Another spring shawlette

These things are popping up like weeds… I made another Cedar Leaf Shawlette for my colleague, Karen, who is retiring this month: The yarn is Brooks Farm Solo Silk, a single ply of silk and fine wool (50/50).  It is lovely. Knit on a size 5 needle, there is plenty of drape in this.The leaf edging is very entertaining to knit, and the perfect detail on an otherwise simple crescent-shaped scarf. I hope Karen loves it.  We will miss her tremendously at the library.

Sweet Shawlette

Rose Beck, the designer of the Sugared Violets pattern, describes it as “the fifth shawl of the Be Mine collection, a set of floral-inspired shawlettes designed to be both simple and sweet.”  Mine definitely fits that description, don’t you think? This is crescent-shaped and mostly stockinette, with just a couple of lace stitches thrown in for the edging. An added bonus: it also looks like a giant mustache when viewed flat.

I am very pleased with the match between yarn and pattern.  This sock yarn really wasn’t well-suited to socks at all… but it will work great as a shawlette.  The skein was 113 grams and I used all but 19.

Violets

My yard is full of dandelions at the moment.  I actually kind of like their cheerful yellowness… but they annoy me when they go to seed and the stems become long and gangly.  One yard flower that I love in every way, though, is the wild violet.  These sweet flowers appear in lawns up and down my street.  They are in full bloom right now, and I have to wonder if I was subliminally motivated by them to cast on for the Sugared Violets shawlette. 

This sock yarn has been marinating in stash for a long time…my mom gave it to me for Christmas in 2007.  It’s handspun and handdyed by Crafty in a Good Way from Merriam, Kansas (my mom found it in a gallery in Salina). Her website seems to have expired so you just have to trust me.  There is a lot of yardage (560 yards) so I was saving it to make knee socks with one day.

Then I learned what I now know about sock yarn choices and rejected it as actual sock yarn (100% superwash merino, 2-ply).  Since Rose Beck’s Sugared Violets calls for 430/550 yards (M/L) and the color certainly reminds me of violets, I cast on.  Here is a peek: It’s all bunched up on a circular needle now and I knew I wouldn’t have time to transfer it to a longer cable or waste yarn before losing the light this evening, so you just get a glimpse.  I’m nearing the end, though, thanks to a holiday weekend and road trip to Cleveland!

The knitting is quite simple, but the rows get longer and longer, which makes this project not great for picking up and putting down.  So, of course, I started one of these:

I think you all know exactly what this is.  :)

Spring has sprung!

Here is my Cedar Leaf Shawlette, finished and ready to go to work! This was such a fun, fast, satisfying project.  I finished it in a week.  The week included a couple of heavy knitting days, but also many days where I didn’t touch the needles at all.  The first part was mindless enough that I could have done it at work (though I started on a weekend, so that was the weekend part).  The leaf edging wasn’t really office knitting.The pattern very specifically said that blocking was needed to make the leaves behave properly.  I started to fret about this partway through, since I was knitting with a sock yarn containing nylon (this Crock O Dye is actually a superwash/nylon/silk blend).  Both the superwash treatment and the nylon fight against blocking.  You WANT these qualities in sock yarn so that the socks spring back into shape after wearing and washing.  You generally don’t want those qualities in lace.  Oops. However, I knit this sock yarn on a US 5 needle, and thanks to that – and the silk content, I think – the final product seems to drape just fine.  Note: the designer calls for a wool/silk blend in DK weight on size 7 needles.  I downsized a bit since I was working with fingering weight yarn.

I have received so many compliments already at the office today, and it’s only lunchtime.  I’m thrilled with how this came out. It is the perfect accessory for this time of year, when it’s chilly in the morning but wearing a jacket feels like a bit much.

My mom might need one of these for her birthday this year…