Weaving the Forest Shawl

Finally, the weaving begins! Two photos and a few words can be found in this blog entry.

The Forest Shawl Continues

In which I discuss planning the Forest Shawl.

Planning the warp design.

Beginning the Forest Shawl

I’m writing up the process of making a woven shawl on my new blog, so I thought I should post a link here so everyone can find it. This is not a fancy weave: just something simple to practice basic skills and to use up some stash.

Selecting yarns is a tricky process.

 After much searching, I chose a hand-painted sock yarn and three Knit Picks Palette yarns to coordinate. The sock yarn was supposed to become a Clapotis shawl, but once it was out of the skein I didn’t like it. Plus, when I bought it, I forgot that Clapotis calls for worsted weight yarn. (Still haven’t knit a Clapotis.)

The Knit Picks yarn was supposed to be shadow-knit pillows. I love shadow-knits, but I quickly discovered that I hate knitting them. Especially in DK-weight yarn.

Exhaustive detail about planning this can be found in the post “Planning the Forest Shawl”. I will continue to cross-post here.

Wind beneath my wings

pattern:  Wingspan (over 4000 projects in Ravelry!)

yarn:  Noro Taiyo sock, found at the Midwest Fiber Fair

recipient:  a friend, for her 40th birthday

Love this pattern!!   Super easy - it's basically a whole lot of garter stitch and short rows.  Perfect traveling project.  Most of this was knitted at the pool this summer.  The original pattern is a "shawlette" and only called for 8 triangles, but I basically kept going till the end of the skein because I was envisioning more of a scarf.  3g of yarn left!

I think I see one of these in my future for myself ...

silk comfort

I made this for my friend in Houston, so I chose a fiber that was 100% silk by Araucania (Chaiten) - it's sort of a matte nubby finish, which is really nice and drapes really well.  I used the Lace Ribbon pattern that I love - so easy to memorize, easy to execute (once you get the hang of it), and looks complicated.  I made it a bit wider than the pattern so that she could use it as a shawl in the air-conditioned buildings that she works in.

It was originally intended as a prayer shawl of sorts - something to give her a modicum of comfort in the aftermath of her mother's recent death - but turned out to be a congratulations-on-your-engagement gift :)