I made a lavender/flax pillow for my tummy and a few eye pillows with the extra filling. I bought more flax and lavender to make another tummy pillow and a couple of smaller first aid ice+heat packs.
The blue ones were made with muslin with blue flannel pillowcases. The print one was made with silk charmeuse that I had in my stash.
Circular Baby Blanket
Yarn: Handspun Superwash Wool from Crown Mountain Farm’s Superwash Merino in “Say A Little Prayer” colorway. I spun 1.5 pounds. The blanket weighs 1 pound 3 ounces. It’s a 2-ply that is spun to DK/light worsted weight.
Needle: US #9
Gauge: 18 sts/4″ (10cm)
Pattern: Variation of the Pinwheel Baby Blanket with Godmother’s Edging from Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury.
Finished Size: 46.5″ diameter
This particular baby blanket was knit up to 50 sts per panel (500 sts around), before I started the edging. At this stage, the blanket was 34″ in diameter. The edging is 6.5″ wide. Believe me, it’s large enough as a nap blanket. As me how I know…
I am not blocking this blanket. I want this to be a drag everywhere blanket for the new mother. And I doubt that she will have much time for anything, except tossing this blanket into the washer/dryer and pulling it back out again.
The center worked up very quickly, but the edging took forever. I timed it to be approximately 2 Tivo hours per panel, or approximately 1.75 hours. Multiply that by 10. There was a lot of TV watching, P&P reading, and wine drinking/socializing during all of this.
The good news? This is a very easy pattern to memorize — both the center and the edging. The center only has 2 rows: increase row and knit around row. Every wrong side row on the edging is plain knit, except for one, so there is only 6 pattern rows to remember. It’s very geometric, so it’s easy to figure out where you are in the pattern.
While none of the components of this baby blanket is original. They are all published information. I thought the juxtaposition of the components are original. But, once I set the blanket on the table for the photo shoot, I realized that something about it looks familiar. I went back to Best of Knitter’s Shawls and Scarves. Yup. Joan Schrouder already came up with the same combination. The only consolation that I have is that Silk Swirl has 8 panels instead of the 10 in the Pinwheel Baby Blanket.
The reason that I think the 10 panel pinwheel and the Godmother’s Edging work so well together is that the edging is a 10 row repeat. So, it doesn’t really matter when you decide to stop; you will always be able to work the edging and be assured that the stitch count will come out right. That is, if you aren’t under the influence of vicodin and somehow messed up your increases. I still don’t understand how that happened.
In the past few weeks, I’ve been on a Jane Austen kick. I’ve re-read Pride and Prejudice, watched Becoming Jane and the BBC version of Emma. During Emma, I looked at the shoulder shawls that the ladies were wearing. Hmm. It’s a lot like the baby blanket folded in half and thrown over the shoulders.
Yup. It works beautifully as a shoulder shawl. Except that 90+F weather is not the best time to be trying it out. I am thinking that I want one of these for myself, except maybe in sport weight yarn.
After spending a couple of hours diagramming the lace shawl from my dreams, I have a much better appreciation for the genius of lace designers. I’m still working on the increase rates of the shawl versus the natural increases in the lace motifs that I want to use. After examining published lace patterns, I have some better ideas of how to proceed. However, I have put that aside for the time being.
Instead, I will present you some finished lacy objects.
A cat walked across my scarf…
This is the last of the auction scarves. This is for Carol, who lives on her boat with her cat named Scuppers. The scarf is to represent the cat pawprints on a white topside in the morning dew…like the dirty skid prints you might find on your car windshield or across your deck on a frosty morning.
I have not been happy with the cat’s paw lace patterns I found in my references. They are really more like a daisy with 6 lace circles. I designed this so that it is more representative of a paw print, and aligned them such that it looks like the actual path of a cat.
If anyone is interested in the pattern, let me know. I’ll put the pattern in my sidebar.
Specs:
Yarn: Handspun Chasing Rainbows Cashmere/Silk in Purple Haze colorway; lace weight
Pattern: my own
Needle: US #3
Swallowtail Shawl
Specs:
Fiber: Handpainted Alpaca/Silk, purchased at Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat. I don’t remember the vendor’s name and can’t find the tag right now.
Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark, from Interweave Knits Fall 2006 issue.
Needle: I don’t remember, but I followed the directions in the pattern exactly, so probably the recommended needle size.
Landscape Scarf
The shaping of this is ingenious. I love the long curved edges. Perfect for ties without pulling the scarf out of shape. I can imagine several scarves like this, but with different lace designs. (Yeah, right. See the 1st paragraph of this post.) All I can say is, Evelyn Clark is a genius.
Specs:
Fiber: Handspun Merino/Silk from Lisa Souza, colorway Shaved Ice; fingering weight
Pattern: Landscape Scarf by Evelyn Clark
Needle: Again, I followed the instructions blindly, using the recommended needle size for fingering weight yarn.
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