A new free pattern: Wrapped in Clouds Shawl/Scarf v1

Today I have a new pattern for all my knitters out there. It's a very simple pattern that creates a gorgeous, warm shawl, just in time for the cold weather. I actually finished this last year but only got the chance to write it up and put it up now. Here it is, the "Wrapped in Clouds Shawl/Scarf". Thanks to my friend Johanna P. for modeling this at work about a year ago!! The pattern has also been added to Ravelry here.

 Wrapped in Clouds Shawl/Scarf

A friend of mine saw a shawl similar to this somewhere and asked me to recreate it. I did my best to imitate the look of the shawl, but I cannot for sure say that it’s the same shawl. I thought I’d share the pattern with anyone who might be interested in a light but warm shawl made by striping thin cotton yarn with bulky single ply wool yarn. Because of the lightness of the bulky wool, this shawl can also be worn as a scarf by wrapping it around your neck. The finished product is classy and elegant for very little work.

Finished Size
12 inches x 60 inches

Yarn
DROPS Eskimo (100% wool; 54 yd [50m]/50g): #01 Off White, 6 skeins (MC)
Aunt Lydia’s Fashion Crochet Size 3 (150yds) White & Ecru, 1-2 balls(CC)

Needles
US 13 (10mm) circular needle (at least 24 inches)

Gauge
8 stitches and 11 rows = 10cm/4 inches
Adjust needle size to obtain gauge. Gauge is not terribly important so if you want a loftier shawl, go up to a US #15 needle.

Notions
Tapestry needle
Crochet hook I (5.50mm)






 
Instructions
Cast on 40 stitches or any number of stitches to give you width with the MC, and knit 4 rows.
r1: Knit across with MC.
r2: Slide the stitches to the other side of the row and knit across using the CC.
r3: Purl across using the MC.
r4: Slide the stitches across and purl across using the CC.

Note: Please make sure to carry along the non-working yarn when knitting each row, to keep the edge wrapped up and neat.

Keep knitting in this manner until the shawl is almost as long as you want it, ending with a purl row in the CC. Knit 4 rows with the MC and bind off loosely with MC.

Finishing
With MC, make a single crochet edging all around the shawl to neaten the edges. Weave in ends, soak the shawl and block.

A beautiful gift

My friend Irene from LivedStories, who has been my photographer extraordinaire, had her son 12 days ago. She had a very difficult pregnancy, and so we are all relieved and grateful that the baby is here and healthy, and she is also doing well and recovering fast. The hat the baby was given at the hospital was too big for his head, so of course I had to whip up a little something for my little cutie. Since the baby is small, I looked for a preemie hat pattern on Ravelry and settled on Preemie Hats for Charity by Carissa Browning. The pattern calls for sportweight yarn. I had some leftover acrylic sportweight yarn, and KnitPicks Swish DK yarn in Nutmeg colorway, so I used these two to make the striped hat. Here in a few pictures, is the hat I made for this little gift from God.

Since I just recently perfected my pompom-making skills, I topped off the hat with a small pompom. Yay for pompoms! 

I will be back later in the week with some new scarves in my Etsy shop. Till then, happy Monday and enjoy the week!

2nd Giveaway Shawl Completed - Snow Drops and Snap Peas in Green

I finished a 2nd giveaway shawl!! Woohoo! Those late nights are really paying off. Here is the the Snow Drops and Snap Peas shawl by Kirsten Kapur in the original Quince & Co Chickadee yarn Snap Peas colorway for Anjali. It took me a little while to finish this one as I had to deal with about 400 stitches getting to the end of this shawl. However it's done and blocked and all ready to set sail to Anjali's house. Enjoy the pictures, and many thanks to my friend Josie for agreeing to an impromptu photo shoot.

Anjali, please send me your mailing address at niseyknits@gmail.com, so I can get this package in the mail for you. See you all later and enjoy the rest of your week!

Lime Green Goodness

div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"Happy Monday everyone! I have a new scarf in my Etsy shop. It's a lovely Lime Green chunky weight scarf that will definitely keep you warm during this coming cold season. Buy it for yourself, or give it as a gift to a dear friend. They'll love you for it. A special thanks to my dear friend Josie for letting me arm twist her into being my model for this week's posts. Check out the scarfnbsp;a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/84039239/lime-green-super-thick-and-extra-long"here/a, and have a great week!br /br /a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z02vjB0HYc4/TpvQEypADdI/AAAAAAAAAL8/5tVFwlq4_bc/s1600/DSCN0877.JPG"img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z02vjB0HYc4/TpvQEypADdI/AAAAAAAAAL8/5tVFwlq4_bc/s400/DSCN0877.JPG" //a /divbr /br /div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sBa7eGEwC6o/TpvQEzvLuLI/AAAAAAAAAME/Jd3wQt0DQGQ/s1600/DSCN0886.JPG"img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sBa7eGEwC6o/TpvQEzvLuLI/AAAAAAAAAME/Jd3wQt0DQGQ/s400/DSCN0886.JPG" //a /divbr /br /div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9GbDSrwePAI/TpvQFC5P-KI/AAAAAAAAAMM/oZBRN8bSY_Y/s1600/DSCN0894.JPG"img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9GbDSrwePAI/TpvQFC5P-KI/AAAAAAAAAMM/oZBRN8bSY_Y/s400/DSCN0894.JPG" //a /divbr /br /div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KeW7umOF90o/TpvQFKv10qI/AAAAAAAAAMg/WCtpMSiSceg/s1600/DSCN0899.JPG"img alt="" border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KeW7umOF90o/TpvQFKv10qI/AAAAAAAAAMg/WCtpMSiSceg/s400/DSCN0899.JPG" //a /divbr /br /div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RDI05CZCvDc/TpvQFxSnHyI/AAAAAAAAAMs/jn0ZKpG4wsw/s1600/DSCN0901.JPG"img alt="" border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RDI05CZCvDc/TpvQFxSnHyI/AAAAAAAAAMs/jn0ZKpG4wsw/s400/DSCN0901.JPG" //a /divdiv style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;"a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" //a/div

Lime Green Goodness

Happy Monday everyone! I have a new scarf in my Etsy shop. It's a lovely Lime Green chunky weight scarf that will definitely keep you warm during this coming cold season. Buy it for yourself, or give it as a gift to a dear friend. They'll love you for it. A special thanks to my dear friend Josie for letting me arm twist her into being my model for this week's posts. Check out the scarf here, and have a great week!

1st Finished Giveaway Shawl - Sunset Moody Kerchief

This shawl was a joy to knit, and so quick to finish too. It's the Moody Kerchief pattern by Kirsten Kapur, and the finished shawl is for Veronica. Veronica wanted the shawl colors to mirror those of the Sunset Multidirectional Scarf (see picture below).

To do this, I used KnitPicks Palette yarn in Sweet Potato, Orange and Serrano colorways.

I held the yarns doubled, and mixed the colors as I went along to give a gradual color change effect. Here's how I worked it:
1st section : Sweet Potato Colorway
2nd section: Sweet potato and orange colorways
3rd section: Orange colorway
4th section: Orange and Serrano colorways
5th section (Border) : Serrano colorway

What can I say about the pattern? Easy, quick and addictive. I finished this shawl in just over a week, and took the pictures this past Sunday. I'm as usual very grateful to my lovely, gorgeous model, Zeina Newman. :) As for the finished product, I loved it so much I felt a wee bit jealous that Veronica gets to have the shawl. I just might knit one for myself.

Veronica, please send me your mailing address at niseyknits@gmail.com, so I can mail this little bundle of gorgeousness to you. I hope it keeps you warm during this coming fall and winter seasons.

The Red mobius cowl as promised

Sorry this took so long to put up. I wasn't able to take the pictures at all last week due to bad weather. But here is the red version of the mobius cowl as I promised in last Wednesday's blog. Isn't the model just fabulous? Anyway this is a quick blog post just so you could see how the red mobius turned out. The cowl is up for sale in my etsy store here. See you on Wednesday when I share with you the first finished project from the giveaway shawls. It's just gorgeous, if I may say so myself!

And we have a winner!!

The winner of the Claret Mobius cowl is Ethelind Belle!

 Ethelind, please email me: niseyknits@gmail.com with your mailing info and I'll send you the cowl right away! I hope you get a lot of use form it this winter.

Thank you to all of you who played along in this giveaway. I just finished a red mobius cowl if you are still interested in one. I'll put up picture of that red cowl as soon as possible. We've had a bit of rainy weather here in the Bay Area so I haven't had the chance to take photos of the new things I knit.  HOWEVER, since I can't leave you pictureless, I'll add a few pictures of a new cowl/infinity scarf I finished for a custom order.

I'm taking orders for Christmas gifts and winter accessories, so please get your orders in as soon as possible so I can have them ready in time for the cold season. Look out for pictures of the red mobius tomorrow. :) 

Update on the giveaway shawls

I hope everyone got the chance to enter into the recent Moebius cowl giveaway. You still have till 11:59pm PST today to enter, so just leave a comment on that blog post, follow my blog, like my Facebook page, or favorite my Etsy shop. So easy, no? :)

For this week's post, I wanted to give you a quick update on the giveaway shawls. I'm almost done with Shawl #1, the Snow Drops and Snap Peas shawl by Kirsten Kapur in the original Quince & Co Chickadee yarn Snap Peas colorway for Anjali. Here are a few progress pictures of the shawl.

I also cast on Shawl #2 last night, the sunset version of the Moody Kerchief also by Kirsten Kapur. I'm knitting this shawl in KnitPicks Palette, using the Sweet Potato, Orange and Serrano colorways to create a sunset-like effect. I hope it works. :) This shawl is for Veronica.

Giveaway - My first mobius cowl

Making a mobius ring in knitting has always seemed mysterious to me. It's one of those design elements I felt was easy to do when it wasn't your intention to do so. In almost every pattern that requires knitting in the round, the designer always adds the warning "join in the round, being careful not to twist the stitches" (or something to that effect). In the mobius cowl, however, this twisting is actually encouraged! Once this twist is made, there is no way of untwisting it without unraveling the whole knitted item.

For my foray into the world of mobius knitting, I chose the Mobius Cowl pattern by Bernat. It's a free pattern on the Bernat website. I didn't have any Bernat Roving, the yarn the pattern was designed with, in my stash. I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick in the Claret colorway, using US #13 circular needles. My version of this cowl has two twists instead of one, making it more cushy.

The stitch pattern called for in this pattern was the brioche stitch. I therefore got to do two new things while working on this cowl. Brioche is also pretty easy, and using this bulky yarn, the cowl worked up very quickly. 

I'm holding a giveaway to give this cowl away to one of my subscribers. How do you enter you ask? Let me tell you. You can:
1. Leave a comment on this blog post on how you'll wear this cowl (how you'll put together an outfit with this cowl) and subscribe to my blog (pretty please :) ) OR

2. Follow me on twitter (@niseyknits) and leave a comment on there on how you'll wear this cowl or what you'll do with it OR

3. Visit my etsy shop and favorite the shop/an item in the shop OR

4. Join my Facebook fan page and leave a comment on there on how you'll wear this cowl or what you'll do with it.

The winner will be chosen by a random number generator. This giveaway will end next week Wednesday, Sept 28th 2011.

Remember that until the end of September, you can receive 20% off your order by using the code HAPPYBIRTHDAY20! Have a wonderful rest of the week!