Reblocking, a new lease of lovliness

About eighteen months ago I made a travelling woman shawl, then proceedde to wear it, bandit style, at every opportunity until that sping was over and it got to hot to wear a scarf. Last winter for some reason it got very little wear, it seems I play favourites with my knitwear.

I wore it a couple of weeks ago to watch fireworks, and realised what it really needed was to be reblocked, it was all sad and curly at the edges.

A wash and some pins later, here it is (plus my nasty colour spare room carpet and something red, possibly part of the sofa throw).

The lace is all beautiful again.

I don't think I will be waiting long to wear this, the weather has turned absolutely lousy and last night there was talk of lighting the fire. I am looking forward to the knitwear, hot chocolate and fires of autumn, but it is August!

FO Friday- Tapestry scarf

My FO for this week is a drop stitch scarf/shawl that is the start of my Christmas knitting. It is another project that I finished a while back then took weeks to sew in the ends, but it is done now and I have someone in mind to gift it to.

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The pattern is Sunday Market Shawl by Vanessa Carter, I used two balls of Rowan Tapestry that I received in a swap, it has come out beautifully squishy. It is a really simple pattern to make and dropping the stitches is somewhere between fun and nerve wracking. This yarn is fairly fuzzy so doing the dropping took a while to work the bits of caught fuzz out of the stitches. Fortunately I had seen a warning on a finished Ravelry project (same yarn and pattern) to be careful not to split the yarn during knitting, so that was a potential disaster avoided.

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The colour changes are lovely in this yarn, long and subtly fading into each other. The drop stitches stop what starts out as a plain knit scarf rolling up at the edges, and add interest.

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Two balls made a scarf long enough to be folded and worn scarf style, it is really thick and squishy like this.

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It is also long and wide enough to use as a shawl, the drop stitches give it loads of stretch.
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I have gone back to neglecting my sock yarn blanket in favour of making Christmas presents, I am trying to get all the must make ones done by the end of November, leaving December free for the maybe makes if there is time. Once that is all over I have a couple of lovely projects in mind, and will be doing some serious catch up on the blanket!

FO Friday- Shawl and return to the square

This project has taken a while to finish, the knitting has been done for ages, but I only got to the sewing ends in bit last night.

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The pattern is Belmondo Shawl by Tori Gurbisz . I used some Rowan RYC Pure Silk DK in a gorgeous blue that I fished out of a sale bin for half price, it is lovely and soft but I suspect I would never pay full price for it. I used a little under 2 skeins, only because I found a knot about ten rows in so scrapped the first bit and restarted. It is not the easiest yarn/pattern combination for hiding ends so I wanted to keep the number down.

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This is definitely the way to photograph shawls (please excuse my neighbours socks in the background)

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I skipped the fringe suggested in the pattern, I didn't fancy it and didn't have enough yarn anyway. I stitched a heavy bead onto each corner to add a bit of weight and decoration instead. It took ages to find beads with enough weight, but these do nicely. The wave pattern goes with the net like fabric too (I did think about fish beads but decided it would be mean to have them caught in a net forever).

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An in action shot as a sort of wrap around scarf. Taking photos of yourself is not easy, but I forgot to do them last night when I could have recruited some help.
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As more of a shawl/shrug type. It is just the right size for this and the weighted corners really help. Getting a photo of the back was beyond me, even with the help of a mirror.
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The sock yarn blanket has finally made a return. I ran out of yarn on my sock project this week so while I waited for a delivery (which only took about 24hrs and they had the same dye lot, I love that site!) I used a scrap to make a square. It is a 6 ply, so a little heavier but the square works out to be a similar enough size.
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FO Friday- Silk blend Heaven and a square of kindness

I bought a hank of Manos del Uruguay Silk blend in a gorgeous red a while back. Having only one skein meant it needed careful pattern consideration. I went for 198 yards of heaven, a pattern for a mini shawl. As I had 300 yards of heaven I added an extra repeat of the body pattern.
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I altered the lace pattern for the edging as I wanted the rows of holes to line up with the lace in the main part, would have annoyed me too much to have the vertical lines all over the place along the border.
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This is the project that gave me leftovers for yesterday's scrap down post. It is more red and less pink in real life, closer to the photos of the bracelets.
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As always, a blanket square, not so bright this week but some lovely blue in there. The yarn was sent to me by a member of the UK Random Acts of Kindness Group on Ravelry.
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