I love sunrises and sunsets.

I’d always imagined a gradient shawl that could convey this image.
This project actually goes back to being planned from the day I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool festival 2007 and decided to learn how to spin. I saw a way to actually create the shawl I imagined by picking out specific colors and spinning together.

Though I never actually found the colors over the years until 2014 when Steph of Loop! posted a Bullseye with sparkle bump that was exactly what I imagined.
I immediately jumped into the spinning without any planning, testing, or swatching. First mistake.
After spinning half the bump, I realized that I wasn’t spinning fine enough to ensure that I would have enough yarn to Navajo ply and make a full size shawl. So after weeks of spinning the beautiful singles, I spent months contemplating what to do.

In the end, I opted to do what I did for the Bamboo Multnoma Shawl that I made back in 2011.  I plied it with metallic thread.

Looking in my metallic thread stash, I had some nice gold and some rich red. So I proceeded to ply the yellow through orange with gold and the read through burgundy with red thread.

Of course this created a boucle like yarn since the thread is finer and there was nothing else in the mix to balance the yarn. Regardless, I plowed ahead because I was in love with that wound up yarn ball! I kept imagining what it would be like.

So October of 2014, I packed it in my suitcase on the way to our cruise in the Mediterranean and away we went – without a pattern and limited internet access. 🙁 (Second mistake)

But I was so excited! 2 whole weeks of cruising and a shawl to knit! So I pulled out my yarn and needles and just cast on the same way I had for the Multnomah and realizing how textured the yarn was that perhaps lace wouldn’t work. So for 2 weeks I worked on a top down triangular shawl in garter stitch. Still quite disappointed with my spinning, I kept going anyway because hey! it’s vacation knitting after all.

When I returned from the trip, I thought well, maybe I should include a few rows of garter lace once in a while. So I pulled out Myrna Steadman’s book and decided to do some lace. While looking at the book, I realized that I didn’t really want a triangle, it wouldn’t be like a sunrise, I wanted a circle and oh, BTW, Faroese shawls are more round, so I began moving the central YOs to be 20 stitch apart and started a diamond lace stitch.  (Third mistake, I probably should have frogged by now)

After doing the lace stitch for a while (now Dec 2014) I gave up on it.  Too much concentration, so I switched back to garter stitch and put it away for a long time.

After recovering from ankle surgery, I picked up knitting again, and I got back to this shawl.  I very quickly got board of knitting garter stitch and decided to create a lace pattern that were like “sun rays” and that’s how the last lace pattern came about.

Then by April 2016, I was getting dangerously close to running out of yarn and decided to start the edging.  A classic Estonian knit on edging seemed perfect to end the sun rays.  When the length of the edging was long enough, I skipped the rest of the rich pink and went right to the burgundy for a double stranded stretchy bind off.

Then here it is in it’s final blocking and done!

After a multi-year blogging hiatus while my time was filled with Let’s Knit2gether, my job, travel, commuting etc, I’m thinking about coming back to blogging.  Both here and CATsusch.com depending on what’s going on in my head.

For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been working on cotton dishcloths and 2 pairs of plain ribbed socks in Cascade Fixation.  Just some mindless knitting for while.

Tonight, I’m planning to block my Lightweight Einstien Jacket and I’ll take some pix for that.

Here’s a little gift for fans of Let’s Knit2gether:

supplies:

2 skeins La Boheme (I used a stardust colorway)

1 ball GGH soft kid

Size 15 needles

Size 8 needles

Using Size 15 needle cast on 5 stitches in La  Boheme.

Row 1:Slip 1 (as if to purl), Knit remainder of row

Row 2; Slip 1 (as if to purl) increase 1 stitch, Knit to last 2 stitches, increase  1 stitch, knit 1.

Follow these two rows until it’s the size you need or when you run out of yarn.  Bind off all stitches VERY Loosly (I’d do one of the stretchy bindoffs or use size 17 needle.

There should be a nice loop on the end of each row if you’ve slipped the first stitch. 

Using the Soft Kid and size 8 needles, pick up 2 stitches for every stitch all the way around the triangle. (work in the round)

Knit 5 rows

Next row Knit 1, M1 (increase) all the way around.

Knit 5 rows

Next row Knit 1, M1 (increase) all the way around.

Knit 5 rows,

Bind off with stretchy bindoff (see this episode for examples).

I know that you’re all probably asking “Where is CAT?”
Well I know I don’t blog much, but you can follow me on twitter, plurk and ravelry. Of course you can also find me at LetsKnit2gether!

I was listening to PixiePurl’s podcast 
this morning,(so glad to have you back!) and as I listened to her ask
“Has Ravelry killed the knitting blog?”  It dawned on me that I haven’t
blogged in months.   It’s not that I’m not involved and engaged with
the knitting community.  Now more than ever, I’m deeply involved.

So I began to reflect on what I used to blog for amd what am I doing now instead.

At
first, back in 2003, my blog was a place to share pictures of my
finished knitting projects to share with family and friends.  As I
realized other knitters were finding my blog, I began adding more
detail around the pictures becuase the readers commented and asked
about which yarn I used, etc.  So what has replaced that?  Well mostly
Ravelry, but not completely.  What Ravelry provided along with project
posting, was the groups, discussion on the things which I was working
on that others were working on too.  Ravelry also gave me the chance to
see possible projects that I might want to do by following firends who
liked to do what I do.  It didn’t however, give access to my familty to
see what I was doing, since they’re not knitters and they’re more
interested in keeping up with me, not only my knitting.  However, I
haven’t blogged in months and haven’t heard from them about it so maybe
they’re not really looking?  (If you are Mom, just leave a comment!)

At
one point in my blogging life, I started to blog about the knitting
community, my knitting life, later spinning and the process of that
experience.   I wrote about my knitting history and my familiy, as well
as my commuter knitting..  So what replaced that?  Well I guess our
video podcast Lets Knit2gether really did that.  I found a voice to speak to the knitting community about my personal stories and experiences and they
wrote me back with comments and emails! This had always been rare for
me to hear back from anyone on my blog, so I seemed to go where they
were, which apparently was not on my blog.  (If you’re lurking, leave a
comment and say “hi”!)

Then,
I used to blog just to keep people up to date on the progress I was
making on projects or the challenges I was having with my projects.
When I first started blogging, I used to think it was bad luck to post
pix of unfinished work because if something went wrong (see blue sweater) my blog would be a constant reminder of my failure.
Later on I found that I was able to deal with the failures in the hopes
that sharing my mistakes and mishaps with others could help them avoid
them. 
Now?  Well the podcast certainly has replaced that, as well as twitter and Plurk. 
Plurk has been especially useful for brief and quick updates to the
knitting community from my mobile on the road or when I’m not at my
computer.  I later discovered ping.fm which helped to keep twitter, plurk, facebook and my blog up to date with status.

So,
has Ravelry killed blogging for me?   I’d have to say “no”.  Advances
in technology, specifically Web 2.0, and how the knitting community has
adopted these tools has focused blogging on what is was originally
designed for:
A
journal and retrospective on your life and experiences.  No other
platform shows your history the way a blog does.  Just look at my first entry
in 2003 and see how I’ve evolved in 5 years.  There’s no other place
that you can discover the knitter I was and see how I became what I am
today.  So, I will continue blogging.  Will you?

Here are some recently finished projects to give you an update.



First the Morning Surf Scarf which the LetsKnit2gether Ravelers group did for August’s knitalong.  Below that is the finished Mystic Light Shawl Knitalong project

I have no intention of apologizing for not blogging for a while, since most know what I’ve been up to, especially if you’ve seen this:

I finished the Detonator socks, for Sock Wars III



Finished the felted bag for the KAL on Ravelry




Finished my Los Lobos Manos Crazy Monkey socks with my handspun yarn


Started a Clapotis



Got these beautiful roses from Eric for our anniversary:




I started spinning some 50/50 Romney/Lama which I bought at Rhinebeck ’07:



and I’m still knitting the Mystic Light Shawl, now half way through clue #4

Now that I’ve redone this shawl a few time, I’m finally making some progress with the Alchemy Bamboo.



I’m in the middle of clue# 2 (now 2 weeks behind!).  I’m far happier with the look of this yarn than the other. 
There was a point that I had to tink back because of a coat falling on it and loosing a few rows without a lifeline.
All better now.

I’m also finishing up spinning some Tussah silk to ply with the Qiviut.



Progress on the Rebecca’s Qiviut:

It only took two weeks to come to this, but I’ve finally decided to stop getting all worked up about the yarn for the Mystic Light Shawl KAL.

Here’s what happened:

I searched the internet far and wide to find a yarn that was the color of flame since the hint that Knitandknag gave was that the theme was fire.  Ooh how exciting! However, not knowing the construction of the shawl, I didn’t know whether a handpainted yarn would work or not.

So, finally, I picked out this beautiful, brilliant merino/tencel fingering weight from Ellen’s 1/2 Pint in the Blazing Sunshine Colorway and swatched it up a couple of weeks ago.  This yarn is super soft and shiny, so I was psyched about using it for a shawl.

Now, I knew it was a little stripey, but until I knew how the shawl was constructed or how wide it would be, I wasn’t sure whether it would be a problem to see the lace.  So when the first clue came out this past Thursday, I started knitting it and got to this point:

From the first clue, I could tell it was a triangle knit from the neck down. That’s when I knew it wasn’t going to work.  It was stripey and pooling. 

So, I began my search all over again! 

I looked at getting 3 shades of red MainLine yarn from Halcyon so that it would be more solid and I could graduate the colors.  Then I thought that wouldn’t work becuase I wouldn’t know when to change colors since each clue comes out once a week. I then considered blending yellow and red fiber (using my new drum carder) in varying degrees of color to go from yellow, orange, deep orange to red and spin that up.  I even considered spinning up this SpunkyEclectic silk in Sangria colorway which I had already started and to use that for the shawl.

Then common sense got the better of me and I realized that there was no way that I was going to have time to spin up a yarn (would have to be a 3 ply) for this shawl. (it took a week to come to my senses about this!)

That’s when I decided to just knit it in a red yarn which I had lying around in my stash. That was fine, I started swatching until (SPOILER ALERT) I received my Year of Lace project pattern and yarn yesterday in the mail.  Well it just happens to be RED! (no pix included so that anyone else on that KAL hasn’t received theirs yet)  Whatever would I do with two red shawls?

So that’s it! I am now going to knit with some Alchemy Bamboo which I’ve had in my stash since 2006 Stitches East.

It’s more like a burnt orange with very gradual color changes.  It will be lovely in the fall, which is probably about when I’ll finish it at the rate I’m going!!!

If anyone is interested, I’ll be in Hamburg, Germany April 7-9.  Contact me at CAT AT letsknit2gether.com if you want to meetup!