firebrunetteknitting.com

Edit: It’s been washed & is now pinned to the blocking board drying. The puckering around the yoke decrease rounds has disappeared and is now nice & flat! The yarn softened up a lot after washing. I knit this with Knitpicks Merino Style in a pretty tight gauge, 6.5sts/ inch, on size 5 needles. It is fan-frickin-tastic!!!

I finished the brown cherry last night. I am so happy with it! I just have to give the yoke a good blocking & wash it before it makes it’s first real debut in public. But for now, here it is!

By using the k1tbl, p1 rib it gets a tiny bit of a twist on the sleeves & bottom but I think I like that added surprise. I love how the shaping hits all my curves perfectly! It’s a very happy day when you design something and the finished product is better than you expected!

I am considering putting the pattern up for free but I just can’t decide. I do love it so much! I suppose it’s worth something, not just free. Let me know what you think, wouldja?

The Vogue mag preview for the next issue is up. Go take a peek!

My faves:

I am flitting from project to project the last 2 days & rather enjoying myself. I found a sweater & yarn for the project runway knitalong.

I also am loving that I got the yarn for the manresa legwarmers in the newest issue of knitty to make for a friend of mine! She requested them especially from me, fantastic!

I also am closing in on the finish line with the brown cherry sweater. Whew! Body & one sleeve are finished, I just have 16 more rows of rib on the other sleeve. Then I am going to rip out the collar & redo it. I just can’t be happy with it the way it is. I am considering making it a mock turtleneck. I think it would match the theme of the sweater nicely. We’ll see! Man, that is one crappy picture, sorry about that!

I love, love, love how this sweater is turning out! I made it long enough, tight enough, it just makes me so happy to make your own design/pattern & actually have it turn out perfectly! Once it’s done I promise to post pics of it being worn!

I have worked a little each day on the Mystery Stole. I am having a nice relaxing time working on it. I would like to be done with clue 2 by the time clue 3 comes out on Friday but I am not pushing myself. I want to enjoy all my knitting!

I realized today that I didn’t write down the pattern from where I joined the body under the yoke to the bottom of the torso. It won’t be hard, I just have to go back & do it. I would like to have this be an actual pattern, not one of my half assed patterns. It will be nice to have it done, washed & get a good wear out of it!

 

I thought I would put up what I am doing on the Mystery Stole 2 to show others how I have managed to have no mistakes with this lacework.

Firstly I colored in the chart. 5 stitches red, 5 stitches I left white.

I am using a 3m sticky notecard to mark the line I am on & keep notes if I need to. I have the right side chart in one side of my page protector and the left side chart is in the other side of the page protector, back to back basically. All I have to do is flip it over to go from right to left side. I move the notecard from one side to the other also.

At the top of the work you can see that I have markers. I decided to  place them every 10 stitches excluding the middle section with the center stitch. I have the markers spaced out like this:

10 sts, marker, 10 sts, marker, 10 sts, marker, 10 sts, marker, 9 sts, marker, center stitch, marker, 9 sts, marker, 10 sts, marker, 10 sts, marker, 10 sts, marker, 10 sts

I wanted to keep the center stitch alone to match how the charts have the center stitch designated. Knowing myself I would have repeated that center stitch going from the right side to the left side chart and ended up with many mistakes around that center stitch.

Also, as in most lace knitting you will have to move the markers every once in a while to get that k2tog or ssk to work out. Just make sure that you end up with the correct stitch count between markers real quick. I do have a habit of counting between markers on the wrong side row. It’s a simple safety measure.

Here you can see that I have the side I am not working on a circular needle held with a needle holder so that there is no chance of losing that side that is not being worked.

Here you can see my whole little setup. So far it’s worked miraculously. This is how I normally proceed with lace projects or any charted work actually.

I do hope that this will help anyone that has trouble with charts or lace patterns. These tips are a lifesaver. You can see that I have no lifelines. I don’t believe they do all that much to help. I am a preemptive strike person. Someday I may change my mind about them but as of now I have never found them to be a need in my knitting.

So Mystery Stole knitters, Happy knitting!

I decided that there are enough of us knitters out there that love the BravoTV series Project Runway that we needed a knitalong to go with this, the 3rd, season.

So here it is:

http://pr3knitalong.blogspot.com/

The ‘rules’ are listed on the site. I would love to see a lot of you join just to see what design of your own, or Michael Kors, that you knit! Please go have a look & I think it will be a lot of fun!

If any of you have the talent of making blog buttons I could use a few for the knitalong. Let me know if you can help me out!
Thanks!

 

‘What will your obituary say?’ at QuizGalaxy.com

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

You know what is so funny about the second one? When I was pregnant with Sadie we lived in an apartment on the south hill in Summerland facing the ocean. Anyone who has driven up or down hwy 101 has seen the summerland hill. Our apartment building had 4 apartments above a 4 car garage. When I had the VW KharmannGhia it was rather unwieldy to get my big fat pregnant butt in & out of that car on a hill. So instead of the second car (much nicer & only a couple of years old but George drove it to work most of the time) being parked in the garage I was spoiled & got to park my baby in there. Well, one day I had a doctors appt so I went out to the car, got in, started it, put it in gear- the wrong gear, forward instead of reverse which is easy to do in 1960’s vw’s- and drove straight forward into our storage area! Now, I do totally blame that on being pregnant. It hasn’t happened since & never happened before so it must have been the mushy-hormone-doped up brain that I have when I am pregnant. Ask Tracy, all my intelligence & memory capabilities leave my brain & I become totally inept for 10 months. Eventually it comes back…..I think…..

I got another package from my sp!! And it had some really fun stuff! My favorite sock yarn, Trekking xxl, some hand made soaps that smell absolutely fantastic, candy which I am sharing with the kids, a banana chocolate shake mix that I walked right into the kitchen to make & voila~ Tyler had just eaten the last banana. Thanks so much SP! I am seriously thinking the trekking may need to be legwarmers, so tempting to cast on…must…stop…myself…

Look at how cool the soaps are…

….they will be so great in my bathroom!

Thanks again!

Yarn: Malabrigo 100% merino worsted weight yarn (color was a one time special called “pot surprise” I bought in 2004), 2 hanks

Needles: size 8US

Gauge is not important.

Finished size after blocking: 72″ long by 8″ wide.

NOTES:
When the pattern says sl2, you will slip 2 sts together  from the left hand needle to the right hand needle.
The flames will undulate between 3 and 2 across naturally in the stitch pattern without casting on anymore sts. That is how you get the wavy edge, the stitch pattern does it for you.
You will knit this in 2 halves and kitchener graft them together at the center.

First half:

Cast on 1

Row 1 (rs): (k,yo,k) into the 1 st

Row 2: p3

Row 3: k1 (k,yo,k) k1

Row 4: p5

Row 5: k2 (k,yo,k) k2

Row 6: p7

Row 7: k3 (k,yo,k) k3

Row 8: p9

Row 9: k4 (k,yo,k) k4, co 3 sts

Row 10: p1, k2, p11, co 3 sts

Row 11: (k,yo,k), p2, k4 (sl2, k1,p2sso), k4, p2, (k,yo,k)

Row 12: p3, k2, p9, k2, p3

Row 13: k1, (k,yo,k), k1, p2, k3, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k3, p2, k1, (k,yo,k), k1

Row 14: P5, k2, p7, k2, p5

Row 15: k2, (k,yo,k), k2, p2, k2, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k2, p2, k2, (k,yo,k), k2

Row 16: p7, k2, p5, k2, p7

Row 17: k3, (k,yo,k), k3, p2, k1, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k1,p2, k3, (k,yo,k), k3

Row 18: p9, k2, p3, k2, p9

Row 19: k4, (k,yo,k), k4, p2, (sl2, k1, p2sso), p2, k4, (k,yo,k), k4, co 3 sts

Row 20: p1, k2, p11, k2, p1, k2, p11, co 3 sts

Row 21:  (k,yo,k) *p2, k4, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k4, p2, (k,yo,k) repeat from * to end

Row 22: p3, *k2, p9, k2, p3 repeat from * to end

Row 23: k1, (k,yo,k), k1, *p2, k3, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k3, p2, k1, (k,yo,k),k1 repeat from * to end

Row 24: p5,*k2, p7, k2, p5 repeat from * to end

Row 25: k2, (k,yo,k), k2, *p2, k2, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k2, p2, k2, (k,yo,k), k2 repeat from * to end

Row 26: p7, *k2, p5, k2, p7 repeat from * to end

Row 27: k3, (k,yo,k), k3, *p2, k1, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k1, p2, k3, (k,yo,k), k3 repeat from * to end

Row 28: p9, *k2, p3, k2, p9 repeat from * to end

Row 29: k4, (k,yo,k), k4, *p2, (sl2, k1, p2sso), p2, k4, (k, yo, k), k4 repeat from * to end, 43 sts

Row 30: p11, k2, p1, k2, p11, k2, p1, k2, p11

~From here on you will not do anymore of the co 3 sts.~

Row 31: *k4, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k4, p2, (k1, yo, k1), p2* repeat * to *, end k4, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k4

Row 32: p9, *k2, p3, k2, p9 repeat from * to end

Row 33: *k3, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k3, p2, k1, (k1, yo, k1), k1, p2* repeat * to * end k3, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k3

Row 34: p7, *k2, p5, k2, p7 repeat from * to end

Row 35: *k2, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k2, p2, k2, (k1, yo, k1), k2, p2* repeat *to* end k2, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k2

Row 36: p5, k2, p7, k2, p5, k2, p7, k2, p5 

Row 37: *k1, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k1, p2, k3, (k1, yo, k1), k3, p2* repeat *to* end k1, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k1 

Row 38: p3, *k2, p9, k2, p3 repeat from * to end

Row 39: *(sl2, k1, p2sso), p2, k4, (k1, yo, k1), k4, p2* repeat from *to* end (sl2, k1, p2sso)

Row 40: p1, k2, p11, k2, p1, k2, p11, k2, p1

 

 Repeat rows 21-40 until piece measures the desired length of half of your scarf, ending with row 40.

Put stitches on holder or spare needle for grafting later.

Second half:

Work as for first half ending with row 40 at equal length as the first half.

Finishing:

Using kitchener stitch or 3 needle bind off, graft two sides together. Tie in any loose ends & block!

Voila!

Here it is half blocked. You can see the difference between the blocked (on the top of photo) and the unblocked sides.

Here is a closeup of the kitchener stitch join of the two halves on the backside.

Interweave has the fall 2006 preview up on the website & I cannot wait for it to come! There are quite a few things that I know I will want to make! Vogue doesn’t have theirs up yet, huh. They usually have theirs up before IK does. Interesting.

I finished the legwarmers that I started ages ago. I had one complete & about 5″ done on the second so it was finishing up with all the increases on the second and sewing it up the back. I LOVE THEM!!

I also did get a solid start this morning on the mystery stole. I am only on row 29 of the first 100 (it’s a 50 row pattern that you do twice mirrored). I would like to get those rows complete before the second clue comes out on Friday.

I am using pure wool lace yarn from handpaintedyarn.com in black, obvi, on size 5 metal needles. I love it so far! I just want to go faster!

I am really liking the legwarmers & will be making more for myself & others. I am thinking it would so simple to make solid, plain ones on the knitting machine. I just don’t have the energy to break out the machine right now. It actually seems like less work to just handknit them ;o)