No, this post isn't about me walking around the City of Lights in on a lovely spring evening (although, that would be nice). In fact, it's about knitting! Last week, I finished Celestarium by Audry Nicklin, and dangit if I'm not stupid proud of it.
I used Malabrigo Mechita in the Paris Night colorway (hence the name). I really enjoyed working with this yarn and I love the way that the end product turned out. One downside to the yarn was that it pills up as you knit, forming little circles around your working yarn that you occasionally have to clip off or keep sliding down. However, that's not a big enough problem for me to not want to use this yarn again. It's wonderfully soft, especially after blocking, and comes in gorgeous colors. I plan on making the sister shawl to this one and will more than likely use the same yarn for that.
It is a combination Birthday/Mother's Day present for my wonderful Mom. I'm pretty sure she's going to fall in love with it. I sure hope so, anyways, because it was quite the undertaking. Just the cast-on itself was a bear....like a big mean, angry Momma bear whose cub you just tried to steal). Aside from the cast-on, the whole thing is pretty simple. You just really have to keep an eye on those charts since the bead placement is so sporadic. Luckily, Audry included charts that divide all the cells up in chunks of ten or so (except at the beginning and ends...gotta watch those!) so it makes it easy to count how many stitches you knit before your next YO & K2TOG or bead placement.
As long as you don't have a problem keeping up with the charts (I highly recommend KnitCompanion to help here....I swear by that thing for all patterns with charts), this is great TV/other activity knitting. I knitted a large majority of this in a dark booth during Juno & the Paycock while waiting to call my next cue. So, if you're looking for something good to have your needles during your next Netflix binge, I recommend this one.
This was my first Pi shawl, and therefore my first true experience watching your project grow really quickly and then all of a sudden appear to never grow at all no matter how much you knit on it. Once I got to the F charts, I thought it would never end. But, of course, it eventually did and then there was the edging. This felt like it took longer than all of the F charts combined to me. I originally planned on using the garter stitch edging included in the pattern, but it was rolling in so badly that I ripped it out and went with the Stellar Wave Edging that's so popular with this shawl. Even though it took forever, the end result was worth it.
If you're looking for your first project that incorporates beads or just to have something ridiculously gorgeous (and nerdy to boot), look no further!
In non-knitting news, Juno & The Paycock closed two weeks ago. I have to say I wasn't too sad to see that one go. I'm not a huge fan of the script itself, and there was some acting and other technical things I had issues with. The lack of cues to call didn't help much either. Hopefully the next one will be more up my alley.
And the big news? I'm going to Ireland soon! I would say how soon, but since this blog is public, I don't want to give too many specifics. We're traveling all around the Emerald Isle. It's going to be a busy trip (you should see my itinerary and binder...yeah, I have a binder). I'm bringing most of my fancy camera equipment in the hopes that I'll be able to capture some truly stunning landscapes as well as other details....we'll see if I've gotten my hopes up too high. Expect pictures soon!
Oh, and if anyone has any recommendations on some good places to procure Irish yarn, please let me know!
I used Malabrigo Mechita in the Paris Night colorway (hence the name). I really enjoyed working with this yarn and I love the way that the end product turned out. One downside to the yarn was that it pills up as you knit, forming little circles around your working yarn that you occasionally have to clip off or keep sliding down. However, that's not a big enough problem for me to not want to use this yarn again. It's wonderfully soft, especially after blocking, and comes in gorgeous colors. I plan on making the sister shawl to this one and will more than likely use the same yarn for that.
It is a combination Birthday/Mother's Day present for my wonderful Mom. I'm pretty sure she's going to fall in love with it. I sure hope so, anyways, because it was quite the undertaking. Just the cast-on itself was a bear....like a big mean, angry Momma bear whose cub you just tried to steal). Aside from the cast-on, the whole thing is pretty simple. You just really have to keep an eye on those charts since the bead placement is so sporadic. Luckily, Audry included charts that divide all the cells up in chunks of ten or so (except at the beginning and ends...gotta watch those!) so it makes it easy to count how many stitches you knit before your next YO & K2TOG or bead placement.
As long as you don't have a problem keeping up with the charts (I highly recommend KnitCompanion to help here....I swear by that thing for all patterns with charts), this is great TV/other activity knitting. I knitted a large majority of this in a dark booth during Juno & the Paycock while waiting to call my next cue. So, if you're looking for something good to have your needles during your next Netflix binge, I recommend this one.
This was my first Pi shawl, and therefore my first true experience watching your project grow really quickly and then all of a sudden appear to never grow at all no matter how much you knit on it. Once I got to the F charts, I thought it would never end. But, of course, it eventually did and then there was the edging. This felt like it took longer than all of the F charts combined to me. I originally planned on using the garter stitch edging included in the pattern, but it was rolling in so badly that I ripped it out and went with the Stellar Wave Edging that's so popular with this shawl. Even though it took forever, the end result was worth it.
If you're looking for your first project that incorporates beads or just to have something ridiculously gorgeous (and nerdy to boot), look no further!
In non-knitting news, Juno & The Paycock closed two weeks ago. I have to say I wasn't too sad to see that one go. I'm not a huge fan of the script itself, and there was some acting and other technical things I had issues with. The lack of cues to call didn't help much either. Hopefully the next one will be more up my alley.
And the big news? I'm going to Ireland soon! I would say how soon, but since this blog is public, I don't want to give too many specifics. We're traveling all around the Emerald Isle. It's going to be a busy trip (you should see my itinerary and binder...yeah, I have a binder). I'm bringing most of my fancy camera equipment in the hopes that I'll be able to capture some truly stunning landscapes as well as other details....we'll see if I've gotten my hopes up too high. Expect pictures soon!
Oh, and if anyone has any recommendations on some good places to procure Irish yarn, please let me know!
