only" 625 sts.).

It was an easy knit, though. Once I figured out which row on the chart matched my number of cast-on stitches, the knitting went on auto-pilot. The yarn is Wool in the Woods Frizee, which has sadly been discontinued. It's a rayon yarn that's mostly smooth, but has little frizzy spots every so often. I'm so glad I finally found a pattern to show off these colors. The constant decreases in the pattern broke up any pooling quickly, and the drape of the yarn is just wonderful with this pattern.


The shawl has armholes to make it easier for those of us with narrow shoulders to actually keep it on. It can be worn with the longer end on the bottom:


Or with the longer end on top as an over-sized collar (which is probably how I'll wear it):


And if I don't feel like wearing it, it makes a great lap blanket. Or cat bed, if I ever let Cleo get a hold of it.

Annis

As I type this, I am being watched.


She's sulking because I finished Annis. She thought it would make a MUCH better cat toy than scarf. To demonstrate this, one day while I was working on the shawl, she waited until I left the room, chewed through my working yarn, and then went to hide for the rest of the day so I wouldn't know it was her. She didn't fool me for a second; the kitty saliva gave her away.

Anyway, even with the extra "help", I still finished:




There's a reason there are currently over 1300 Annises on Ravelry: this is a great pattern! The lace goes quickly, and then you can do the short rows on auto-pilot. I also loved working with the Tess Super Sock & Baby yarn. I couldn't tell in the skein, but it has a very subtle kettle-dyed effect. The stitches and nupps are well-defined, and the thicker yarn gave me a thicker shawl that will work well as a scarf.

Jumping on the Annis bandwagon

I absolutely fell in love with the Annis shawl pattern when it was first released on Knitty a couple of months ago. Judging by the number of Annises (Annii?) on Ravelry, I was far from alone in that sentiment.

And how could you not love it? It's a simple, gorgeous pattern, but has enough there to make it interesting. Lace, nupps, short rows... I'm into the short rows now, but the lace was a joy. Yes, even the nupps. There was a great tip in mwhite's Annis project notes to do the nupps not as p7tog, but as slip 4, p3tog, pass 4 sts over, which is what I opted to do. I don't think the shortcut detracted from the nuppulosity at all.




The pattern uses lace weight, but I'm using Tess Super Socks and Baby sock yarn. It worked out to be the same gauge even with the thicker yarn.

I hope the short rows go quickly!

Impasto: Finito!

I almost went with "Impasto Was Fast-o", but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I finished up Impasto and got it blocked this past Sunday:


Blocking worked magic on this. The fabric is so light and has such a nice drape to it. The AC in our staff area at work has been on the fritz again, but I've been able to wear this shawl without overheating. And it's a wool blend, so that's saying something.



It looks so complicated, and was so easy. I love projects like that.



I'm loving all the brightly colored projects that are popping up on Ravelry, but I bet this pattern would also look gorgeous in shades of natural wool.

Pattern: Impasto Shawlette by Susanna IC, in Interweave Knits Summer 2010 issue.
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, in Flax, Sky Blue, and Woad
Needles: Size 10

Impasto!

Last weekend was the annual Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I was VERY well-behaved; it's possible I've hit stash saturation.

Brooks Farm always breaks me. I got a skein of Mas Acero:


And a skein of Willow:


More pictures from MDSW 2010 in my Flickr set.

-----

I cast on a new project last Saturday with my blue/cream Silky Wool stash. When I first bought the yarn, the store didn't have enough of any one color to really do anything with, so I got 3 skeins of an off-white, 3 skeins of sky blue (you saw about a skein of that in the last post), and one skein of a darker blue. I figured I'd someday make a colorwork sweater.

Well, it's not a sweater, and it's sort of colorwork...


I cast on for the Impasto Shawlette out of the Summer 2010 Interweave Knits. For one thing, I loved it in the magazine. For another, saying the word "IMPASTO" with a thick Italian accent is really fun.

The "colorwork" is a 4 row slip-stitch pattern; the picture shows one repeat with all three colors that I have. My colorwork section is shorter than the one in the magazine. I have fewer colors, and while I could have added more rows to match the colorwork length of the model in the magazine, I really liked how it looked with 2 repeats. So, instead of having a shawl that's 16" high in the middle, mine will be 12". I'm using the off-white for the short row section that will make up the bulk of the shawl (which I'm already well into). I can't wait to get this off the needles and blocked!