Yarn-along: shawls, style and summer
~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? Take a photo and share it either on your blog or on Flickr. Leave a link below to share your photo with the rest of us!~ Ginny at small things
Yarn-along – May 1, 2013
As you can see, my yarn-along this week has no in-progress knitting. Isn’t that odd?
Well, the answer lies in the yarns pictured: starting today, I’m in a Ravelry knit-along to knit a shawl; the rules are simple — you post a picture of the yarn/pattern before today and then start knitting the shawl and finish sometime between May 1st (today) and June 30th.
Since we’re about to head out on a long, long, road-trip, I decided to get THREE projects prepped for this KAL:
- the red is a double-ball of Cascade’s Ultra Pima (about 500 yards); this is re-purposed yarn as I had made something in it last year, never used it, and ripped it, washed it and re-skeined it. I plan on making a sweetheart shaped shawl with this.
- the yarn to the left of the red Ultra Pima is a ball of Wolle’s Yarn Creations, cotton that changes as you work the skein. This one is a dusty, heathery lavender that becomes a dusty, heathery blue and then ends with a dusty, heathery green. I love the colors! I plan on a making a modified half-circle shawl that will also serve as a lace-sampler.
- the three balls grouped together are the Solitude Wool I mentioned last week. These are DK-weight in a down-sheep blend of Dorset-Suffolk sheep that are bred locally, spun locally … and now I’m going to knit them locally! I plan on doing a simple triangle shawl in stripes to highlight the complementarity of these shades of naturally-dyed wool: natural cream/black speckles, chickweed (which makes the lovely, tonal green) and watermelon pickle (in those lovely shades of pinks, greens, and natural browns). This will be a wonderfully cozy shawl for the fall/winter months.
I did finish, and post, the blanket I had been working on …. Mary, Mary … quite Contrary … is a fun 66-inch circle blanket/shawl in worsted weight cotton. That design is available for purchase on my Ravelry page and in my Craftsy store. I am also just about done with the shop-model of the Rib Tickler, Worsted in the deep, dark scarlet that I worked on last week. The yoke portion is started and the rest goes zippity-zip to the crew neck finish. I might bring it with me on our road-trip for some mindless knitting.
On my reading table, I’ve found lots of fun books about “flea market style” — repurposing items from the thrift stores, junk shops and garage sales in order to decorate the home. Since dh is cranky right along with the exterior of the porch/studio renovation (we got all the windows in and the cedar-siding ordered … just need to get the door) … I figure I better start planning the interior — for a bit of the summer, this room will exist as the boys’ room while we have family visiting. It will make a great guest room and I’ll be happy to share it as dh keeps calling it my studio … and possession is nine-tenths of the law, right? Anyway, back to the books I’ve found:
- Studio Spaces from Better Homes and Gardens is a wonderful book filled with glimpses into artists’ studios and ideas for making your own creative space. The artists featured include quilters, scrapbookers and fabric designers — noticeable that fiber-artists are included but many of the same storage issues are cross-craft, so I’m ok with this omission. Talk about eye-candy for creative space ideas!
- Flea Market Style by Emily Chalmers is filled with great decorating ideas, collections to collect and display, and other fun ideas for making your house a home with your individual stamp of creativity. Not a book I’ll read cover-to-cover, necessarily, but more a book to check occasionally for inspiration!
- The final book on the pile is Tattered Treasures by Lauren Powell. This one is great because not only does she have gorgeous, inspirational ideas but she tells you how to replicate these ideas, with tips of antiquing paint, refurbishing finds and generally reveling in using old things in new ways.
So what are y’all reading and knitting … wanna come play in our sand-box?
One of my favorite things to do is to decide what to take on a trip (knitting of course) I think you’ve picked some great projects. I tend to go for the thin yarn so it takes up less room and gives me endless knitting time! Have fun!!
Truth be told, I ALWAYS pack my knitting projects FIRST …. and then everything else. Good thing the kids are old enough to pack for themselves ….