From my mom’s stash, I got this silk dress. She likely got it from an estate sale, and it looks like the tourist dresses you can get in Asia – the tag inside says STAR OF SIAM 100% pure silk, handwoven in Thailand.

Gorgeous colour: check.
Gorgeous fabric: check.
Border print: check!

The pattern is a petite, which I’m not. Except that I’m short waisted (my neck-to-waist measurement is actually an inch SHORTER than Burda’s petite sizing), and not model-long-legged, so I ended up using a smaller size than my usual for the upper bodice, and the length of my usual size, and ended up with the same basic outcome as the picture. With several more inches around . I didn’t know to do this: I started with a sheet muslin of most of the dress, pinched out what I needed to, and compared it to the original pattern. It was much easier when I figured out I just had to switch lines! The length was of necessity – that’s how much I could eek out of the other dress!

Most of these pictures were taken the day after the event, the fabric held up really well to the travelling and the event! The lighting seems to only pick up the shine of the gold thread in the border print sometimes in these pictures.

I was a little disappointed at first. My impression of the pattern picture was that this dress was very “Audrey Hepburn”. What I ended up with was very 60s-mod. Face on, I look very, very rectangular. Which is understandable, since I am very rectangular, but I figured the colour blocking would mask that. Instead, the horizontal stripes did what horizontal stripes do, even if they didn’t go all the way around.

But then, when trying to figure out a wrap, I pulled out the vintage 60s brocade jacket (in vintage 60s polyester) out of the back closet:

I like .

And it got a few complements last night too!

My DH is the master of treasure hunts. He brought home a couple of chairs in the last year that needed a little sprucing up.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a shot of the second one before I hit it with the screwdriver –

and the first one didn’t fair much better with DH & I wielding tools

Over the summer I pulled staples. Lots and lots and lots and lots of staples. You know, the “hey, this’ll be easy once we figure out how to take the chair apart” which turns into weekends of skinned knuckles – that game. Which is why I swear off home dec. I just can never remember that when in a furniture showroom and faced with $400 price tags .

But the end?

(six months later even!)

The end almost makes up for it!

which started from a side trip to Chicago’s Loopy Yarns while waiting for my pizza to be ready – it was a long day at a tech filled conference, I was about ready for some colourful and cushy:

The royal purple, which turned into this shawl, is Cascade Heritage Silk – rich, deep colour with a bit of a sheen from the silk. (The other is Tosh Sock, colourway “Nebula” – had to come home with me too!)

A quick jaunt on Ravelry popped up Emily Ross’ Haruni, who’s border I really liked. But the leaf/candlelight lace pattern for the main shawl didn’t catch my interest, so I started playing.

The alternating angled leaf pattern turned more like trees, and didn’t flow well into the border, so I added flowers – what turned out more like big and little flowers actually, which worked just fine.

I had leftover beads from my Odonata scarf, which are a combination of dark green and purple in a triangular shape. I started adding them to the leaves of the border (once I figured out where the spines were in the lace pattern!!), and just barely managed to squeak them out to the end of the leaves. I think I have about 5 beads left over. Was going to look for other beads to add to the crochet edging, but I think it looks fine the way it is.

Please ignore the safety pins – I ran out of straight pins for blocking, they’re all in the sewing projects. Fingers crossed I’ll have something else to show soon – something else that’s also silk, and will go very nicely with this shawl!

Details:
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk, fingering weight, 1 skein – most of the 437 yards
Pattern: edging from Haruni (linked above), the rest the usual triangular shawl method with added lace patterns
Notions: leftover triangular seed beads – if I ever find the package, I’ll update!
Ravelry link: Chicago Shawl

We’re talking alpaca. Add in a little silk and merino, just for the added luxury (Knit Picks Andean Silk), and you got yourself yarn to drop everything else for. Good thing I did, since I got this number done just in time for the snowstorms!

I knit the cable sideways together with a plain stockinette facing that got folded up inside, then picked up stitches in the round along the top edge and finished the crown. So not only does it have the extra thickness that cables bring, plus a smaller-than-suggested needle size, but a whole ‘nuther layer inside. Through two snowstorms and a cold snap, my ears haven’t felt a thing .

Between this, the alpaca scarf from the last post, and some alpaca fingerless gloves (with my hands kept in my pockets!), I’ve been so toasty I wonder why my cheeks are stinging. Hmmmm – balaclava next?

For anyone interested, I’ve also written up the pattern (up on my website here, or over on Ravelry here and Patternfish here). We can all be toasty together.

An unexpected trip to Gaspereau Valley Fibres left me with 2 skeins of “baby alpaca” (that was all that was listed on the hand-drawn shelf label, there were no ball bands). It was fingering weight, likely natural colours (since all they had were various shades of brown), and soooooo soft I couldn’t put it down when it was time to go.

Even though it was much lighter weight than called for, I wanted to try the Wayfarer Scarf by Jared Flood (of Brooklyn Tweed fame). I started by figuring out my gauge on appropriate sized needles and what stitch count would be needed to make a 7-8″ wide scarf. I got about 4″ in when I realized I was going to have a yarn shortage problem. So back to the calculator to figure out what I could manage… which turned out to be 6″ wide, and a stitch count that was… (dramatic pause) exactly what the pattern called for.

Turned out that the relatively loose gauge and alpaca yarn meant the thing stretches hugely long, which means I really could have gone for the wider, shorter scarf, but this way I didn’t need to fiddle with the design.

Even though I did anyway . I added a few more “swoops” once I found out that Jared only had one in there. With the alpaca yarn, blocking wasn’t going to be a problem.

Photographing dark brown in winter though… that’s a constant problem!

It is very cozy, and very warm, and lots of length to wrap around. I think DH and I are going to be fighting over this one!

Yosemite is a pattern in the Spring 2008 issue of Knitty, and has been on my queue ever since. I happened to have a two-toned ecru-tan 100% cotton yarn (reclaimed), which got mentally linked so much with this pattern, that I swore the pictures were in a similar colour (it’s green!).

In doing up the swatch, I knew there was going to be an issue with the lack of recovery – this yarn had no added stretchy-fibres, and was like twine to boot. In the swatch, the ribs didn’t pull in all that much. So I pulled out my old trick of “step down a size in stitch count, but do the lengths to the original size” to make up for the effectively larger gauge. Turns out that others found the top didn’t fit like the pictures if they used the sizing info given and needed to go down a size anyway.

I kept second-guessing the designer on this one. Really? Pick up one stitch per row for the placket? Isn’t that usually 3/4? Did a gauge swatch in the ribbing, measured the opening… ended up with one stitch per row . Got to the sleeves and found out she didn’t use short rows on the sleeve heads… decided in the end to follow the pattern as written and see how it turned out.

The only thing I did differently (besides the XS stitch count with the S lengths) was use a sewn tubular bind-off for the collar.

As I suspected, not necessarily the best design for someone who’s essentially a rectangle (there’s a reason there’s no straight-on shots: plain vertical stripes on a block…), at least not in 100% cotton with no recovery. And I do think I’d go for the short rows on the sleeve heads next time. But it’s already a jeans-and-T staple in my wardrobe, so there may very well be a next time!!

I think I would have pulled it off too, had I added more gathers along the waist seam rather than just what was needed for the bust shaping.

Still, pretty cute, eh?

1 mitten was almost done on the morning commute, the second one with 2 rounds on the thumb was done on the evening commute. Good thing I went to all that trouble – probably saved myself a whole 10 minutes this evening with proper tools .

I think my mom might have been onto something when she’d tell me I always did things the hard way .

I’m so happy to share this one. It started out as a gift certificate from my sister (is she awesome or what?), so I utterly splurged on some Handmaiden yarn – Swiss Mountain Sea Sock in a gorgeous olive-burgundy-turquoise colourway. It’s kind of a chameleon – subtle in dim light, then the silk becomes intense and shiny in the sunlight. It has amazing drape, only added to with the beads (too much of a good thing? I don’t think so!).

Pattern Details:

Odonata is the genus label for the dragonflies that inspired this design – the middle section has a stitch pattern reminiscent of scales, and the ends are lacy wings with beads adding even more sparkle to the silk.

This wide scarf uses one full skein of Swiss Mountain Sea Sock (440 yds/400 m) and is worked from the middle out (using a provisional cast-on) to have the stitch patterns in the same directions at the ends. Optional seed beads are added to the final 5 repeats of the lace pattern for extra sparkle, and the techniques section of the pattern has pictures showing how to add the beads. The shaping in the middle Scale Pattern is on the right side only, the Lace Pattern is worked on both sides. The final ends of the scarf are completed using a lace edging pattern worked sideways with beads on the tips.

Skills used: provisional cast-on, knitting and purling through the back loop and together with other stitches, 3 stitch decreases (sk2p, sp2p), yarn overs, working horizontal edging together with the main piece (“knitted on”).

A 5 page downloadable pdf pattern, includes written and charted instructions for all patterns, multiple pictures, and a step-by-step section on how to add beads.

$5 (USD) for the .PDF pattern