". Arranged Words: nupps
Showing posts with label nupps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nupps. Show all posts

7 Oct 2017

Swallowtail Shawl


I recently finished the Swallowtail shawl. I love the ease of Evelyn Clark's clear and concise patterns. A definite must for a fun knit.  If you'd like to knit this shawl, the pattern is free, and can be found either on Evelyn's website or on Raverly.

Because of the two ply yarn and a small needle, 3.5mm, the shawl is small, but that's exactly what I wanted. For this shawl, I used Brooklyn Tweed's Vale. I was a little worried about 2 play yarn, but  this yarn has loft. What a lovely, soft yarn!

A few of you wondered about the nupps. They are a design element from Estonian lace knitting and do add special texture to a knitted garment.  In an earlier post, I mentioned that the nupps were difficult to pick up on the purl side, especially if, like me, you knit tight. This pattern had 5 strands to pick up, but you can also have 7 or 9.


Blocking 

 After a twenty minute bath in lukewarm soapy water and then on to a a good rinse, you roll the shawl in a towel and trod on it to squeeze out the excess water, and then it's on to the blocking mat.    Since I still don't own blocking wires, I thread yarn through the top loops, pull it tight and wrap it around t-pins on either side. It makes a nice straight edge. Because I am out of practice, I had to keep shifting the pins.

Details
I haven't decided what to knit next. There's so many stunning patterns to choose from, and that's part of the fun, beauty, and peaceful quality of knitting.  Hopefully, I'll decide soon; I really do miss knitting a few rows each night.

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends and to my family many miles away.
 xx


Enjoy the week...                      

      Cultivate your dreams.

19 Sept 2017

A few things

Hi everyone!

Painted by the best painter.

Crab Apples


 Time to harvest the lemon balm on the left that I grew from seed.  It makes lovely tea. My smiling bee buddy, a flea market find for a tuppence ~ 25 cents.

* * *
 
Finished the bookmarks that I had a pic of in the last post. This is the back.  Definitely a trial run because I had a problem with the laminating sheets. Overnight the backing fell off, so I attached     another sticky side to the back, but it was hard to cut out properly.  Obviously, a laminating machine would work better.

Darker ink would help too, I reckon. Perhaps a heavier 005 Micron pen instead of the finer point, or, better yet, a Rapidograph pen.  Black ink does show up better than my favourite blue. 
*Squinting eyes.*


A fit? Not sure but a lot of tea does go well with a good book.

 * * *



Shawl progress. . . finished the nupps section.  In a you tube video, I recently saw someone use a crochet hook to pick up the five stands of the nupp on the knit side. The pattern says to pick the nupps up on the purl side. I found that a smaller needle worked well for that.  For you knitters out there, in hindsight, if you haven't made nupps before, I am sure the crochet hook method on the knit side would have been easier.



 * * *

Slowly putting my container gardens to bed, although, luckily, there are thriving bright spots left.

Pretty Verbena

Impatiens

Elegant Fuchsias

Begonia. Absolutely love this colour!

Mixing paint to match the begonia. I think the pink is straight from the tube. It's difficult to see colour correctly, so an easier way is to fashion a cut out 1/2 inch and a 1 inch frame out of heavy paper to hold against the flower, or even a photograph so that you can isolate the colour. ( Not sure where I saw that, but it's from those who know.)




 

After I said that there wasn't a bird in sight, a flock of Starlings arrived to feast on seeds in the trees. I was trying to follow them and I missed so the video trails off in the end. Do forgive.

Have a lovely week...

Cultivate a Dream