Easy Lace Names

First, a huge thank you to all those who've purchased the Daisy Shawlette. Wow, I'm just overwhelmed by how many patterns have sold so far and how many people have joined in our KAL on Ravelry. If you're not a Ravelry member you can join for free then come and join my group so you can join in the KAL. The idea of a KAL is to share the journey through a pattern. You can post about your progress, get help if you get stuck. Rather than wait for me to answer your question, chances are that someone who's ahead of you have jumped in and replied which makes my life much easier. You can ofcourse, also show off progress pics and finished photos. Let's face it, we all like having our work admired and our non-knitting friends and family may not realise how much work has gone into it. I love showing knitters my work because they appreciate how much work has gone into my creations.

I've been trying to decide on names for the Easy Lace Projects. At the moment I've postponed the publication of the e-book until July. I'm doing a 'e-book' online workshop and I'm learning a lot and I want to in-corporate what I learn into this project so that's the main reason for the postponement. Plus getting ready for woolfest is taking up most of my time right now and getting time to finish pattern, co-ordinating test knitters, editing patterns and doing the final layout for the book is just taking so much time and I need time to focus on it when I don't have a bit yarn dyeing workload. I want this e-book to be the best it can. It will contain projects that will develop your lace knitting skills as well as picture tutorials. Originally I'd only planned for it to be a pattern collection but I'm keen to include tutorials so that lace beginners can learn the skills they need. Experienced lace knitters who already know all those bits can skip along to the projects and probably find the patterns to be quick and easy knits - perfect for travel knitting for example.

I am thinking about publishing one pattern as a preview pattern in time for Woolfest next week. I need to decide soon which pattern that should be. Possibly the Supreme Shawlette.

Okay, back to names. I've not quite decided yet. Your suggestions have given me a lot of food for thought. There were some Celtic suggestions and since I live in a Celtic county I quite like that and i'm thinking that perhaps I'd like to give them all Celtic names, but I'm not a Celtic expert so that'll be difficult. I'm also wondering if I want to name them all after my favorite places in Cornwall but that make me feel like I've cheated all those who suggested names. You probably put a lot of thought into your name suggestions and I don't want to dis-regard them. There were fairytale suggestions which I like too. Decisions, decisions. I've now put all the name suggestions in a table so I can consider them more carefully. I will also check out some of the names on Ravelry to make sure there aren't any similar patterns with similar names.

I've created a short list and I will announce the winners and the names of the designs this weekend sometime or maybe tomorrow.

I've been dyeing a lot of yarn this week, to get ready for Woolfest next week. But I thought my lovely readers and customers may want to take their pick too so I've listed some of the sock yarns tonight. See it all here.

My favourite yarn at the moment is Supreme Sock. If I had to choose one yarn to knit with for the rest of my life, this would be it. It's a merino and silk blend. Soft, silky, shiny and takes colour beautifully. Some of the colours I've dyed this week are just gorgeous and I will be dyeing more tomorrow. Here are my faourites:

 I love the 'Dream Blue' colourway above and the 'Ultra Viola' colourway below. I was very tempted to put these skeins into my stash. I've got 2 skeins of each and they would both make gorgeous shrugs which I could knit on my knitting machine in less than 30 mins. I want to knit a cardigan, sweater or shrug in Supreme Sock and i'm dreaming of knitting one in time for Woolfest but I'm running out of time. I am dyeing more Supreme Sock tomorrow and I may dye one of these colours for a little treat for myself. I could easily knit a shrug before Woolfest next week.

 This is 'Sea Pet' and is very similar to the colourway I used for my Daisy Shawlette.

Have you joined our Daisy Shawlette knitalong on Ravelry yet? If not, come and join us here.

I've had requests for a larger size Daisy so I'm working on it. The larger size will be the same as the regular size to the edging and if you purchase the pattern now, once the larger version is available you will be notified and able to download it again.

I was knitting last night when we had a group of friend here and got right to the end of a daisy chain row and had the wrong number of stitches left. I was too tired to go back and double check my row and still haven't done it. Think I'll leave it till tomorrow.

I've also been doing some work on my Easy Lace sideways shawlette. I changed the yarn earlier in the week and started knitting then changed my mind about the edging and decided I wanted an edging on both sides, so cast on again. I'm very happy with my progress now. For both this shawlette and the large Daisy i'm using Supreme Sock.

I'm adding charcoal beads on both edgings.
I've done some work on my granny square too. I wanted to add some yellow so grabbed some leftover Cascade 220 yellow. I may regret it if I ever machine wash the blanket as Cascade 220 felts beautifully while Artesano Superwash Merino is superwash. They don't do a bright yellow though and I had an urge to add yellow. Going to add the edging and add them to my blanket now.

Daisy Shawlette is now live

The pattern for The Daisy Shawlette is finally ready. I listed it in my Ravelry Shop just before lunch today. And so far it's selling like hot cakes. If you've signed up to my newsletter you should have received a newsletter with a discount code. I'll be sending out another newsletter later in the week so there is still time to sign up. See the side bar.

There is a KAL starting in my Ravelry Group. Come and join us. If you're not yet a Ravelry member, why not join now? It's free.

Thank you to Tricia and Pixie for test knitting the pattern and helping me iron out some last minute problems.

At the moment there is only one size but I am working on a larger size. Once the larger size has been added to the pattern, those who've already purchased the pattern will receive an e-mail notifying them that they can download an updated version of the pattern. The larger version will take two skeins of sock yarn and will be knitted as the smaller version until the edging, so if you fancy a larger size you can start knitting now.

You will need 400m/440 yds of sock yarn for this shawlette and you will need every meter of yarn. So I recommend not casting off your swatch or breaking the yarn and unravelling the swatch to make sure you don't run out of yarn.

The pattern features this gorgeous Daisy Chain stitch which can be a little bit challenging at first but the pattern includes instructions and I will try to get Vanessa to film me doing a video tutorial as soon as she's finished her GCSE exams. She's got 2 exams left.

I don't normally show blocking pics. This one was taken in bad light so it's not great but I thought you might like to see what the shape is when blocking:

I've been knitting too. I started the last design for the Easy Lace E-book. I decided to use a gorgeous colour of Organic Merino that I'd put in my stash. I love the colour but this yarn doesn't have the drape I was looking for.

So last week I dyed some Supreme Sock. I chose a plymmy purple colour.

But yesterday i dyed some more Supreme Sock and I've got this gorgeous, very dark blue with a bit of black. It's perfect with the charcoal beads i'm using.

The light is rubbish today, it's dull and dark so the pics are rather rubbish and don't really show either colour properly. Here are the 2 yarns together:

I think I'm going to go for the blue for this shawlette but I may use the purple for the larger version of the Daisy Shawlette.

It's getting very close to Woolfest and i've got lots to do. Next job on my list is yarn dyeing.

Shrug it off

I've been doing a lot of machine knitting this month. I go to a monthly machine knitting group and we agree on a challenge each month. Something we can all knit. Last month it was to knit a summery garment. I knitted the Araucania Ruca Cardi but only got the body done in time for the May group:

Last weekend I finally got around to knit the sleeves. I set one in and sewed up the side and underarm seams on one side. Tried it on and the sleeve is far too tight. Now I did have problems when I was setting in the sleeve cap. The sleeve cap was smaller than the armhole but I thought it would be okay but it wasn't. So I need to rip out the sleeves, re-calculate and re-knit sleeves, which ofcourse I haven't done yet but i will do it this weekend as I really want to finish this cardi. I've also got to decide what to do about front button bands. I did originally think about doing an i-cord edging but I'm not sure.

Our group challenge for June is to knit a very simple shrug. We're doing the rectangular kind. Knit a rectangle and sew up the sleeve seams. I'm not all that keen on this shape of shrugs as I'm not sure it's all that flattering on me. But I did knit two last weekend. I decided to use it as an opportunity to experiment with stitch patterns. the machine has a pattern type called tuck stitch which I love and if you take a few needles out of use you get tuck lace.

Last year I did a very simple waist coat using a tuck punch card with some needles out of use. I'd written down 2 needles in use and 2 needles out of use in my note book which means every 2 needles on the machine I take 2 needles out of use. That didn't work, so I looked at the waist coat and it looked like 3 needles in use and 2 out. I was wrong again but I ended up with a really nice stitch pattern.

I decided to use this for my shrugs. I did the first one in Supreme Sock in a colourway I dyed last week and fell in love with. It took 200gr.

I had 2 skeins of either Ocean Silk or Silken Sock which I dyed last year and had kept for myself.

Although it's the same stitch pattern knitted at the same tension it does look a bit different.

I did take some pics on my dress form but taking pics of this type of shrugs on a arm-less dress form is not easy, so I'll have to try and get someone to take photos of me modelling it this weekend.

I'm currently knitting a cardi for me using another tuck stitch pattern and Manos del Uruguay Serena. I fell in love with Serena when I designed with it earlier in the year. I thought it would be too thick for my machine but tried it and it's okay. I've finished the back of the cardi today and will be starting one front tonight. i'm hoping to finish it this weekend. I need some lightweight summer cardigans, although at the moment i'd rather wear my cashmere cardis.

I've put up a preview of my new Daisy Shawlette on Ravelry today. I managed to get one of the coveted Ravelry pattern ads for June and I decided I wanted to use it to advertise my Daisy Shawlette.  I'm wondering if I made the right decision as the pattern is not ready yet but I need to get on with it this weekend and get it done. I'm aiming to get it published by the end of next week. Vanessa did some modelling for me today but I wasn't 100% happy with the photos I got so I need to do some more. But here are some from this afternoon:

And here are two that Vanessa probably won't be happy for me to show:

I have been dyeing yarn this week and there will be a shop update. Rain today has delayed drying so the shop update will be on Saturday or Sunday. I will send out a newsletter when it's ready and there will be a special offer in the newsletter. If you've not signed up, the sign up form is in the side bar - don't miss out on great discounts.