I've been making...Personal Remarks

So this is my latest shawl - Personal Comments

Knit in Wollmeise and Yarn Yard Clan, this turned out to be larger than I'd planned (no bad thing) at 56" x 26"

It's currently being tested by two lovely Ravellers (thank you Kerry and Heike) and then will be tech edited and released.

The name comes from my sister J who is one of the few people in my family who can wear red successfully. The Wollmeise yarn seemed like a very J colour so I thought this should have a J related name. When I was growing up my sisters were very influential and pretty much brought me up. One of the life lessons J taught me was that making personal comments about people was wrong and spiteful something that I try (and sometimes fail) to bear in mind in adult life. So this one is my J shawl and might, just might, be the first in a series of sisterly inspired shawls.

And some more pictures...

Wollmeise - inspirational colours

From top to bottom these are 'We're Different' skeins in Wollmeise Sockenwolle 80/20 Twin in Pfaufenauge, Petit Poison No 5 and Die Auster.

The Wollmeise is a dyeing goddess from Germany with a devoted following and the most amazing colourways. I'm not an inveterate Wollmeise update stalker but have usually been able to get yarn when I've wanted it without too much bother although others report sad tales of 'cart jacking' and feeding frenzies like piranha attacks.

My latest design (Personal Comments) is knit in a combination of Wollmeise and Yarn Yard Clan (a similar yarn from the UK) and it really is a joy to work with. The colours are so intense and the yarn gives wonderful firm stitch definition because of the way it's constructed. It does look a little 'cottony' due to the way it's constructed but it's velvety to knit with and softens beautifully.

I never quite understood the obsessive Wollmeise-aholics but I do really like it. Then again I also really like Yarn Yard, Natural Dye Studio, Posh Yarn, Fyberspates, Yarn Addict, Knitwitches, Kntiting Goddess...

I have a lot of yarn!

New shawl design - Personal Comments

New shawl design, a photo by pmc_blonde on Flickr.

This is Project 100! A new shawl design in Wollmeise Twin 80/20 (Versuch colour). It features a lace 'spine' and top edge and will have bands of lace and a 'bear claw' border.

This yarn is just heaven to work with

I did also cast on some stranded socks which might technically be Project 100 but I suspect the shawl will be finished before the socks...

New Pattern: Pie Crust, Progress and Milestones

So Pie Crust is finally out for download on Ravelry. When I have time to wrestle Blogger to the ground I will update the side bar with the download links and so on but it's in at least two sizes - using different weights of yarn and fewer or more repeats of the lace border and the ruffled edge.

Whilst Pie Crust has been being tested and edited I have been busy doing other things like practising my stranded colourwork by knitting Endpaper Mitts (Eunny Jang)

And contemplating my next project...

As it stands I have 99 projects loaded onto Ravelry, including my two WIPs, so I'm wondering what I should do for my 100th project as it feels like it should be a milestone.

• Should it be challenging or easily achieved?
• Should it involve new techniques or old comfortable favourites?
• Should it be my own design (I have a couple of shawls, a ruffly scarf, some more colourwork mitts and a colourwork hat lurking in my design book) or should  I use someone else's pattern?

Answers on a postcard please...

FO: Lacy Pie Crust

So I have been hard at work on a larger, laceweight version of my new pattern - still provisionally called Pie Crust

This is in Jaggerspun Zephyr (Fiddlesticks) Wool-Silk 2/18 that was a gift ages ago. It takes approximately 700 yards of this lovely 2-ply laceweight yarn. This version also has beads randomly placed in the inner border.

That bare fence and heap of mud is waiting for a delivery of manure and a rotivator before becoming a gorgeous bed of flowers and herbaceous shrubs. We'll have lupins, gladioli, massive bouncy dahlias, sweet williams and random handfuls of flower seeds and will complement the big bed of roses on the other side of the lawn. I like things in the garden to work as cut flowers for the house or food. Himself rather likes decorative shrubs but I don't really see the point.

At the end of that empty bed is a big pond with lots of fish and two new ghost koi which has a Japanese planting scheme (sort of). Himself has been doing a ton of work over the last couple of weeks to sort out the garden so pictures will follow

My design process (such as it is)

Various patterns are in various stages of testing:

• Pie Crust Shawl -  being tested 
• Waterhouse fingerless mitts - awaiting revisions and tech editing
• Tortile beaded hat - awaiting revisions and tech editing

Although the testing period for the mitts and hat ended on April 10th I've been very busy at work and personally with the shock of my Dad having a heart attack midweek so for obvious reasons I've had to put these on hold temporarily. That doesn't stop me thinking ' what next?' whilst on the bus to the hospital or sketching out possible designs whilst sitting with my Mum so I thought I'd try to map out my design process over a few blog posts given that I won't have much time for actual knitting and designing.

1. Inspiration:

I get inspired by lots of things: interesting colours, shapes in nature or architecture, textures and patterns. I'm rarely inspired by existing patterns or by things I see in shops - I don't seem to have the urge to recreate or reverse engineer things. A while ago I started working with the lovely Jo of Dodoknitz who has recently started an online business dyeing yarn. I had a very vague idea for a circular shawl incorporating lace and cables and I knew I wanted it to be green. Not just any green but a vivid late Victorian green - somewhere between 'yallery-greenery' and acid green. So this is what I sent Jo:

As well as the colours you'll see some hints as to the textures I'm going for in the design,  particularly the twisted lattice columns and the fan detail. Given that I'm planning a design with lots of texture I wanted a yarn that would give good stitch definition and would block well for lace. So working with Jo I settled on a heavy laceweight (a new base from Tall Yarns) in a silk/ merino blend. And this is what Jo sent me:

which is just lovely. Now because I am considering a cabled, knitted on border which will just eat yarn I decided I needed two skeins so Jo dyed two more for me (so it would be the same dye lot) and they are even more vibrant:

My pictures don't do them justice, they are wonderfully, virulently green.

So now I have yarn, a general idea and some rough sketches so I need to start plotting out the detail and DOING MATHS which will take quite a while. Updates to follow at a later date

FO: Pie Crust (working title)

As I mentioned in my previous post I have been working on a new shawl pattern. This has been half written up for ages but it took me forever to get round to knitting a sample. I started out with the yarn in the previous post which was pale yellow, cream and a golden brown inspired by the colours of apple pie but it was too variegated for the pattern. Once I finished the shawl I overdyed it with green and blue Landscape dyes and then blocked it.

The shawl pattern will go out for testing soon but in the meantime here are some tasters: