Either or Neither Shawl on Ravelry.com

By: Jennifer Biehl Knitwear

By: Jennifer Biehl Knitwear

Hey all.

I am about to prove that I am not above shameless self promotion.

My first contribution to Ravelry was posted on Thursday. If you'd like to take look I would greatly appreciate it.

Either or Neither Shawl

I had the Madelinetosh in Holi Festival that I wanted to use and I couldn't find a good pattern to show to pattern variation in the yarn, but have some visual interest.

So I created the Either or Neither Shawl.

Great for variegated yarns. A wonderful learner shawl. I am so excited to share it with the Ravelry community!



Happy Knitting.

By Jennifer Biehl KnitwearHappy Knitting.

Wait Untill Sheep and Wool

I like to make promises to myself. Rewards systems. Things to keep me going. Promises, plans, projects. They are all the same.

I like to organize my Ravelry queue within an inch of its life. I like to flip my "In Progress" to "Hibernating" if I plan to put a project down for  more than a couple of days. I catalogue all of my stash on Ravelry so when I am purchasing i can take a peak and see what color are missing from my collection.

Last year, during my latest move, I realized that I had over 4 boxes of yarn. For some of you that might not be very much, but for me, as I move few other year for the past 10 years, I like to keep things down to a minimum. I know, knitting isn't the most compact hobby, but I was enlightened enough to know last fall not to buy a spinning wheel.

So for the New Year 2015 I made myself a promise, I wasn't going to purchase anything until I could go to Maryland Sheep and Wool in the spring.

I broke this promise after being fascinated by Flat-Feet by Conjoined Creations and finding it on deep sale.

So then I was resolved not to purchase anything until May.

I became more excited each month, looking forward to funnel cakes and petting alpaca only to realize that one of my dear friends weekends was that weekend. So with the best reason ever, I wasn't able to go.

When I go on a trip or vacation, I try to purchase yarn that is specific to that location. After lunching between the ceremony and reception, some new friends suggested that I try a local yarn shop, only a few blocks away. In my friends hometown, I found the sweetest place.

If you are ever in Edwardsville, Il, you should stop by K1W2, I got an amazing skein of hand dyed fingering weight and I am so excited to have a new keepsake.

That's Continental

To knit with your left hand, thats quite continental.

Sorry, I couldn't really resist that one.

Anyway, I decided after talking with a friend last week that I wanted to start knitting Continental. It occurred to me that when I color work I struggled to maintain tension in my work and I think its because I usually just hold and wrap the yarn in my left hand as a I work.

I am left handed, so when I started really getting into the fiber arts a few years ago I started to crochet. With crochet left handers hold their yarn in their right hand the hook in the left. When I started to knit more often I learned knit English. I like this style but one of my goals for myself it so knit faster and also make my color work more consistent.

After my summer shawl project (that I am super happy with and turned out so lovely) I wanted to pick a simple color work project to work on my continental knitting.

I started with the Japan Cowl to test my continental skills. I've only been doing it for about an hour but as each row goes on my color work looks better and my ability to hold the yarn gets easier.

Everyone has a dirty little secret...

I have a dirty little secret.

While I have been knitting since I was a kid, but lets be real for a second. I have been knitting past garter stitch scarves for the past 5 years, I have never really questioned how I join my ends. I mean when you are continuously knitting with the same yarn, not a color change, but just one continuous color, I have never learned past looping over my old and new yarn and just weaving in the ends later.

The thought came to me while I was knitting my Seafoam Shawl that I never learned another way. All my past projects I have just waited until I got to a edge and changed skeins there or in the case of my first sweater that I am still working on, I was just planning to work the ends in later. Similar to this tutorial.

But it made me think the other day, in the case of the Big Boxy Sweater I am making that it might warp the fabric or be really obvious.  So I just searched for a way to join in ends.

For the rest of my sweater I am going to try the Russian Join. This tutorial was really helpful because I think that will be helpful with the fabric of the sweater. For my Seafoam Shawl I used a spit splice and despite it being a light fingering weight it had blended in pretty well.

Overall when I was searching for different techniques I came across this tutorial which is amazing. It has difference advice from yarn weights to fiber types and what might work best.

So its good to know that I am not wrong, but I always like to have a couple different ways to do anything.

Get the Stash Monkey Off My Back!

It's a kind of monkey on my back.

My ex-boyfriend for birthday present took me to a beautiful yarn store and told me to pick out a few skeins for a present. The first skien I chose was turned into one my favorite pairs of fingerless mitts. My first Madeline Tosh purchase and I use them almost every day.

The second has turned into the demon-seed-stash from hell. No matter what project I have tried, it always gets frogged out. It's partly due to the odd blend of mostly cotton but partly wool. 

These poor strands have been frogged out to many times. They have been a shawl, hat, banner (decorative for above my bed), wash cloths, mittens, and probably things i have already forgotten. 

I would like to think its the just the yarn and its odd fiber content but its most likely the odd connection between the yarn and I. And I just want to clarify, I have healed from this relationship, I am doing great. I am in a wonderful relationship with a great person who loves and supports me. But I think its this odd little piece of my life that I can't shake. Its a piece of my relationship with him that I haven't figured out. That last little bit of no matter how the relationship ended up that you can't let go because part of yourself will always care. The part that keeps onto the good memories.

But yesterday I think I finally found the best place for it. A cowl for one of my best friends.  Her birthday is next month and I think she will love the colors. Its a great way to breath new life into this dark corner. Light in the dark. To get this last little bit of lint out of my life.

I know she will love it.