Yes, I counted them.
And then I took more pictures so that you could see each and every one of them.
How many more beads to go? I don’t know and I don’t want to know. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Category: My Knitting Designs
A look at each of my designs from start to finish.
Update pic on the AWHF Shawl
I’m stealing Tracie’s name. One of her recent crochet projects was called the Dress that Never Ends. My AWHF Shawl will henceforth be known as the Shawl that Never Ends. It’s a good name.
I am only 75% done. Wait. Let me rephrase. Hark, I have knitted 75% of the shawl. Gosh, that sounds better, doesn’t it?
Every 4th row now requires 16 sead beads to be woven in. Thus, every 10 stitches, I have to stop and move one bead towards the top of the string and slip two stitches. I am grateful every time I finish a beaded row and can then knit 3 rows plain. As a bit of good news, it appears that I have enough beads strung onto the cone to last me till the end of this shawl.
Enough of me yammering, let’s have that pic, shall we?
And without the light
Gosh, you can’t see all the beads in either one of them. There is sweat and tears on each one!
I’ll have to find another way to take a pic of it before I publish the pattern on it.
Pine Tree design on Christmas Tree Skirt
I have the laptop back! This guy moves so much faster than Hal! Yet in my excitement of having the laptop back, I forgot to snag the digital camera. And, what’s a blog without pictures? So, I made you a picture.
What is it you ask? Why it’s a pic of my design for the white ties in the Christmas Tree Skirt.
I’ve cast on for the 1st of the white ties. I’m pleased that my design/calculations allow for all the ties to start in the same manner. I don’t mind doing the extra math, but I think it’s easier on the knitter if s/he doesn’t have to check the pattern constantly.
More pictures later:
- The Chili Pepper quilt is finished!
- Progress on my never-ending-beaded-shawl (It’s getting bigger – I swear!)
Have a great weekend!
I’ll be out on the roads doing some more Christmas shopping. Will I finish? Heck, no, but I’ll have more done than undone. And that seems like an accomplishment.
Christmas Tree Skirt, the 1st tie
The 1st of 9 ties is downstairs being blocked.
I just love the way this tie came out. The colors are gorgeous and so little work was required by me to make the yarn shine. I must tip my hat again to Brenda for hand-dyeing and hand-spinning this fiber for me. My MIL has asked me why I don’t try my hand at dyeing. My answer is because I could never have my yarn look like this. My time is better spent listening to the yarn and manipulating it into various shapes.
I will cast on for the white tie next week, which will feature a cabled pine tree in its center.
My plan is to complete the pattern with just 2 of the 9 ties being knitted. If we wait for me to complete knitting all 9 ties, there won’t be enough days left for any knitter to purchase the pattern and complete the skirt before Christmas is here. Additionally, I will offer the pattern at a discount, since it will take a small leap of faith from the knitter to believe that the 2 knitted ties make up a 50-inch diameter tree skirt.
Accomplishing Nothing
I was hoping by my next post I would have something … anything! … to show you, but I come to you empty-handed.
The mohair stole is still not finished. I measured it on Friday and it was at 59 inches. I measured it last night and it was only at 60 inches. I thought for sure I knit more than an inch. I think it hates me. However, I do have wonderful news about the mohair. It seems that if you don’t try to fight with it, it self-patterns very nicely. Amazing, isn’t it?
The Christmas Tree Skirt has been frogged and recast on. My gauge was only off .25 of an inch from my swatch, but, oh, what a difference it can make.
Progress on my Alpaca Beaded Shawl is at a snail’s pace now. Each row keeps getting longer and longer as I near the top of the shawl. Plus, every 4th row requires the weaving in of 14 beads. I used to get excited for the bead rows (every 4th row) back when I only had to weave in 4 beads. Now, I get excited every time I finish a beaded row. And when faced with too many beaded rows, I pick up another project.
Let’s not even talk about my Mystery Project and the (lack of) progress on it. I’ve had two people stop by on Ravelry and let me know they’re excited to see what I create. Even my MIL asked me how the project was coming, since I had her running around Maine searching down the missing yarn for it. I am plagued with guilt and still I can’t bring myself to pick the needles back up. I HAVE to finish the stole, shawl, and xmas skirt first. Should I mention that I have wicked thoughts about knitting a scarf for my SIL? Somebody talk some sense into me, would ya?!
The Chili Pepper quilt is still missing its binding. The binding tape is laying on top of the quilt right now, but for some reason it won’t attach itself. Ungrateful thing that it is.
Baby Flick’s quilt still requires more machine quilting before I can stitch the binding on. Of course, I should mention that I haven’t even started to cut out the binding strips. Let’s not even talk about who is going to hand-stitch the binding to the back of the quilt. I’m on a hunt for that little green elf!
The Dining Room Roman Shades are still sitting in the sidelines waiting patiently for me to finish Baby Flick’s quilt.
And to prove it, here is a pic of my sewing room. 
What have I accomplished?
I raked all the leaves up.
I stuffed a Pumpkin Man.
I put away our summer clothes and drug out the winter sweaters.
I took Jake to the vet. Poor guy has a double ear infection.
I did knit on the stole, shawl, and tree skirt, but they are mocking me now.
Casting on for Christmas
Christmas has begun in my home!
I have already crossed 9 people off my Christmas list. Only 15 more left to shop/make for. Which doesn’t sound like a lot until you start accounting for all the birthdays that occur in November and December. Most of the people on my list have to bought for twice.
I have garnered permission from Dan (my husband) and encouragement from my neighbor to put up two Christmas trees this year. The plan is to trim the artificial Christmas tree before Thanksgiving. We’ll get a real one after Thanksgiving Day. Plus, I already won the argument last year about The Wise Men Day (January 6th). The tree has always had to stay up till Jan. 6th because I won’t let him take it down beforehand, but last year was the first year we actually swapped one small present on the day. I lobbied that we make it a tradition … and Dan agreed. So, I get almost a full 2 months of Christmas! I’m soooo giddy. I can’t wait for Halloween to come and go.
But enough about my crazy Christmas habits, the main reason I wrote up this post was to show you that I have finally cast on for the Christmas Tree Skirt.
My love of cables has kept the tie point from curling.
And after fighting with my mohair stole over the hand painted yarn getting stuck in a rut, I am relieved to be working with yarn that nicely flows from one color to the other.
Thank you, Brenda!
Borrowing my Husband’s Tie
My husband came home from work yesterday and gave me the funniest look. I don’t know why. Don’t all women wear their husbands ties in the house when they’re not home?
No? Well, they ought to. Ties are great for inspiration. The one I wore yesterday helped me design the schematics for the Christmas Tree skirt. Here’s the proof.
What else did I do when I was supposed to be watching the Phillies playoff games? I was knitting more of the mohair stole, because watching the Phillies play the way they are is depressing. We can’t pitch to save our lives and our hitters are lost in la-la-land. Ung. But enough about that, I was telling you about my mohair stole. It is 40% completed!
Well, I am off to make a pot of chili. It’s still hot as heck here in Pennsylvania, but I’m doing my part to encourage the weather to get cooler. Stew = cold weather. Truly, it feels like we have been living in San Francisco these past 3 days. Every morning, we get a foggy, misty drizzle (I wouldn’t even call it rain) followed by 80+ degree F day. I guess it is better than no rain at all and if the heat would just go away – I’d be happy as a lark or a Jake. =)
Swatching for the Christmas Tree Skirt
My white Wool from the Andes arrived on Friday from Knit Picks. It will be paired with the Christmas yarn to create a Christmas Tree Skirt.
I bought 11 skeins because I’ve learned that one can never have too much yarn. Just in the past year, I’ve run out of yarn twice. In the hopes that I never face that challenge again, I swung the pendulum to the opposite side and bought 300 more yards that I need. True, it’s a bit extreme, but the last yarn shortage is still fresh (and painful) in my mind.
Of course, the first thing I did with the yarn was knit up a swatch of plain stocking stitch. Sitting next to the Christmas yarn, it is perfect. It is plain and ordinary, letting the hand-dyed yarn take the spotlight.
Because I refuse to knit an entire garment in stocking stitch (I simply must sneak in some cables or yarn overs), I have been tinkering over the past few days with a pine tree cable. What do you think?
I took the pics at night, so they’re not the best.
Now starts the fun part: drawing the schematics and calculating the stitches. My goal is to cast on later this month.
Christmas is here!
Not the actual day (and a good thing too because I have too much knitting to do between now and then), but the yarn – it’s here!
As you may recall this yarn was hand-dyed and hand-spun by Naturally Spun. And when I say hand-spun, I mean hand-spun on a drop spindle, all 730 yards of it. I’ve only ever managed to get about 10 yards off of a drop spindle. Now you know why I leave the spinning of fiber to other people.
First things first, I wound all 10 skeins into yarn cakes.
Then, I whipped up a swatch of just plain, old stocking stitch.
After lining up all my skeins of wool next to the swatch, I decided that I had to go buy more yarn. I wanted the Christmas yarn to be in the spotlight and not have to fight with other colors for attention. I suppose the natural-white wool would work well enough, but it contrasts with the stark-white roving used to ply the red and greens together. Plus, buying yarn is fun.
I plan to iron out the cable design today. If all goes well, the cable panel will look like a pine tree.
AWHF Shawl on a plane
After going back and forth and even asking my husband for his opinion, I decided to take the AWHF shawl with me to Disney World. I was able to knit on the plane rides to and fro Disney. I am SO glad all the airports now allow knitting needles.
Yet, they remain suspicious of large amounts of yarn.
On the flight back to Philadelphia, a lady performing the safety check confiscated my purse to allow a more thorough search. I – thinking that she was concerned about the needles – tried to absolve her fears by informing her that the sharp, pointy things were just knitting needles. Instead, she pulled my huge cone of alpaca wool out of the bag. I gasped and stared at her with shock and horror as I watch all the beads and a good chunk of yarn fall off the cone, which only makes her more suspicious. Taking my bag away from me again, she scans the yarn only to realize that it was a huge vat of – you guessed it – yarn!
My dear husband had the patience of a saint while I spent the next several minutes rewinding all the beads and yarn back onto the cone. Next time, I’m slipping a sock over the cone.
But enough about security check-in, here are pictures of my shawl progress:
It is approximately 13 inches long. The plan is to knit until the shawl is 28 inches long.
It is a joy to knit. The pattern entertains you (by forcing you to count to 3 repeatedly), but remains simple enough that you aren’t constantly checking the chart.
The Life, Designs & Crafts of Marie Haigh 