So. Many. KALs. . .

Well, the title says it all, and is also my explaination of why I haven't posted as much recently!


1) The Montego Shawl KAL is still going on.

2) I'm in a Seasonal Sock KAL; and the Spring Deadline is June 20th.  I've almost got one of two Charade Socks done, but I'm hoping I can finish the other sock in about a week. :)

3) Tanis Fiber Arts set up a  June Shawl KAL with a deadline also of June 31.  I decided to make a 198 Yards of Heaven using leftovers of TFA Green Label in "Chestnut", which is working out nicely, and is actually pretty far along.

4) The Yarn Attic is doing another Summer Bag KAL,  (also a June 31 entry), and I've got a couple of entries, but only one has a picture, and that's my Crocheted Project Bag.   It's an easy pattern, and so I'm making project backs using leftovers from my stash.  It's also a good way to teach myself to crochet again.

And finally, the ESK Team Mascot KAL is also still going strong.  No new pictures of the Octopus Mittens, sadly, but they're actually getting close to finished.  So I still do have a chance to finish up most of this stuff over the next few weeks.

Montego Shawl KAL

Hello!

So it seems like it's the Summer of KALs.  In addition to a summer scarf KAL (more on that forthcoming), the Yarn Attic is also running a KAL for the Montego Shawl.  

The deadline for entries is closed now (I've really got to get better about timely updates, huh?) but I'm working away at my shawl for the KAL deadline of June 31.

So far, it's coming along well, even if it's going to be enormous by the time I'm done. It's my first attempt at a beaded shawl, so I'll see how well this works out when I get to the beaded edging chart.

New Knitting Bag WIP, and Finished Accessories

I mentioned earlier that I was working on making myself a knitting bag, and that I (sadly) hadn't posted anything here about it!

So, here it is!

This is what will eventually be a French Market Bag, using Briggs and Little Heritage.

It's coming together quite nicely.  Right now is the easy (and boring) part of straight stocking-stitch in the round, so it's a great project if I want to put my focus onto something else.  I'm debating if I actually want to felt it or not -- it's dense enough I might just leave it as is.

Also, I finished my entries for The Yarn Attic's Accessory Spring KAL:

My Bamboozled Headband:

and my Lace Band Bracelet:

It was supposed to be a bracelet, but it works out better as an anklet, and I'm perfectly ok with that!

Very Late Cast On and Early Cast Off

Hello, and happy Easter all!  I hope everyone got something awesome from the 'Easter Bunny', be it yarn, or chocolate (I got both, so I'm quite content!)

Anyway,  I finally bothered to cast on for my Lace Band Bracelet.  It`s an entry into yet another of The Yarn Attic`s KALs.  But with a deadline of April 30th, I may have left this a little tighter then I would like.

That being said, I`m amazed at how far a skein of Malabrigo Sock goes!  I got my Evening Star Cowl, my Stella By Starlight Headband, and now the Lace Band Bracelet, out of it, with still more yarn left in the ball.   It`s actually really impressive.

What's even more impressive is how my Ethereal Shawl turned out.  With a cast off of 500 + stitches, it was rather daunting.

This is it before blocking:

And this is it after blocking (and later in the day). 

It didn't even really fit spread out on the couch after I'd blocked it.   I'm glad it's a symsetrical pattern, since I had to fold it in half to get it to fit on my blocking mats!  Note to self, I need more of the mats!

But I got it done with over two weeks to spare before the deadline.  I'm quite proud of myself for that!

More KALs and a weirdly-written pattern . . .

So The Yarn Attic hosts oodles and oodles of KALs, which is absolutely wonderful!  I've got a couple of yarns wish-listed from them, and my stash may grow again after Lent!

In the mean time, however, I'm enjoying the impetus to work on gifts, or things that have sat on my Ravelry queue for way too long.

So, I started a few different projects for their 'Hop in It KAL' , (more on those later, I hope!) but the one I really want to mention is my Sundance Notions Bag.  I'm using the leftovers of Spud & Chloë Sweater from the Pjyama Shorts.

 I just started the cast on.  And it's not bad so far:

I wanted a small pouch/bag to hold my extra notions/needles/hooks, once I finish my felted Knitting Bag, since the knitting bag doesn't have any inside pockets.  (And I just noticed I haven't blogged about my knitting bag despite it being on the needles for a while! Whoops!  I'll try and fix that soon!)

Anyway, so I found the Sundance Makeup Bag pattern from the Classic Elite Yarns Web-Letter.  If you're on Ravelry, it's also at this Ravelry Link.

The pattern is relatively simple, nicely textured. . . but oh man, is it weirdly written.  It's written in sections, but the sections don't progress in order.  So 'oh, yeah, now you go over here to read this part of the pattern, and then you double back for the next section.'  There are lots of little notes and addendums (For example, I missed that you're supposed to slip the first stitch on every row), and there are also abbreviations that aren't defined. (Another example:  I -think- EOR is "End of Row", but I can't find a definition of that anywhere in the pattern).

That being said, once you figure out the pattern weirdness, it actually doesn't look like too hard a knit, and if you browse through the project pages on Ravelry, you'll see that a lot of people actually have re-written out the pattern and simplified the way it's presented.  So if you do get stuck, it looks like you'll have lots of support. 

It also looks like this knits up pretty fast.  It's only 31 stitches wide in worsted-weight yarn, so it should finish up pretty quickly.

Laceweight is hard. . .

It is.  It's hard to work with, even if it is beautiful.

How do I know this?  Well, the Yarn Attic is running a KAL for the months of March and April (sign up and details are here, for the curious)

It's for shawl/shawlette knitting, and the only other requirement is that you use Malabrigo yarn.

So, I'm finally getting some use out of the Malabrigo Silkpaca I bought last year at the Toronto Knitter's Frolic!

Even if it is light-weight and very fiddly, it's still very pretty, and the texture is -wonderful-.

I'm hoping it will work up well in an Ethereal Shawl, and so far, it does quite well.