19 May 2012

Back for Now

Well, I decided to revive the good ol' blog here because I've been knitting again and need to share to those who will understand. I joined the 12 Shawls in 2012 group over on Ravelry. I was totally psyched to find so many beautiful shawls using just one skein of sock yarn. A few years ago, I joined the sock yarn craze but realized that I didn't really enjoy knitting socks. (Love the sock yarn and sock patterns-just not the actual knitting of the socks.)

The plan was to use stash yarn for all the shawls--2 birds and all that. I have some beautiful Neighborhood Fiber Co. sock skeins that I absolutely lurve. I got them when Karida had a yarn club a few years ago. I think the reason I have knit 3 shawl patterns that I have had to frog is that the label on the yarn says it has 435yds but the Ravelry database shows that her sock yarn has 400 yards. I've been planning and knitting based on 435yds but I think that is where I've been going wrong. My latest effort is Vlad using the Thomas Circle colorway. Love the pattern and so far its looking good.

My failed attempts (Rav links): Old Man of Storr Shawlette, Ethereal Triangular Shawl (I will have to find another yarn for this pattern), and Rough Sea Shawl. All great patterns and all just required a little more yarn than I had. I had a bee in my bonnet about finally using my Neighborhood Fiber Co. yarn so I just kept trying to find new patterns instead of changing the yarn. The yarns a pleasure to knit, and they are especially meaningful to me because I lived in DC and the color names remind me of the years I lived there. (Not to mention, the creator and owner of the company, Karida, is a wonderful person and talented artist.) I'll have to take some pics so that you can actually see what I'm working on these days.