Rework of Estonian Garden Wrap and before/after photos

(To see "After", go to the end of this post.)

Before: Picture at about 170 rows before deciding I would run out of yarn. This is what it looked like about 1/2 way through the Little Flowers Pattern on the first side. Plus there are two more patterns to work on each side -- the Lilies of the Valley pattern and the Scalloped Trellis edging pattern.



Here's how much yarn was left on the ball. It was actually pretty empty, but hard to photograph it because it was falling in on itself. Since one whole side should only have taken 1 ball or maybe a little more, I could only use 1.5 balls for this side. There was no way 3 balls of yarn would be enough for this side plus a complete repeat of the other side.



After: Here's what the re-work looked like while I was lightly blocking it on Sunday. I'd frogged all but the two set-up rows and first 4 rows of the first 8-row repeat of Little Flowers pattern. I'd then knit about 90 rows, and found a problem halfway back and frogged back to about row 44 (46 if you count setup rows). At the point I took this picture, I had maybe 128 pattern rows. About 45 of them had been reworked three times, all but 6 of them reworked twice. I may let future mistakes just stand. (NOT! I just can't stand it!)



I really liked the way the colors got concentrated in sections at first on this rework, and don't know what I've done differently after that section, because now it's more or less striping again. The concentrated sections of color show the flowers better. The flowers show up pretty well on the yellow sections, too, but the contrast with the beige floor doesn't show it off.

Oh, well, it is what it is.

Since taking this photo, I've made a bit more progress. As of last night, I finished 19 pattern repeats (I think) which would be 152 rows - so the picture above must have been only 128 rows or so, maybe 16 pattern repeats.

Progress Notes - Estonian Garden Wrap

Last week, I had worked back up to Row 90 (not counting the two set-up non-pattern rows) when I realized that about halfway back, I had erroneously added two extra purl rows in addition to the one called for in the pattern. So the flowers there were all wrong. So last Wednesday, I frogged back to Row 44.

As of last night, I was at Row 96 of the pattern. So I'm back on track. I had decided I was using too much yarn at about Row 170 of the pattern, so I'm still not caught up to the point where I almost totally visited the Frog Pond.

I almost started over.

OK, so I went home on Wednesday 7/2 with the determination to start over, and didn't even think twice about it. I just had to. I almost completely frogged the progress on the Estonian Garden Wrap. I had put one lifeline right in the cast-on row, because I had trouble picking up the stitches the previous time I'd done a provisional cast-on. And I had left a lifeline that was just after Row 4 of the first Little Flowers pattern, just in case.

Since there were two set-up rows, and 8 rows for each repeat of Little Flowers, that means I left in 6 rows, half of a Little Flowers repeat. I removed about 20-21 repeats of Little Flowers, and didn't even think about it. That is, I removed about 160 or more rows.

So, I almost completely started over - I'm not going to worry about the few rows I left being too loose, they'll look fine when blocked, I'm sure.

As of last night, 7/6, I finished Row 60 of Little Flowers. So I've knit 54 rows since Wednesday, or almost 7 repeats of the pattern.

Estonian Garden Wrap

My sister Carol and I planned about last February to work on the same shawl pattern with essentially the same yarn, just in different colorways. We each bought the Knitpicks Shimmer yarn on clearance. I bought "Happy Dance", a variegated laceweight yarn (60% baby alpaca, 30% silk) with red-pink-yellow. Carol bought "Flower Garden", a darker colorway with pinks and purples, it looks like.

We weren't sure that a lace pattern would look wonderful in variegated yarn, but
1.) I had bought that yarn just for this project
2.) It feels wonderful
3.) It is laceweight, so I have to make something lacy from it
4.) The colors seem appropriate for a flower garden
So -- even if this pattern might turn out better in a solid color, I am just going to make this pattern with this yarn any way!

The yardage required about 2 skeins of Shimmer, so I bought 3 to be safe.


Here's me winding my first ball using the brand-new swift I bought on eBay - someone has a home craft he's using to make money, it seems. It was very reasonably priced, about $25 with shipping, as I recall.


Here is a finished ball on my winder.


Here are the finished balls with the swift folded up.


I couldn't let myself start this project until I finished the "utility shawl", the scarf for Mom, and the baby afghan. I finally finished the latter on 6/5/08, and the baby shower was on 6/6/08, so on the evening of Friday, 6/6, I started this project, using size 5 needles, and working loosely.

The pattern starts from the middle (on a provisional cast-on) and works out, and appears to be about 3 or 4 different patterns, with the vast majority being this main beginning pattern of little flowers, bordered with Lily of the Valley and edged in a scalloped trellis.

I've done a bit more knitting since this picture was taken on 6/20/08 -- but lace knitting really needs a bit of blocking before photography. So, here's the picture after lightly blocking overnight of my progress as of about a week and a half ago.




This Little Flowers pattern is very simple -- worked in eight rows pattern, with an 8-stitch repeat. I've had it memorized since about the 10th pattern repeat. The wrong-side rows are just purls with 3 stitches of knit for ribbing at the edges. I need to make almost 42 rows. The picture I'm not showing with current progress is almost 20 rows of the repeats of this stitch (for this side) done.

Unfortunately, Carol is taking computer classes in her free time, and hasn't started yet. I was thinking that I might put this down at some point soon, to resume when she's cast on and started.

But, further unfortunately -- as of 7/1 evening, I was only about halfway through the Little Flowers pattern for the first half of the wrap -- and I'm almost finished using up one ball. I really should only use a ball and a little extra for the entire first half. So there's no way I'm going to have enough yarn at this rate. So I decided that I have to frog the whole thing and start over on size 4 needles.

Missy's Baby's afghan
The next project that I finished in this blog-posting-hiatus was a crocheted baby afghan for my colleague, Missy. This was called the "Baby Waves" pattern, from a kit that included the pattern and the yarn. After I made a few of the motifs, and saw how they'd have to be joined, I wasn't looking forward to the joinings, not only because I prefer to not have to sew motifs together, but because the motifs didn't naturally fit together. But I pursued it to the end.


Unlike some crochet projects, this definately required washing (and fabric softener to try to make the yarn a bit softer), and then full-court blocking to shape, because it was very bunchy after sewing the motifs together.



I worked on this from late March to mid-June, just barely finishing in time for the baby shower we held for her. But Missy and Conrad seemed very happy with the finished product!

Catching up my not-so-active blog!

I have several projects I've completed since last posting, so here are the first two.

This one is what I call my "utility" scarf. I wanted something that I could leave on my computer chair, to wrap around myself when I get a chill while at the computer or in the kitchen. It's from yarn I bought on a whim from eBay, on a large cone. It's called "cotton flake" yarn, and the colorway is "Tropical Nights". I worked on this a lot when I was on jury duty in January. It is a thick-and-thin yarn, and the first couple of lacy patterns that I tried with it didn't work out, so I settled for a non-lacy pattern instead. I used sort of a basketweave stitch to keep it flat, without being something that required a lot of concentration. I think I finished this in March.











The second project I completed in April, just before leaving for Turkey. I had planned to give it to Mom for her birthday, but didn't finish it in time to block it and wrap and send it, so I'll give it to her for Christmas. It's made from Jaggerspun Zephyr laceweight yarn (50% silk, 50% merino wool) in Sage, which should help bring out the green in her eyes. I used the KnitPicks Candleflame pattern. Remember that you can click an image to see a larger version of the picture.

Baby Sarah Burns Gift Set

And, while I'm uploading pictures that have already been taken, we had a new grand-niece born in the fall, and I managed to complete a baby set for her in time. We knew it was going to be the second girl in that family, so this time I decided to do an all-pink set in Caron's Baby Simply Soft.

First, the baby set from a pattern in an old issue of Workbasket which I've made before (booties weren't included, so I used a pattern from Annie's Free Patterns of the Day for those).

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Remember that you can click a photo to see the enlarged version.

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Here's the whole set, including the coordinated baby afghan from the Workbasket pattern, uses a crocheted Shell Stitch, with a special Shell-with-picots edging. (I just smoothed it out rather than blocking it before the picture -- but it machine washes well, so I didn't think any slight irregularities would matter that much!):

Pictures of Mystery Stole 3 at last!

I may have to take another picture of the finished stole, after blocking -- but here at last are pictures of the stole while being blocked. (Click a picture to see larger version.)

First, the beginning part of the stole.











Next, the wing part of the stole.














Finally, two pictures of the entire stole as being blocked (I couldn't get quite high enough to get the far edges completely in the photos).

I know that I'm really, really far behind on this blog and pictures.

I finished a baby set for Fran & Steph's new daughter, as well as I finished blocking my Swan Lake (Mystery Stole #3). And we went to Greece -- where I took over 1,000 pictures. I need to pick just a few of those to post as well.

Mystery Stole keeps creeping along in Clue 6.

I only did 2 rows last night. I think I'm up to 170 active stitches, with about 12 unworked stitches left from Clue 4. I'm much slower per row that I'd have thought. I could do about 2 rows of 99 stitches in 15-20 minutes before. Now it seems to take me 1-2 hours (with distractions) to do 2-3 rows.

And it's been repetitious throughout all of Clues 5 and 6 -- so while it's looking nice, it's been pretty boring. It's hard to stay motivated.

But I only have something like 24 more rows to do. If I do 2 rows a night -- more ore less -- I'll be done in less than 2 weeks.

Starting last clue of Mystery Stole 3 - and Barbara has a job!

Last night I finished all but the last wrong-side row of Clue 6. I didn't work on it over the weekend because Steve and I took a long weekend up to Lake Tahoe, and I don't chance this project in the car nor in less than ideal lighting-and-setup conditions. I hope I'll post a few pictures later of the trip -- although I forgot my good digital camera. All we had was the cheapie emergency digital camera in Steve's car -- for example, to take a picture of a fender-bender if that were to happen.

My eyes felt sunburned all day, despite wearing sunglasses and a visor all weekend. So I didn't even feel like starting knitting until now. Maybe I'll get a few rows done before turning in to bed.

The best thing that happened yesterday, however, was that Barbara was offered a one-year contract to teach a first grade class in the Union school district in San Jose at Lietz School. Here's a map.

Whew! That was a close one. She rushed over after her part-time hotel job in Santa Cruz to sign the contract and pick up paperwork. The district had new-teacher orientation today and tomorrow, and starts with an in-service day on Thursday. Classes start next Tuesday. She's been assigned a room in a modular (lots of the schools have these, because school districts sold off property during a drop in enrollments in the 70s/80s, and had to expand on existing properties this way when enrollments zoomed again). The room has desks, chairs and textbooks. Barbara was stressing out today about what to do to get the room ready -- hopefully, some of the other teachers and staff will help her get set up!

She needs to give notice at the hotel, although she feels obligated to work for them on weekends through September, since she had told them that's what she would do when she got the job in June. But she's not teaching in Santa Cruz -- and as a first-time teacher, I think she's going to need her weekends. But since she lost out on some income earlier, and is motivated to pay off her student loan from grad school -- maybe she has an extra agenda she's not sharing. I just hope she'll handle the workload with grace. I hope they'll tell her she doesn't need to work every weekend through September when she gives notice.

Mystery Stole 3 - Clue 6 progress report

Each row gets slower and slower as stitches get added. I managed to get 18 rows done this weekend, meaning I have 118 rows of the "wing" done. The last row had 121 "active" stitches, and about 37 stitches left unworked from Clue 4.

I seem to be getting additionally slower on each row due to my row markers. I separate each 10 stitches to assist in counting and debugging problems, and move them on the purl row if needed, which is most rows. This and the previous clue use "repeat" blocks of 20 stitches to repeat 4 times rather than charting the whole row. There are actually two repeats of the pattern in each charted "repeat" -- so each row is very symmetrical as you work it, except for the ends.

And I seem to make one or two mistakes on every row, so as I'm doing the purl row, I'm able to detect the problems and correct them. It's usually a missed or dropped yarn-over, which is easy to fix -- I just have to be sure I'm counting out the pattern in reverse as I work. It's getting boring.

Mystery Stole 3 - Clue 5 done

Here's what the stole looks like in its entirety, just smoothed out, not blocked. The tails of where I added the second skein are still loose on the upper right, and I have 2 lifelines at the end of Clue 4 -- as well as a few lifelines in Clue 5, the wing. I've put a yardstick beside the stole on the left to give a sense of dimension.

It'll be bigger once I block it, but it's not going to reach the 6-ft-plus length of last year's stole, unless a future clue somehow makes it longer, which I doubt.

Here's a slightly more close-up picture of the end of Clue 4 and all of Clue 5. Remember that you can click a picture to see if in a larger size.

This is the wing as of Clue 5. It will be bigger and lacier once I block it. I finished it last night, and have marked up Clue 6 -- and am getting ready to start!

Mystery Stole 3 - Clue 6 came out today -- but I'm still piddling along on Clue 5. I did 10 more rows last night, so I've done 87 of the 100. Each row gets longer -- but maybe I'll have a better block of time tonight and actually get Clue 5 done tonight. If not, then tomorrow.

Some of the KAL (Knit-A-Long) folk must have the day off -- if you want to see what the "wing" looks like after Clue 6 -- here's someone else's picture:
http://upload2.postimage.org/209486/photo_hosting.html

Mystery Stole 3 -- Swan Lake -- in the "Wing"

Clue 5 also has two charts. The 50 rows of Chart G went pretty fast, since it starts by working just a few stitches of the left-hand part of Clue 4. You add two stitches every 2 Right-Side rows, and decrease one of the leftover-stitches from Clue 4 every Wrong-Side row.

Here's progress after three evenings, more or less pinned out to see the curving "wing" halfway into Chart H, with 77 rows completed after Clue 4. There are still 58 stitches fom Clue 4 unworked, and all bunched up on the needle -- and 80 stitches on the "working" part of the needle for Clue 5. Melanie has us doing a different combo stitch where three stitches become one that is supposed to produce a better "line" -- and is, I think, supposed to be the spines on the feathers of the wing.

I think it's a little funny how the "Wings of the Swan" lace pattern which was on the outside edges of Clues 1 through 4 just suddenly end, but maybe there will be something in Clue 6 or Clue 7 which makes it make sense. That lace pattern was supposedly also used in MS1 "Leda's Dream", which I haven't made yet.

The floral-looking design in the main body (which was easier to see in the previous posts' pictures) is the traditional Shetland lace design "Cat's Paw". Melanie explained that in Swan Lake, one of the dances done by 4 "swan maidens" is the "Pas de Chat" step, which means "step of the cat", so she thought it made sense to include that in this pattern.

Mystery Stole - Clue 4 (both charts E & F) done as of late Sunday night. 335 Rows completed as of that point!

I didn't block it, just smoothed it out on the floor. It was funny, right before the infamous Row 287, where we had to put the lifeline (which was for frogging back, if you didn't want an asymmetrical stole) -- that's where it was obvious that I finally needed to start the new skein of yarn. (It's better on lace knitting to have your yarn change at an edge).

I did start Clue 5 on Monday night. Row numbering started over -- it started with very short rows. The first Right-Side (RS) row worked over just a few of the leftmost stitches. You do extra yarn-overs, so you're always increasing a couple of stitches -- and on the Wrong-Side (WS) rows, you end by purling the last stitch with one of the hold-over stitches from Clue 4. Each RS row is 2 stitches wider than the previous RS row, if you don't count the hold-over stitches that aren't "active" for now.

I've done 59 rows of Clue 5 so far. I have "worked off" less than half of the 99 stitches that were on the stole before, and have well over 60 stitches in the currently-active row. The net effect is that the stole is poufing into an arc around where Clue 4 ended. I meant to take a picture -- maybe I'll get it when I finish tonight.

Mystery Stole 3 -- Clue 5 came out today, and the theme is "Swan Lake". Swan Lake on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Lake

If you made the stole white, it represents the "good" woman-parttime-swan-whos-under-evil-spell Odette. If you made the stole black, it represents the imposter-woman-who-prevents-the-prince-from-breaking-the-spell Odile. If you switch colors so it's both black and white -- you've got both Odette and Odile.

And the stole is asymmetrical -- here's a schematic of what it will look like when finished. Although the Designer says that if you're not willing to proceed, you can frog back to row 287 in Clue 4 -- then remake Clues 1 through row 287 of 4 a second time, and join them with the Kitchener Stitch to make yourself a symmetrical stole.

This isn't the first asymmetrical stole that Melanie's designed. See her Hanami Stole: http://pinklemontwist.blogspot.com/2007/02/hanami.html (You can click her picture to see a closeup.)

When I had previously seen that pattern, I thought it was pretty enough, but I didn't think I wanted to pay $6 for it. I'd have wanted a symmetrical pattern.

But since I'm already at Row 304 or Row 306 of Clue 4 (only 31/29 more rows in the clue), I don't think I want to frog back to Row 287, nor have to join two separate pieces together to make a symmetrical stole. I think I'm going to follow through and complete the stole as planned.

Mystery Stole 3 -- half of Clue 4 done.

Clue 1, which started with the point (2 stitches) had 2 charts (A & B) for a total of 100 rows.

Clue 2 (Chart C) had 50 rows. Clue 3 (Chart D) had 50 rows.

Clue 4 has two charts (E & F) -- the first is 70 rows (to row 270) the second is 65 rows (to row 335, an unusual odd-side end). I've now completed Chart E -- and only have 4 more nights to do Chart F if I don't want to be" behind", like I usually am. This is spread across two cushions of our sofa -- the dip between cushions creates the "line" that seems to be in the middle. (Remember, you can click the picture to get it full-sized.)

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I'm amazed that I'm still on the first skein. You can see what's left of the ball on the upper right. I have 3, and thought I'd use them all up on this stole -- but I think I'll have a lot left over.

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http://www.knitpicks.com/Alpaca+Cloud_YD5420108.html is my yarn -- at $4.29/50 gram hank = 440 yards -- you get a lot of knitting from a hank/ball!

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So -- I'll probably end up using $10-$12 worth of yarn. But the stole will still be priceless when completed. I figure that it takes on the average 15 minutes for me to do 2 rows. My time is worth a lot more than minimum wage. I probably have well over 34 hours in this section so far, since I frogged and started over. At even $10/hr, this much knitting would be worth $340 at cheapy rates!

Mystery Stole 3 -- through Clue 3

I've completed Clue 3 -- 200 rows. After blocking and measuring, it was about 26.5 inches long. Melanie's is 25" long at that point -- it's about 1/3 of the total length of the stole. So I'm glad, mine will be about the right length without having to change/repeat-in Clue 4 to add 11" or subtract 11".

The first picture is while the stole was being blocked. What looks like a big black splotch in the middle is the print on the blocking board showing through -- that helps you perceive how transparent the stole is.

(Do you know that you can click these pictures to see them in a bigger size?)

The second picture shows a close-up of the knitting that has some of the beads on it. I can tell that there's a glint on at least one of the beads -- but you might have trouble seeing it. (If you click the picture, though - you might be able to see a couple of the beads.) The way you add beads to the knitting is that, when you get to the stitch that needs a bead added, you use a size 13 (very very fine) steel crochet hook to slide a bead onto the stitch before knitting it. There's a tutorial here: http://fluffyknitterdeb.blogspot.com/2005/08/by-special-request-beading-made-easy.html

Then I unpinned it after blocking, and took a picture of the just-over-2-feet-long section (and almost 2-feet wide) on our off-white sofa, so that you can see the pattern without blocking-board-print interference.

Birthday Celebration with a Treat in the morning!

Steve treated us to a Segway (amazing personal transportation with gyroscopes) Tour of the San Francisco Waterfront as a birthday treat (Mark declined to come, Barbara enthusiastically joined). We took the 9am tour - and finished up about noon.

We started off with personal and group training, and a movie. We started up our Segways with a key that limits speed to 4.5 MPH.

Then we headed out in two groups of about 10 people each. We went up and down some hills in style. The tour guide talked to us over walkie-talkies that were strapped into the packs on the front of our units as we "rode", and stopped to talk to us in groups at certain stops.

When we got over the biggest hill, at Fort Mason, the guide let us zoom around the mostly empty parking lot. He usually gave such practice at a pier before the hill that leads to Fort Mason -- but it was closed. Then we shut down our Segways and restarted with a key that limits speed to 8 - 8.5 MPH. (There's third key that we didn't have -- that can let you start at the max of about 12 MPH.)

Before departing Fort Mason, we paused at an overlook to Alcatraz.
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We ended the first direction of our tour at the Marina Green. We then retraced our route, except that we went a little longer way back, going around Fisherman's Wharf. San Francisco doesn't allow Segways on sidewalks (we could use pedestrian/bike paths most of the way) -- so we were in the streets in the vicinity of Fisherman's Wharf. We made a cute little parade. We had a lovely day -- the fog was pretty much burned off except at the Golden Gate. We all had a great time.


We ended the day with dinner out at an Italian restaurant, and a raspberry-chocolate torte from Safeway.