project notes

Friendship shawl

/ Christine Pennylegion

Today I had the immense pleasure of a day-long visit with a dear friend I hadn’t seen in three years, and to celebrate I made her this shawl! I only picked up the yarn on Thursday, so it was a real race to the finish — I worked on it for 1-3 hours every night, and ended up doing the last three rows in front of her while we chatted. It got done just in the nick of time. My right thumb is feeling cranky and will definitely need a rest, but that’s ok. I’m just glad I managed to pull it off.

The yarn is Lion Brand Shawl in a Ball Metallic, in the colourway “Prism”. It’s got beautiful long transitions between sort of peacock-y colours, and a strand of blue metallic thread carried through the whole thing. Pictures don’t show how nicely it sparkles! The yarn is pretty soft to work with despite the metallic element, and it doesn’t fuzz and fray as much as regular SiaB; I had some of the non-metallic version a few years back and it was a nightmare to work with and impossible to frog. Whether this is a difference between the two related product lines or just a general improvement, I’m not sure.

This is a “virus” pattern — so-called because it expands in every row, and you just let it grow until it’s the right size. This particular one is often just called virus, although technically I think it’s German shells. It’s a simple four-row repeating pattern, and once I reminded myself how to get started it was pleasantly mindless. (I’ve done the same pattern before for another shawl and a baby blanket.) For this I used a size H hook, which gave me a lot of drape.

Fun fact: someone once pointed out to me that the centre line of the pattern looks like angry owls. I can’t unsee it and now neither will you.

Simple knit scarf

/ Christine Pennylegion / 3 Comments

I’m done knitting my second-ever project, and my first scarf! Incidentally, I figure I’m also done… knitting.

This is just a shortie. It started out as a generic scarf mostly for the purpose of building my knit-and-purl muscle memory (which, I have to say, it did). But Perpetua took a shine to it, so I stopped when it reached a good size for her.

The pattern is very simple. I cast on 30 stitches, and started with three rows of garter stitch. Then I moved to stockinette with a three-stitch garter border on each side. This meant that on odd rows I would just knit straight across, and on even rows I would knit 3, purl 24, and knit 3. Finally I did another three rows of garter stitch so the ends would match, and cast off. A quick wet and some improvised clothesline blocking, ends sewn in, and there you have it. It is a scarf.

Above: something going wrong near the end. It turns out I didn’t care enough to fix it. I fixed other mistakes, earlier — and got through large chunks without any mistakes at all, which was gratifying. But around the halfway point it became clear that while I had acquired a basic knitting competency, I was also having zero fun. It was stressful when it wasn’t incredibly boring. If it hadn’t been for Perpetua asking to have the scarf, I doubt I would have finished it at all.

Learning to knit was one of my goals for 2022. I did it, and now I’m going to put my needles away. It’s always nice to add another skill to your repertoire, and if there is ever some sort of… global… knitting… emergency… ? … I’ll be able to step up to the plate. Until then, though, this craft is just not for me.

All that being said, I’m still pretty satisfied with the finished product — though I may crochet a little flower or other embellishment to cover that hole.

The yarn is from the Ella Rae “Seasons” line in the colourway “carrot cake”. It was leftovers from my stash; I used it several years ago for a lap blanket and you can see how different it looks when worked up in crochet! As before the yarn was a pleasure to work with. I knit this piece on size 7 needles and it is safely tucked away until called for this winter.

Process vs. Product

/ Christine Pennylegion / 4 Comments

Sometimes you make something and it just isn’t what you envisioned. It’s hard to know what to write about it in this case: “here is a thing, and it disappointed me” is not the tone I usually strive for. But here we are! I made a thing! It wasn’t fun to make and I don’t like the outcome. TA-DAA.

I mean, it’s not objectively hideous. But I am very conscious of the following things:

  • I had forgotten how much I dislike making amigurumi. It’s all small hooks and super-tight hand-hurting tension and counting, counting, counting all day. Forget it!
  • Because I don’t like crocheting ami, I shortened the ears by a good ten rows and completely omitted the arms. The pattern was for a sleepy bunny, rather than the… generic animal head? that I ended up with.
  • I didn’t have any polyfill and didn’t feel like driving across town to get some, so I stuffed the head with scrap cloth. In many ways that’s fine, but it kind of throws off the balance (though with a heavier head and the blanket trailing behind this would probably be great for throwing).
  • The ears appear to be different lengths. An optical illusion? Did I add or omit an extra row? I don’t know, man, counting stitches is annoying.
  • Also I’m not crazy about spirals. Working in the round is fine, but I’d much rather join at the end of each row than work continuously.
  • I used some of the crappier acrylic from my stash and it’s just not that nice to work with.

What this all boils down to, I guess, is that I am even more of a “process” crafter than I realized. It was already obvious to me that I’m not attached to my finished products — I have no qualms about giving things away or chucking them into the back of a closet no matter how much work I put into them. Out of sight (or perhaps, off of hook), out of mind. But what’s clear now is that whether a project is a success or a failure in my eyes has almost everything to do with how much I enjoyed the creative process and almost nothing to do with the actual result.

For my own records; I used Bernat Super Value yarn in white, Red Heart Super Saver in “Monet” (leftovers from Perpetua’s blankie), and the eyes and nose were done with Stylecraft Special DK leftovers from my Eastern Jewels blanket. I used a 3.75mm hook for the animal parts and a 6mm hook for the lovey portion.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a gift for someone’s baby… but I feel weird enough about it that I’ll just make something else. This can go into the toy bin for my daughters to fight over and I’ll pretend it never happened.

Oh well. At least someone likes it.

It’s finally finished!

/ Christine Pennylegion / 9 Comments

Way back in 2019, I decided to buy myself a birthday present, and ordered a crochet blanket kit: Janie Crow’s beautiful “Persian Tiles” pattern, in the “Eastern Jewels” colourway. After 2.5 years of on-and-off work (mostly off), I finally finished a night or two ago. Here it is:

I’ve made some variations on the pattern. If you look up other Eastern Jewels blankets, you’ll see that there is no black in the original. I wanted to really separate the tiles in a way that highlighted their colours, going for a stained glass effect — which I think I’ve achieved! To do this I made all of the square and octagonal motifs as written, and then added a row of single crochet in black around all of their edges. This also made it very easy to do a no-show join, as I simply whip-stitched the pieces together with the same black yarn.

The other variation had to do with the triangles. The pattern calls for sixteen of them: twelve between the octagons on the outer edges, and four on each corner. I decided to omit the corner triangles entirely. For the inner group, instead of following the pattern and making coloured ones (to look like the square tiles, halved) I just made granny triangles, again in black. Because of my chosen stained glass aesthetic, I didn’t want it to look like any “panes” were incomplete.

The border is a simple one. Once the blanket was all sewn together, I did a row of single crochet all the way around, followed by two rows of moss stitch. After that, I did two rows of loops (chain five, skip a stitch, anchor with a single crochet stitch, repeat) and… that was that! I toyed with the idea of adding a third row of loops, but decided I’d rather be done. It will be very easy to add on later if I decide I really want it.

The blanket was made with Stylecraft Special DK yarn in twelve colours (storm blue, pistachio, tomato, spice, violet, duck egg, mustard, sage, fondant, vintage peach, buttermilk, black) and one ball of Stylecraft Life DK in fuschia. This made for a lot of ends to weave in. Like… a lot lot. Over 500 if I’ve totted it up correctly! Weaving all the ends may have taken more time than crocheting the squares; it definitely took more time than the assembly and border. Good thing I don’t mind doing the ends (and that the results were worth it).

All in all, this was an enjoyable project. I’m glad to have done it, and I’m really, really glad it’s done.

Car blanket for Perpetua

/ Christine Pennylegion / 2 Comments

With impeccable timing, I’ve finished this woolen car blanket for Perpetua just as the weather here is finally getting consistently warm. Ah, well, that’s the way it goes sometimes…

About a year ago, a neighbour of my mother’s gave her a box of yarn to pass on to me. Inside were about a dozen skeins of “Lamb’s Pride” yarn from Brown Sheep Yarn in Nebraska. It’s an 85% wool 15% mohair blend, so very warm and very heavy (Lamb’s Pride comes in multiple weights but my skeins are Bulky). I wasn’t sure what to do with it for a long time; it’s a lot heavier than I would personally use for a garment and I only had about 500 yards of each colour. According to what I could find on ravelry, a lot of people use this yarn for felting.

But as we moved into fall and winter it struck me that it would be perfect for small lap-robe blankets that the kids could use in the van in the winter. Our old girl can take some time to really warm up and since you’re not supposed to use winter coats in cat seats things can get pretty chilly! (We do lay their winter coats on top of the buckles, don’t worry.) Perpetua is the one who is most bothered by the cold, so I decided to start with hers. And then I put it away halfway through because I was bored. I recently pulled it out and finished it in like two evenings, but least it will be ready for this winter. I’ve got some nice green and dark blue to make blankets for Tertia and Anselm as well.

This blanket was done in moss stitch with a K (6.5mm) hook.

I guess I knit things now

/ Christine Pennylegion / 2 Comments

I made a thing. After twenty years of crocheting, my first knitting project is complete. I honestly don’t know how I feel about it… but I learned some things (including how to fix at least some of my mistakes) and ended up with an actual finished project, so that’s something.

Anyway, this is a pair of fingerless gloves, made with some leftover Mary Maxim Starlette Sparkle yarn from when I made our tree skirt. It was a pretty good yarn for a first project: not too splitty, not fuzzy, and a cheap acrylic to keep the stakes nice and low. The gold tinsel-y strands did give me occasional trouble when they didn’t want to stay with the rest of the yarn, but on the whole it was manageable.

The gloves were each knit as a panel, and then folded and seamed together. In the photo above, the first one I made is on the left and the second is on the right; I can definitely see some improvement between them even though I accidentally added a row or two to the second one. Counting is hard, guys. (It still ended up slightly smaller as my tension evened out a bit.)

This project taught me the long-tail cast-on, knitting and purling, garter stitch, stockinette stitch, ribbing, binding off, and three different techniques for seaming. Binding off, by the way, makes me feel like a wizard. It also taught me that 36 live stitches is a whole other thing compared to crochet’s one and it’s frustratingly easy to lose stitches off your needles. Errors on my part meant I also learned how to decrease after accidentally increasing, tink (knit backwards to go back in a row), pick up a dropped stitch from a few rows up, and get all of the stitches back on my needles after having to rip out several rows (nightmare). Phew.

Did I enjoy it? Yes and no. I hit a lot of the frustrating phases of learning a new skill, when you can follow instructions but don’t yet understand the “why” behind them, or when you know you’re making mistakes but don’t necessarily know how to fix or avoid them. Crochet is very relaxing to me; knitting definitely is not. I can see that it likely will be some day, if I’m willing to put in the work now. To be honest, I’m still deciding whether I want to do that, at least at this particular phase of my life. (But also to be honest, I daydreamed up an easy scarf pattern and got out some yarn to try it with, so clearly my brain is engaged with knitting even if my feelings aren’t.) I need to keep reminding myself that I’ve been crocheting for two decades and knitting for, like, six hours, so of course it’s going to be a very different experience. And that’s ok.

And if knitting doesn’t work out, well, I guess there’s always hand modeling.