Fluffbuff

All in one small project.

You may remember the swatch I made a few weeks back. I fell in love with a pattern by Norah Gaughan in the book A Gathering of Lace, but didn't quite feel up to knitting a whole sweater with it. Instead, I decided to use the motif for a scarf. Getting older and wiser by the minute… I like having FOs.

• Yarn: Cashmerino by Ornaghi Filati
• Yardage: 492 yards (4 balls of 25gr each)
• Needles: size 3.5mm (US 4)
• Pattern: stitch pattern by Norah Gaughan for Ribbed Lace Pullover
• Source: A Gathering of Lace

Posted by Francesca at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (21)

For the past few months I have found all possible excuses to miss my various guild meetings and now it's been ages since I've seen any of my friends. Why? I really don't know. There isn't a real reason, certainly not a good one. I've been a little blue without knowing why and lazy about doing anything remotely social. No gatherings at my house, no regular guild events, no nothing.

I am starting to wonder if having a rich online life has something to do with my real life laziness. I hope that's not it; that would be BAD^TM. Whatever the reason, all I want to do is curl up on the sofa and knit.

Posted by Francesca at 3:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Grazie! Thank you everybody for all the lovely comments; I am overwhelmed.

Since I received a bunch of questions about Ene's scarf (and more), I'll answer them here.

The yarn: Indie cashmere by Little Knits. Lovely, soft, light, wonderful to knit, well priced. What more can I say? Go get yourself some.

The size: finished size after blocking is 59" for the wingspan and 30" from top to point.

The pattern: "Ene's scarf" by Nancy Bush in the book Scarf Style.

The needles: I used 3.5mm but if I were to do it again with the same yarn, I would probably go down to 3.25mm. It's an almost imperceptible size change, but I think it might improve the stockinette stitch part of the border.

The blocking board: it's actually a cutting board I bought at JoAnn's. It's not meant to be pricked with pins over and over, but I haven't been sewing and it seemed like a good idea. It may not last long as a blocking board, but it's helping for now. I find the measurements and lines printed on it especially useful. Size: 68" x 36" (approx. 172x91cm).

My speed: Ha! Let's dispel that myth, shall we? I am not a fast knitter; quite the contrary, in fact. It's just that I've been putting in long hours of uninterrupted knitting over the past few weeks. This has been the summer of injuries and as a result I've been forced to rest, so all the time I would have spent working out and doing other stuff went into knitting. At least I got something to show for all the stupid injuries. Keeping my fingers crossed here, I haven't hurt myself in ten days. Weeee!!!

And about the weight loss… no, I haven't lost any more weight. After I reached my goal in late February, I've been more or less stable. Because of the forced inactivity over the summer, I actually put back a few pounds and I am now working on shedding the last 2-3 stubborn ones. As my trainer is fond of saying (Hi Jennifer!), maintaining the weight is like keeping a beach ball under water. Sheesh.

And since we are off the subject of knitting anyway, how about a greatuitous kitty picture? Isn't Pipie looking innocent here? "Looking" being the operative word… he has been tormenting Kelvin lately and yesterday outdid himself by barfing on the sofa (insert colorful Italian expression here). Still haven't been able to clean the microfiber seat properly.

Posted by Francesca at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

It was hot, but I really wanted some pictures outside. I am so ready for fall or even winter. A wool fan like me shoulndn't be living in Southern California; no way. I need to move to a colder climate.

I loved knitting Ene's scarf. Not that I didn't run into a few problems. In fact, I spent the best part of the weekend frogging and reknitting.

At one point I noticed a mistake several rows down and I had just finished a frogging session, so I kept knitting and told myself that I could live with the mistake.

The following morning, after sleeping on it, I realized that I could not live with it and frogged 24 rows. It's easier to be brave early in the morning.

Last night I finished knitting and started thinking about how to use the left over yarn.

One of my boys (I'm not sure which one, but I have an inkling that it was Kelvin) decided to spare me the burden of decision and proceeded to destroy my lovely leftover cashmere.

Now that the shawl is washed and blocked, I like the yarn even more, if that's at all possible.

The next few days will probably be spent swatching and thinking about the next project.

What kind of project? Why, lace of course!

Posted by Francesca at 6:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (30)

Guess who's on the blocking board?

Yes

Ene

is finished.

In an hour or so I'll be darning in the ends and then I'll recruit Ben to take a picture of me and my new shawl.

Posted by Francesca at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

  Can you tell I am being consumed by everything lace? Somehow I don't seem able to knit or think about anything else lately.

The book on Estonian lace I ordered from Martinas Bastel & Hobbykiste arrived yesterday. I was immediately worried by the lack of even the most basic English translation; I had expected that there would be a leaflet with at least a translation of the symbols, but no such luck. At 11:30 pm I posted a request for help on two Ravelry boards and this morning voilà, automagically a link was waiting for me with exactly what I needed: the English translation of the three symbol legend pages. It took less than two hours for a good soul to find my cry for help and help me. Thanks, Kate! Of course, I could have run a search on Google, but late at night I'm not always that alert.

Pitsilised Koekirjad
by Leili Raimann
ISBN 9985-54-016-6

These spreads show what most of the book looks like. In total, there are more than 300 patterns, many of which I haven't seen anywhere else. Be prepared for lots of nupps in the more interesting ones.

The print quality is not the best (these seem very old photos), but you get a good idea of the various patterns. A feature I particularly like is that for border patterns, the charts include a corner.

Two minor issues with the book. Everything is charted, but the more complex charts are printed at such a small scale, that anybody over 40 (or less) will need to photocopy and enlarge the charts significantly. Also, the pages are glued to the spine, not bound, and they'll start detaching from it quickly. Two pages are already half detached from my book.

I am so glad someone took the time to translate the symbols because some are definitely confusing for those of us used to the symbols commonly seen in US books and magazines.
As an example, the symbol typically used in the US for a right-slanting decrease, in this book means "slip the stitch without working it". I am sure it would have taken me a while to figure that one out. A big thank you to Shelda Eggers and Merike Saarniit of Liisu Yarns for figuring it all out and making it available to the rest of us.

If these images have wetted your appetite for Estonian lace, take a look at Knitting Beyond the Hebrides for an article on the subject, illustrated with several swatches of patterns from Pitsilised Koekirjad.

And for an excellent blog entry on how to reverse-engineer a lace pattern, check out Twosheep. The blog author went to great length to figure out one of the patterns in Pitsilised Koekirjad and explain how she did it. Ironically, she did that while waiting for the book to arrive in the mail. :)

More swatches of Estonian lace patterns at another blog, entirely dedicated to Estonian Lace: Estonian Lace Study.

Happy lace knitting!

Posted by Francesca at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

We got off to a rocky start. I cast on twice, frogged three very long rows and then tinked two more. At the end of the weekend, I only had three rows finished, but it's all forgotten now and we are getting along very well. In fact, I am enjoying knitting Ene a lot more than I enjoyed working on Swallowtail. A big reason is probably that I happened to pick just the perfect yarn for it: Little Knits' Indie cashmere. It's pure butter that gives me the greatest pleasure as I knit along those neverending rows.

Fortunately, last night I got to the main pattern (chart 3) and things are easier already. In another couple of evenings I should be halfway through the shawl. Given the math of triangular shawls and that this one starts off from the sides, I'll be halfway done before I reach row 60 (out of 179).

I didn't swatch this time (hear hear), so I don't know how the yarn will behave after washing, but it sure is gorgeous now and I have a feeling that this shawl (why do they call it scarf?) will become an all-time favorite.

Posted by Francesca at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

  More, more, I want more of these gorgeous yarns hand-dyed with vegetal colors! Or I should say "colours", since these beautiful yarns are the work of a British dyer now relocated in the French Pyrénées: Renaissance Dyeing.

I was immediately in love with every single little skein and with the bigger hanks (isn't that a fantastic madder red?), but Pipie had different ideas about the QA process and subjected the goods to a rigorous inspection that involved sniffing the yarn and sitting on it.

I am happy to report that they all passed the test…

…and are now officially approved for use in the next lace project, whatever that is. Now I think I should have ordered three hanks instead of two and I am thinking of fixing that by ordering another one or two just to be on the safe side. I didn't have a project in mind when I placed my order and I was knitting Swallowtail at the time, which I think influenced my judgement, but I'd rather knit a larger shawl next.

For the little skeins I have something else in mind, perhaps a little crazy given the yarn's weight: I want to knit some Bohus-like swatches and see how that works out.

Did I confuse you with this entry's title? No, I haven't lost all my grammar and I'm not into video games, but I live with someone who is and we were just joking about "all your base are belong to us" last night, looking at You Tube videos that merge that old video game sequence with the more recent "dramatic chipmunk". We are easily amused.

Posted by Francesca at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Thank you everybody for your suggestions about using a crochet hook for the nupps. I will definitely try that next time. And I will also look into alternative ways of knitting nupps, as Allison suggested.

With everything that knitting those nupps was a royal pain in the butt, I love the look of them and I am pretty sure there will be more nupps in my future. For one thing, I am enamored with an Estonian lace pattern and and just added "Pitsilised Koekirjad" to my wish list.

In spite of a couple of minor issues – both to do with mangled nupps – I am happy with the way my Swallowtail shawl turned out. Not so crazy about Misty Alpaca, I have to admit. Too slippery to knit with and a slightly different texture in the finished item than I have come to expect from merino, merino/silk, and cashmere blends. Or maybe it's a bit too thin, I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think I'm going to use the other two balls of Misty Alpaca in my stash.

So here is Swallowtail, which surprisingly took me only one week to finish. Okay, I did knit compulsively.

It's a very small shawl, and I knew that before I started. Still, I'm not quite sure how I'll use it. Interestingly, there is a discussion going on in the Ravelry forums right now about lace knitters knitting lots of shawls they'll never wear. It seems that lace is addictive, regardless of the end result. Me, I want to use my shawls. The first one turned out too small for a shawl and the wrong proportions for a scarf, but I do like it and will probably use it as a scarf.

Lace has really grabbed me and I've already cast on for a new shawl: Ene's scarf. I hesitated to start it because of the brutal cast-on: 375 stitches. Since I'm becoming interested (obsessed?) with lace shawls, I want to learn different construction methods, and that's one of the reasons I chose Ene's scarf. It's another triangular shawl but knit from the sides towards the center, as opposed to the top down construction of Swallowtail.

Happy Sunday, everybody.

Posted by Francesca at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (20)

*#@!~^!!

And that's all I have to say about that…

…before I go make myself a hot chocolate. Yes, it's 33ºC and I'm making myself hot chocolate. If you've ever done nupps, you understand.

Sgrumpf.

Posted by Francesca at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)