Brambles in Knitty!

It's a free pattern, so I'd say you should Check It Out!

-Manda

P.S. I'll try to be a better blogger from now on!

My First Hand Dyed Yarn!!! Plus another new design!!!

It's a blend of purple and green, but mostly brown. I think next time I'm between designs, I'll look up a pattern and make it into mixey colored winter gloves. The class was awesome and I had loads of fun. I will probably never again grab a skein of pretty multicolored yarn without appreciating the work that goes into it.

I brought my yarn home Saturday. While waiting for it to dry, I remembered my last purchase at Wild Purls.

It's Cascade 220 Heathers in Iris. I started swatching ideas for something scarfy, because that's what I could use right now. Winter's on its way and since I'm pretty much a lizard, I need to fill in the gaps in my wardrobe before the constant cold hits.

So I got out larger-than-recommended needles and charted up an expanding feather and fan pattern. I was really scared that I'd end up frogging it, because it looked so weird and lumpy on the needles.

But I was wrong...check it out drying! The ripples are nice, and the CO edge even makes a little collar. It's a one skein project too so that's even more awesome.

I think I'll swing by WP, Michaels or Hobby Lobby today and get enough to make a second version that's a near complete circle. Maybe grey or a nice normal color.

The purple's gonna look so nice under my leather jacket this fall.

-Manda

Gloves, Maybe?

Right now...the day before I go back to school...I'm playing with twisted stitches. You can see at the bottom that I tried a regular traveling vine pattern, but when I got up to the tulip pattern I just went right and left twists. I've decided that I wanna make the tulip a bit taller...I think the middle petal needs more height. I also wanna go back and make the bottom outer edges of the tulip more prominent. I'm also gonna go back do a twisted stitches version of the traveling vines leading up to the flower.

Oh, and I've realized that dark blue is entirely the wrong color for this. The next swatch and final product will be green!

I'm Still Here!

I promise! It's just been a weird couple of weeks trying to design. I was working on the lotus shawl before I got bored and decided maybe it wanted to be a hat. Then I wrote up a pattern for double-thickness gloves, but then I had trouble getting gauge and got bored with that. And now I'm back to working on the supposed 'evil hat' pattern.

It's still blue...still cables and lace, but this time in worsted yarn with less repeats. My goal is to have it test knit so it can be out sometime in September or Early October.

I also really wanna do some kind of hoodie in the future so I can learn pattern grading. It's covered in 'The Advanced Knitting' architect, which I've read...but I still need some real practice.

(I'm secretly hoping Knitty comes out on Oct. 4th...it'd be a GREAT 22nd birthday present!)

Stuck in the apartment for now, waiting for maintenance to come change our doorknob sometime this week.

Meanwhile I'm going to try to get my hair dyed and get to the yarn store this weekend. I'm thinking about using up my design money on fun classes so I can knit better. Maybe I'll actually stop by WP for happy hour this friday...if of course I'm not working on something insanely fiddly.

-Manda

Impulse Shawl Pattern

All knitters do it. We see a gorgeous ball of pricey yarn and say to ourselves, “Just one skein!” Sometimes it can be hard to decide how to use these amazing yarns that we buy in small quantities.

This gauge-less pattern will produce at least a small neck shawl with 100 yards of most yarns. Three examples (all using less than 250 yards!) are provided to help you visualize and choose the materials for your own project.

**Sizing**

*Worsted Weight Version*
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden
Amount: 110 yards
Needles: US Size 8 (5.00 mm)
Finished Size: 34 in wide x 15 in long
86.4 cm wide x 38.1 cm long

*Sock Weight Version*
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock
Amount: 215 yards
Needles: US Size 6 (4.00 mm)
Finished Size: 40 in wide x 18 in
101.6 cm wide x 45.7 cm long

*Lace Weight Version*
Yarn: Jagerspun Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18
Amount: 230 yards
Needles: US Size 3 (3.25 mm)
Finished Size: 46 in wide x 20 in long
116.8 cm wide x 50.8 cm long

**Techniques Used**
Make One Left, Make One Right, Left Twist, Right Twist

Like all of my patterns, this one is $2.50 USD.

buy now from Ravelry

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Lotus Shawl Sneaky Peek!

I've had this pattern written up for several weeks, but just last night decided to put it on the needles. And yes, I wet it down and pinned it out so I could accurately plan out the rest of the thing. Right now it has three tiers of flower petals with 8 petals in each tier. (It's 12 inches in diameter.) I have the pattern written out to 7 tiers, which would give me about a 52 inch diameter. I think that's a little small but I think it'd be HUGE if I added an 8th tier given the way the petals increase. (Yet there is something poetic about 8 petals over a constant multiple of 8 stitches in 8 tiers spanning a multiple of 8 rows...)

We'll see! If I think I can keep it under 70 inches with 8 tiers, that's so what I'm doing!

I'm also going to include instructions for doing 5/8 rather than a full circle.

The Impulse Shawl

It was nice here today so I reshot pictures of my two samples.



The teal one is going to my mom, and the multicolored blue/black/green one is for me. I wanted to make sure to get the pictures done because I'm seeing Mom this weekend.

I'm knitting a mid-size sample in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, so that'll probably be my next blog post.

-Manda