Mayan Garden Lace Shawl

 Mayan Garden  Lace knit shawl is one of the many incredible patterns designed by Kitman Figueroa.  I bought this yarn and pattern at last years fiber fest when I saw this knit up.  It was immediate "I have to knit this!"  

The pattern says intermediate...hum, I consider myself at least intermediate in knitting skills, but this pattern took me to places where my needles have never gone before. 

Pattern on both sides, no resting row, the stitches grew and grew till I could only go up one side and back in a full night of TV!  I might have gotten a bit further but with Yorkie love hopping all over there were big pauses or paw's for hugs and kisses.

 I was running out of yarn!   I had two skeins so almost 800 yards and was pretty sure there might not be enough to finish and bind off.   With a bit of planning I left out 4 rows, 4 rows before the end of the pattern and made it work. 

This is to date the largest shawl I have ever committed to.  Its not even my colors, but I love this mossy gree and Mayan Garden is the perfect name for this color.

I hope when you see something you fall in love with you take the personal challenge to give the pattern a try, you might be thrilled to find out you can do it!

There and Back Again Socks

 I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan.  I had no idea there were sock patterns created around the Hobbit and LOTR!  I believe there are at least 30!  Patterns revolve around characters and places...Oh my gosh, talk about excited and when you think of LOTR and the "journey" and the time and work getting from one place to another, its just the same for these sock patterns.  Talk about challenging!   These socks are Gollum by Claire Ellen  gollum-socks  The little cables on the back are holes!  At the heel is a circle or ring, the one ring to rule them all!  

 My friend and I took the challenge to knit them at the same time.  Here we share footsies as the big sigh of relief escapes us...FINALLY finished.

 Clair Ellen designed this pattern called Smaug!  I had purchased some amazing yarn with a bit of sparkle to in last fall at a fiber fair.  I used it for these Smaug socks because I wanted the scales to have a bit of cool dragonish fun.  Again this was really a tough knit for me.  Not only did I have to rip out when I discovered I skipped the page to mirror image my pattern, but the pattern changes every row as the angles that make it so interesting make it all so hard. 

Well, I may never wear these they are so cool, I might just put them into a collection of I cant believe I made these! 

Man, So many I want to knit, and all are so different and I Wants thems all, my precioussss.

 Well, finally an easier sock from the LOTR's  The Road Goes Ever On.called TreeBeard.

As I knit these I remembered the Ent's and their role in the trilogy.  Its fun to knit along and have such cool memories.

This was a much more easy pattern.

 My yarn was Malibrigo sock yarn in color Lettuce!  I think its perfect for an Ent, don't you!

Ahh, back at the knitting table, other socks in progress, having so much fun taking footsie selfies.  Out of all of us who come to the knitting table, only two of us are sock obsessed...  Our road goes ever on.

Looking Back at 2014 Handspun FO's!

 I just realized that my knitting needles probably had put on several miles of knitting and might be worn out!   I always find an excuse to get new needles.  I love the square wood ones!
This shawl is called Age of Brass and steam, its over on Ravelry.com.
Fiber is BFL which came dyed from Three Waters Farm, and it spun up like a champ, the colors are amazing. Super soft, I love it.

 I love HeartBeat colorway! Its so vintage and this Rouched scarf kit up so cute in it.  This is so light weight and delicate even with all the squished edges.  I think this was also dyed by Three Waters Farm.
I spin pretty fine and like a fingering weight type feel.  Some fibers are more KD, some are more lace.   I often don't use a gauge for my pattern unless I get really picky.  Sometimes it doesn't work, so for 2015 I will do a swatch!

 I LOVE this shawl.  Its called Nirmulintu and knits on the diagonal.  This is a polwarth and tussah silk blend which was dyed by Corgi Hill Farms in a color way called Mango Martini.  I love graduated hand spun yarns.  You can't find that in a store!

 This is probably one of my most used scarves.  Its called an infinity scarf only I didn't want to make it connect, but be long and draping.  LOVE.    Its another polwarth tussah silk blend fiber dyed by CorgiHillFarms and the colorway is called Manits Shrimp.  Their names are so fun, and I wear my shrimp well.

 Opportunity Rocks is a BFL wool, and I spun it as it came off the braid and it did this color changing between sections on its very own, nothing planned out.  This is Age of Brass and Steam again, and it was gifted to a friend.  Again this is a CorgiHillFarm dyed fiber. 

Tuscan Sunset roving also another CorgiHillFarm delight in a interesting merino and black dyed tussah silk.    The black tussah silk gave the yarn such an antique feel, the golds became so rich and these images just don't do justice to the knitted items.   The edging I used on this was part of another pattern which worked nice for this.





As 2014 comes to a close this blog will change over to spinning and knitting for 2015.  Many of my handspuns will be offered on Etsy, it won't be a huge amount as spinning is not a race to the finish, but slow and methodical, a work in progress from start to finish.  A zen experience.   I will still be working on a limited amount of quilted wall art and personal pieces.  See ya all next year.