Finally Finished! MadMay 2014 “Sea Leaves”

How did this wrap know I was going
to have a crazy month?
Back view, MadMay2014 "Sea Leaves"
Free Pattern by Sue Schreuder
Photo & Hand Knitted: 
Knitted Candy Diva, May 2014

Normally, it takes me about a week to knit a one skein fingering weight shawl while watching night time TV.   As part of Ravelry's Madelinetosh group - MadMay2014,  I was planning to participate and knit two shawls. My kickoff shawl was this, "Sea Leaves" by Sue Schreuder, using the TOSH Merino Light, Jade I had in my stash for 2 years.  However, it’s been one of those months. I got side tracked and didn't have a chance to start the second shawl. 

Where did my month of May go?

This took much longer than I had planned.
72 inches x 15 inches
MadMay2014 "Sea Leaves"
Photo & Hand Knitted: Knitted Candy Diva

The weather has been unseasonably hot, which the last thing I wanted to do is hold warm wool in my hands and have a growing shawl on my lap. For the past couple of months, I've been working on getting a social media marketing strategist certification which involves hours of online course work and attending webinars. My oldest dog, at times, just won’t eat. She is 16 and will eat for a few days, then will show no interest in eating. She has a very sensitive stomach so changing her food is a big deal, and can be quite messy and stinky if you know what I mean. DH had a less than 2 day trip to the Big Island to take care of family business  -  a 5,000 mile round trip with hours of waiting for inter-island transfers isn't fun.  Thank goodness, we made the decision that I stay home and take care of our fur babies and not go with him. The stop and go flying would have put me on the edge.

My Stupidity

Closeup of  my 'insanity." Knitted and ripped
 the last 4 rows (over 400 stitches/row)
2 more times than I wanted!!
MadMay2014 "Sea Leaves"
Photo & Hand Knitted: Knitted Candy Diva

On top of all this, when I did knit, I couldn't count the repeats to save my life. I always use markers, but that didn't save me from my own stupidity. It took me two weeks to finally finish the last 4 rows of this shawl after the third try.  No fault to Sue, the pattern designer, I ripped this thing twice at over 400 stitches each time because I was off by 2, then I was off by 4. I am a Virgo and it’s in my nature to not make or have any mistakes.  I can’t personally have “new design features or elements” in my knitting. It really bothers to me to no end. So, I grumble, get cranky as I rip not once, but twice trying to find the mistakes in the sea of 400+ stitches per row because of my perfectionist tendencies.

Ta Da!

But it was worth it!
MadMay2014 "Sea Leaves"
Photo & Hand Knitted: Knitted Candy Diva

Overall, I love my yarn choice, TOSH Merino Light, Jade, and this pattern.  I really enjoy blocking. This is when I can see all the hours of knitting, including aggravation, pay off. The swaying lacy leaves really pop. The blocked size is 72 inches x 15 inches. So I would called this more of a scarf/wrap than a shawl. 

Closeup of my handy work.
MadMay2014 "Sea Leaves"
Photo & Hand Knitted: Knitted Candy Diva

I still have about 30 yards of yarn left after binding off 430 stitches following Sue's recommendation to use Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off. I went up two needles sizes (US8) for this to be sure I had enough give for the lace points. This took over 2 hours. Originally, my plan was to knit 2 shawls for MadMay, but I don’t think I want to press my luck after successfully surviving this and still have some sanity left! 

It took a LONG time to bind off!
I knitted with 32 inch Addi circulars.
MadMay2014 "Sea Leaves"
Photo & Hand Knitted: 
Knitted Candy Diva

Will I knit this pattern again?

Yes, most definitely!  Before my miscounting fiasco, as I was easily knitting Chart A twice, I was thinking how nice this would be if I just knit Chart A 3 times. So the entire scarf wrap will be just these lacy leaves, instead of having first a stockinette body then the leaves.  I have a 3+ year old skein of TOSH Sock, Magnolia Leaf in my yarn stash that would make the perfect fiery Fall color scarf wrap.

My TOSH Sock, Magnolia Leaf
100% Superwash Wool, 395 yards
Photo: Knitted Candy Diva

Wanna learn more about my knitting details of Sea Leaves, please visit my Ravelry project page.

Great to keep your shoulders warm if you have A/C blasting.
MadMay2014 "Sea Leaves"
Photo & Hand Knitted: Knitted Candy Diva

Love to hear from you: What do you do if you miscount lace repeats? Do you go back and fix it? Or do you continue knitting and adjust later? 

Need a Great Way to Say "Thanks": FREE Knit Pattern Idea



Looking for a terrific way to say "Thanks"

Spring "Budding Shawlette"

Free knitting pattern by Joyce (YuLian) Yu

Photo and Hand Knitted:

Knitted Candy Diva, April 2014



I was supposed to start Sea Leaves after finishing my last shawl/wrap. But I found out there is MadMay, knit something using Madelinetosh, happening on Ravelry for the month of May.  And during the same time I wanted to knit a “Thank You” gift for now a dear friend who has greatly helped me during the past 8 months. So I flipped the order of my two projects and the pattern that came to mind to knit for my friend is Budding Shawlette, a FREE Ravelry pattern, by Joyce (YuLian) Yu.

Why knit this again?

I’ve knitted this one skein pattern before in 2012 for my now SIL.  It was a fun, quick knit. I am a firm believer of stress-free, relax knitting where I can knit while commuting, watching TV or chatting with my knitting group. While Joyce's pattern looks complicated, it has an easy-to-remember flower bud lace stitch pattern.  And she includes both charts and written so whatever your knitting style is, her pattern covers both.



Light and airy at 62 in x 23 in
Spring "Budding Shawlette"
Photo and Hand Knitted: Knitted Candy Diva



My stylish friend, who’s girly, wears a lot of color, loves to travel and works in an air conditioned office so I thought this Araucania hand-dyed, purple variegated fingering weight shawl would be a great, versatile gift knit for her since she'll have many ways and places to wear it.



Drapes beautifully, very feminine.
Spring "Budding Shawlette"
Photo and Hand Knitted: Knitted Candy Diva

Results and ideas

Loved how the shawl turned out. Gentle blocking really made the flower buds pop.  It’s large, light and airy. The pattern is customizable, you can increase or decrease the bud lace stitch pattern repeats.  I made a few modifications so that I used most of the skein - had only 4 yards of yarn left!


Can you see the flower bud lace pattern?
Spring "Budding Shawlette"
Photo and Hand Knitted: Knitted Candy Diva



If you are looking for warm or cool weather knitting ideas, this FREE knit pattern is a great option to have in your library. The first time I knitted this, it was with an alpaca DK weight skein, with the intent to keep my SIL warm and cozy and easy to layer on and off when she flies overseas. I think this shawl/wrap would also look great knitted with either mohair, angora, cashmere or something with a little silk in it.

Knitted my Spring with fingering weight
Araucania Ranco Multy, Color 344, 376 yards
75% wool, 25% nylon
Photo: Knitted Candy Diva



Wanna learn more about my knitting modifications to this pattern, please visit my Ravelry project page.

Love to hear from you:  Do you have Go-To gift knitting patterns that you like to share here? What is your pattern picking thought process?

Suprise "Spring is in the Air"

I believe in karma. Things come together for a reason and either you embrace it and go with the flow or ignore, or avoid, it and usually something not so great happens.

Cosmic Event: Creation of Spring is in the Air.
Photo: Knitted Candy Diva, Mar 2014.

The title of this post is very appropriate for this shawl and the particular circumstances it took to knit this.  I like finding and owning unique things. I think it's because everything is so mass marketed and consumed that nothing feels special or unique.  I think that is one of the reasons why I knit is to get pleasure knitting one-of-kind things that are made to my specific tastes.

The Perfect Storm

Donna, one of the owners of Black Diamond Alpacas (BDA), raises her alpacas at her Brentwood, CA ranch and hand dyes all of her yarn. As part of my compensation for sample knitting a shawl for her during the Fall of 2012, she let me choose 2 skeins of her vast spectrum of yarn. Shopping at Donna's booth is like being a kid in a candy store, so much to choose from I always get sensory overload and have to walk away, think and then return. 


 BDA Surprise, 250 yds of hand-dyed
Fingering,  100% CA grown Alpaca. 
Photo: Knitted Candy Diva, Fall 2012.

Donna had a very small batch of what was her experimenting in her kitchen and that she didn't know how to replicate this color after she dyed this particular batch. She called it "Surprise." I am normally drawn to pinks, plums, fuchsias, reds and purples and like I needed more of the same, but somehow I was gravitating to this because this would be the only batch of it once it was sold. I took 2 and it stayed in my stash till last month.

The Winter Olympics was coming up and I wanted to knit a shawl while watching it live. I normally look through Ravelry and my own library that I have in my Rav account.

If you haven't open a Raverly account, it's a definite must.There are over 4 million members and over 430,000 patterns to choose from. As of today, I have over 6,100 knitting and crochet patterns. Yes, crazy I know! Luckily, there isn't a physical folder or storage for them because I would most likely be on one of those people you watch on those hoarding reality TV shows. Most of them are or were FREE.  I don't crochet, but because they were free what can I say. I will never be able to knit all of these patterns in my lifetime. But I have knitted a few more than once because I loved knitting it and many were and are gifts. OK, so I am now justifying my behavior. Remember the heroine in Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series?!

Anyway, last Fall, Kristi Holaas was very generous to let Ravelry members choose one of her patterns for free for a very limited time. I was instantly attracted to the name "Spring is in the Air," liked the design and picked it thinking I was going to use something from my BDA stash some day.  


Close up: Diamond repeat stitch

Stitches West (SW) is held every year in at the Santa Clara Convention Center, literally in my backyard, and thought since I was going to knit during the Olympics to participate in the Ravellenic Winter Games 2014 and was planning to go, Sunday, the 23rd, which was the last day of SW which also was the last day of the Winter Games what I knitted had to be special to wear. It didn't get anymore cosmically in line than this:

Free (2 skeins of Surprise + Spring in the Air)

= Olympics + Ravellenic Games + SW 

 

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

Well, my Surprise surprised me and things didn't completely turned out the way I planned. This relatively simple pattern wasn't that simple because, no fault on Kristi, I couldn't figure out how to K3into2 and I miscounted 1 stitch which caused me to frog this shawl not once, but twice. I can't have any "new design elements" and am a perfectionist by nature. 


My Surprise -- Spring is in the Air didn't turn simple at first.

It normally takes me a week to knit a shawl this size (64 inch x 21 inch) so I thought I had plenty of time to finish and wear and show Donna what I knitted with her gorgeous, soft hand-dyed alpaca fingering at SW.

This shawl was a mess and I didn't finished it until more than a week after the closing of the Winter Games, couldn't enter it in the Rav Games, or wear this to SW. I was bummed, but I moved on and felt there was a reason why I couldn't finish. I did wear another shawl and received the same number of compliments and ladies who wanted to touch it like what happened to me the year before. Overall, I had a great time and was a first time winner at SW.  I am a now a firm believer not to knit past midnight, of counting, re-counting and using stitch markers when I knit over 350 stitches per row to keep my sanity.

 

Would I Knit It Again?

I love how Surprise turned out. Alpaca is warmer than wool, but because the shawl is light fingering and airy it's perfect to wear for at least 3 out of 4 seasons in the San Francisco Bay Area and if I need to go to SF this is definitely a 4 season - scarf, shawl, shrug - accessory. The color is vibrant, very cheerful, goes with anything and makes me happy.


My, oh my. Frustration turned to gorgeous

results. Photo: Hand knitted by Knitted

Candy Diva, Mar 2014.

Next time, I would knit Kristi's small version using highly variegated yarn because the lace stitch would soften the variegation and I think the shawlette would look nice bunched up since I now have the large wrap version.