knitting | Mustard Seed Yarn Lab

Category: knitting (page 5 of 8)

The Super Secret Project revealed!

11.14.11 / Danielle / 2 Comments

Ok, so it wasn’t a total surprise. My sister figured out the surprise was for her BUT she didn’t know exactly what it was. And what it was, my friends, was the Vernal Equinox Shawl and the free pattern can be found here.

As you will see in this picture, I tried blocking it with 2 different edgings, to see which I preferred. One side has the pointy edging, and the other has the more scalloped edging.

I decided I liked the scalloped edging best, so I reblocked the pointy side. Oh, and I chose to knit the edging with 3 or 4 rows of garter stitch. Most people on Ravelry seemed to use the crochet edging…but I can’t crochet, and I think I like the look of mine better anyways. Below you can see it with a 4 year old cutie beside it. That gives you a good idea of the size.

I started the shawl in August and I finished it a few days ago, but I didn’t work on it every day…in fact, there were whole weeks I didn’t touch it.

I used Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk…which was a wool and silk blend. The yarn was very nice to work with and had a nice drape and feel to it. I’d definitely consider using it again.

I gave the shawl to Shelly on Saturday, when I traveled to NY to take a dye class with her. It’s her Christmas gift, but in this family, none of us can ever wait so Christmas gifts often come early. I took pictures of her in the shawl, but her pictures came out way better than mine, so I’m stealing hers to show you.

How’s that?! It looks like it was made for her….Ha! I kill myself. 🙂

Oh, and yes, she did love it. She blogs about it on her own blog here.

Next up, I have another sister in dire need of Bella mittens for Christmas…I think I’ll start those next. (They’re the mittens Bella wore in Twilight.)

My weekend so far

10.16.11 / Danielle / 1 Comment

And I’m including Friday, because even though I was working, I was dyeing yarn at the same time. Here’s some sneak peeks of the making of Autumn Leaves and Midnight Sky :

The first picture is the more accurate one. Tomorrow I hope to take some better pictures, when they’re dry. It takes days to dry. It’s very hard for someone as impatient as myself.

I finished these:

They’re called Easy Handspun Mitts. Just click on that if you’d like the free pattern on Ravelry. They weren’t lying…they were definitely easy and fast, and the Noro yarn makes them sooooo addictive to knit…I’ve already started another pair for me! (These are for my niece.)

And the boys were productive as well:

Mike did all the work and Emmet supervised.

Well, it’s almost 11pm and I still have 2 more skeins of yarn cooling down in the pot. I think they’re going to be stunning. I will post their picture soon. I’m going to throw them on the drying rack and go to bed!

And finally…

10.6.11 / Danielle / 4 Comments

After the grape Kool Aid bath and a couple days spent drying over a chair, we ended up with this:

I can’t seem to get a completely accurate picture of the color, no matter what kind of light I hold this in, but this is pretty close. I’ve named the color Raspberry Dusk. I immediately wanted to see what it was going to look like knitted into something, but what? Shelly thought I should do another Star Crossed Slouchy hat, and since it’s such a quick pattern, I agreed. I really felt the need for some instant gratification. So here it is! The finale of my very first yarn dyeing experiment.

I’m ready for the big league now. I’ve ordered some yarn and some dye and I’m waiting for it to arrive. This weekend I’ll hit some more garage sales looking for big pots and crock pots and see what I can come up with. I’m ready people!