Mona's Knitting Room

I made several faroese shawlettes for Christmas presents this year. The pattern was designed by Claudia at Countrywool and is very simple and yet elegant, especially when made with a luscious yarn like Mountain Colors Mountain Goat (55% mohair, 45% wool). The pattern calls for a single hank of yarn, which I knit with US #10.5 needles. When the knitting is complete, the garment is very small and lumpy and looks like a failure. After washing and blocking, though, it grows and smooths out very nicely. To block the wet garment, I used two blocking wires along the inside, neck edge, one on each side, and positioned them in a V shape. I then pinned along the wires to stretch this edge as much as possible. The remainder of the shawl I simply pushed into shape with my hands. Here's a picture of the finished shawlette:


Closeup of the design detail:


The pattern doesn't specify a specific cast on technique. With the first shawlette, I used a long tail cast on. I didn't realize in advance that the knit portion of the shawlette is reversible and so I didn't really like the cast on edge when the garment was completed. As a result, for the second shawlette I used a crochet cast on, which I really liked. I also modified the pattern slightly to perform a twisted slip stitch at the beginning of every row (with yarn in front, slip first stitch as if to purl; move yarn to back). The slip stitch edging combined with the crochet cast on made a nice chain border around the entire shawlette. Here's a closeup of the design modification:


Now that the holidays are over, I'd like to knit one of these for myself :)

I completed my Cape Ann Wee Gansey set just in time for the arrival of the intended recipient. Two very cute FOs (Finished Objects)!

I spent a few more hours on the sampler exercise today. I've now added a cardigan band, a sweatshirt pocket, several different methods of paired increases and decreases, and stripes of various patterns. One issue that Jackie doesn't address in her book is that the stripes don't align well when you knit in the round. I'm sure that there must be a trick to making the stripes align better and if I ever knit a striped sweater in the round, I'll have to learn it. Next is a fairisle exercise, of which I've finished one row. This is the most interesting of all so far as I'm learning how to hold one color in my left hand and the other in my right. The tensions aren't the same for the two hands but I can see that with practice, this could be a very fast technique. I'm glad I've taken the time to do this exercise.