A new capelet

I couldn't resist casting on with this beautiful yarn from Freia Fine Handpaints.

I'm doing this capelet in a stockinette and reverse stockinette, 3 rows reverse and 5 rows stockinette.

linen and mohair from the in progress bin

This fine gauge fabric is fascinating and infuriating - the boucle mohair is quite ornery and the little loops are always catching the needle points at the wrong moment.  The fabric is soft and warm.

After getting this far I flung it into the in progress bag, but now I am ready to work with the fine gauge again and have sworn to work in bright lighting.  The olive color of the mohair is difficult to see clearly.

Faded jade basketweave

 

The light makes this look like two different fabrics, but it is the same piece.  It will be a giant scarf of wool and bamboo blend yarn.  It is currently about half way finished. The yarn is a worsted weight and I am using size 10 needles, 14" in length.

I've got the big needles out again - playing with lots of yarn.

From the in-progress bag: mohair, silk and linen

This has been in the old in-progress bag for a couple years, so it's been nice to get it out and try to recall what I was doing.  I think I finished it well after studying in the sequence of colors.  The teal greens weren't captured all that well by the camera, but they are a lovely complement to the tan yarns.  I took this to the Byrdcliffe Guild shop in Woodstock, New York yesterday.

http://www.woodstockguild.org/the-byrdcliffe-shop

Finished - blue silk shawl

This one was a real pleasure.  I delivered it to the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild shop in Woodstock, New York along with 12 other pieces today.  Now:  rest!

Five more rows for the blue silk

This is a chained yarn, meaning it was not spun, but created by taking a thread of silk and making a bulky yarn by chain stitching it. So one can literally pull the strand width-wise and it will be a lacy, wide ribbon.  This is how the trendy ruffle yarns all work, only they are on a very big scale.  I have knitted this shawl using the technique of putting the needle through  a few loops of the chain, then pulling a few loops of the chain through.  So it is a little bit of a ruffle.  It's quite bulky but light, because the silk is so airy.  I like the look of the wavy surface which is not quite ruffly.

Two out of three will be complete by day's end

Black silk and wool capelet in seed stitch

Blue silk shawl in modified garter stitch

Blue cotton shawl in rib stitch

I've got my day planned around completing a couple of these and it will be easy to do the light blue silk  shawl and the black capelet.  The capelet row lengths are getting smaller as I reach the neckline and the blue silk rows are getting longer, but there are only 15 more rows to get done.

Black silk and merino - a capelet with a history

Sometimes it takes awhile to get me started, and sometimes starting is easy but there's that big middle-of-the-project stretch where it spends more time in the old "in progress" bag than it does in my hands.  This was begun in a press to get things ready for a show in early 2012, but then was put aside for more urgent priorities, so now I'm within a few inches of finishing after letting it mellow for almost a year. For the earlier posts on this piece click on the dates below.

Dec. 26, 2012 

Dec. 29, 2011 

Silk rufflish

Beginning with S. Charles "sari" chained silk yarn I have knit garter stitch in the same way one knits using the wide-band "ruffle" yarns that enjoyed trendiness last year.  The yarn is very bulky and the knitting technique gives it a ruched texture - it's soft!  I'm using a cable needle in a size 7.

Big knitting

Big knitting

Big

I got this huge cable needle at Fabulous Yarns in the fall and have been looking at it now and then wondering how I would ever use it.  Yesterday I began to play with bunches of yarns and began a huge piece in earnest.  I have the idea of a big curtain for a doorway in my art guild's gallery, which now is covered with a filthy rag  in the form of a length of cotton duck So it will be a combination of a useful drape for the doorway and a rather bizarrely large scale knitted piece.