Finished object: Windermere

It's been a fairly busy summer. As I've learned, we have winter for a solid 6 months of the year, so summer is a time for doing as much as possible outside the house. J and I went to see Daniel Tosh in Great Falls, and we also saw Kenny Rogers--THE GAMBLER himself--last weekend. We've also been making good use of the fire pit I got J for his birthday, and have had several nights of sitting in the backyard with marshmallows, beer, and fire.

In the middle of my summer activities, I finished my Windermere scarf.


The pattern is from Sweet Paprika, and is a design I've loved since I first saw it in the Ravelry Obscuriosity group's past knitalongs. I got this fabulous hand-dyed yarn from The Yarn Stash in Minot, and it turned out to be a great match for the pattern.



I made the stockinette sections smaller because I wanted the finished scarf to be a bit narrower than the design called for, especially since I was using a fingering weight yarn rather than laceweight. Beyond that, I did the pattern pretty much as written--even the grafting! I had to undo some of my grafting when I got about halfway through the center lace pattern and noticed that my stitches weren't lining up AT ALL, but it was smooth sailing once that error was fixed (I'd completely skipped grafting some of the YOs).

When it starts to cool off in another month or so, I have another scarf for my arsenal!

Yarn Radar

J and I were in Billings for a weekend trip a few weeks ago. While we were driving around, I found Purl Yarn Boutique, a brand new yarn store! J joked that I must have some kind of yarn radar... I have a tendency to find yarn any time we go out of town.

Anyway, we went in, and it's a great store. Very open and uncluttered, friendly staff, and two adorable shop dogs. I'll definitely go back next time we're in Billings.

J was drawn to the Manos display, and picked out this skein of Maxima in the Arctic colorway:


And I picked up a few skeins of this gorgeous red Spud & Chloe Fine, maybe for a second go at a Whisper Cardigan:


I can't get over how smooshy this stuff is!

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!