Knit progress: Lace Cowl

After the holidays I slowed down on knitting projects and circled back to a little item I have wanted to make for a while: a thick cowl for winter. I was gifted two beautiful skeins of Knitting Fever KFI Luxury Roving in blues and thought this would be a perfect project for them. I also received the book Harmony Guides: Lace & Eyelets for Christmas. I am planning to use it as inspiration for a shawl. As I flipped through, I found a bunch of beautiful patterns and settled on the Pillar Openwork Lace stitch.

 

Notes on the Cowl:

Knit like a regular scarf  and bind off and then sew ends together after blocking

Needle size: US9
Pattern repeats: 16
Skeins: 2

I used both skeins a left a bit at the end to sew together the edges after blocking. This pattern is very easy and creates a nice thick fabric that has a bulky feel. It made cowl that can be worn as a single or double loop.

Prints: Monoprint #9, 2013

Here’s a monoprint I completed this past November when I was wrapping up the 2013 print season. It turned out to be eight colors on light gray stock. It’s an odd combination of colors—ones that I would never think to put together—but still just seems right.

Prints: I Found My Print in San Francisco

One of my screenprints has found a new home out on the west coast. As you can see, she’s made herself comfortable right there in the stairway of a fab duplex in SF and pairs quite nicely with a chair in the living room.

Knit progress: simple socks

Over the holiday break, I finally got around to knitting a pair of socks for my husband and had enough time left over to make a pair for myself! I bought a skein of Schoppel-Wolle Zauberwolle in a combination of navy, orange and purple to make something for him and decided to pair it with a skein of Lionbrand Sock-ease in orange to make the color transition throughout the pair more subtle. I alternated the yarns every other row and really like how it turned out.

I also experimented with some self-striping Patons Kroy Socks 4 Ply in Rust stripes for a pair of socks for myself. Instead of using it as-is, I knit the socks with two skeins, switching the yarn every row. I also started the skeins at different points in the repeat with the striping order reversed in one skein to create as much variety as possible.  It created a more textural stripe that I really like.

I went out on a limb and created my own simple pattern for these which I will probably release as a pattern. It includes a subtle basket weave texture over the ribs using an alternating 6-row garter stitch on every other rib. I’ll have to knit a solid pair of socks to make it more visible, but I like the little extra texture it adds to the socks.