F.O. Ekua by Kirsten Kapur

Pattern:  Ekua aka TTL Mystery Sock 2017

Designer:  Kirsten Kapur

Yarn: Madelintosh Tosh Sock (100% merino)

Colourway:Button Jar Blue
Yarn: Sweet Georgia Yarns Tough Love Sock (80% merino 20% nylon)

Colourway:  Silver

Needles:  2.5mm

Ekua by Kirsten Kapur

Added Notes:  These socks were part of a mystery knit along where participants received different parts of the pattern weekly for a month.  I signed up for this KAL, not knowing what the sock pattern was going to look like.  I ended up spending many precious knitting hours on a pair of socks that I wasn't really enjoying knitting.  I am not a big fan of knitting cables, especially with fingering weight yarn.  Don't get me wrong, they are beautiful and fit me well, but I learned through this process that I enjoy knitting a simpler (and quicker) pair of socks, and that I don't really enjoy a mystery KAL.  I need to know what I am knitting.   How do you feel about complicated socks and MKALs?  

No sooner had I decided to stay away from MKALs then the amazing designer Joji Locatelli came out with her Mystery Wrap KAL.  Joji is one of my favourite designers so joining is very tempting.  However, the wrap requires five skeins of fingering weight yarn, which means it is a huge project.  Reluctantly, I have decided not to participate as I want to stay focused on knitting sweaters.  I am currently participating in the very popular Tops, Tanks and Tees Knitalong hosted by Very Shannon which runs from April 10 to May 8.  From Hannah Fettig's new book Texture I am knitting the Eventide Cardi. This cardigan is knit in pieces, and I think seaming is going to be easy, as the rows of seed stitch on the separate pieces will line up perfectly. 

Eventide Cardi by Hannah Fettig

I am really trying to stay focused on my sweater knitting goal. 
However, I find it very challenging given the number of new patterns that keep cropping up on Ravelry each week.  So many temptations!  Well I better get back to my Eventide Cardi...I only have about a week left. 

The Magic of Blocking

One of my favourite parts of knitting is blocking.  Blocking is a method of stretching and shaping a finished piece to reach the dimensions suggested in the pattern.  It also makes your stitches look and nicer and appear more even. Lace especially needs to be blocked to open up the design to show off all those lovely stitches.  

To demonstrate what I mean have a look at my Playground Shawl by Justyna Lorkowska knit in Caterpillargreen Yarns. This pattern alternates grey garter stitch rows with colour rows, knit in a easy to follow lace pattern.  It looked quite nice prior to blocking but a bit small.

Before

But then I blocked it.  The shawl grew after blocking and the lace just opened up and looked so much more attractive. Have a look:

After

Here's a few other shawls, that I knit, which really show off the magic of blocking:

Algiers by Kirsten Kapur:

Before

After

 And finally, Brickless by Martina Behm.

Before

After

I especially love blocking lace sweaters and cardigans.  I find that when I knit these kind of patterns I often worry that my F.O. is going to be too small.  But after blocking the lace opens up and size is no longer a concern.  For example, look at Lake Effect by Amy Miller:

Before

Look at the difference below!  The lace looked so much better and the size was just what I aiming for.

After

There are lots of great videos on how to block your knits.  I hope I convinced you to try it out if you have never attempted it before.  You won't be sorry.

I wonder what I can block next?

Algiers #2: Try and Try Again

It's so interesting how some patterns just seem to flow off the needles, every stitch falling into place easily.  Japan Sleeves by Joji Locatelli is a pattern that is doing that for me.  I am having so much fun knitting this pattern that I resent being tired and having to put the needles down to go to bed.  I just want to keep knitting.  I can't wait to see what's next.

Japan Sleeves in progress

Then there are those patterns, that for whatever reason, create a challenge from start to finish. This was the case for me when knitting a shawl for my lovely sister-in-law's birthday. I had planned to knit the shawl pattern, Algiers by Kirsten Kapur, a pattern that I had knit before.  I chose to knit it in Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in a beautiful colourway called Coquette.  To me it was the perfect combination of pattern, colour and yarn.  As I tried to knit this pattern during a very busy work month I ended up ripping it out three times. This was due mainly to losing focus on the lace pattern and making silly mistakes.  I gave up and tried a simpler pattern and still I was making errors.  I ripped that attempt out and once things started calming down on the work front I retried Algiers and this time was able to do it.  Lesson learned...stay away from knitting complicated patterns when you are busy elsewhere.


Despite all the frustration I am glad I persisted because I am very happy with how it turned out.

Coquette is a beautiful shade of pink with a very slight variegation which was hard to pick up on camera.  Luckily I had bought a couple skeins of this yarn because Tosh Merino Light does not like to be ripped out three times.  It became quite fuzzy and fortunately I had enough yarn that I did not have to reuse the yarn that been ripped out.  However, going forward, if I am going to do a complicated pattern again I think I would use another yarn.

As always I found blocking to be a miraculous thing, as the two pictures below show you before and after shots.  Tosh Merino Light really grows and blocks beautifully.  Despite my difficulties this is a well written pattern that creates a wonderful result.  There are both charts and written directions.  Don't let my adventures with this pattern prevent you from checking it out.

This shawl is in progress after I knit the third section

Post-blocking

Have a great week!  Hopefully things will start thawing out around here.  I am ready for spring.  How about you?

Through the Loops Mystery KAL

I took part in the Through the Loops Mystery KAL by Kirsten Kapur during the month of June.  Each week I received a part of the pattern, five clues in total.  Here is the finished shawl:

Ta-da

I can't tell you how happy I was with the whole process.  First the yarn...this was my first time using Black Trillium Fibres and it is so beautiful I cannot capture it on camera.   The colours seem to glow and the slight variegation in each skein was so pretty.  The yarn blocked beautifully.  I will definitely buy more of this yarn, there are just so many pretty colours to choose from.

The pattern:  I have been slowly working on improving my lace knitting skills.  This was the most challenging lace project I have done to date.  In fact if I had seen what the finished shawl looked like before starting it I might have shied away from doing it at all.  By getting a part of the pattern each week it made it feel manageable.  I was happy to discover that there were no tricky stitches and I solely used the charts (although written directions were provided).  For me the difficulty lay when I occasionally missed a yarn over, throwing off my stitch count.  I would then have to go back and figure out where I had gone wrong.  However, I quickly learned that using stitch markers throughout each row, to mark the repeated part of the pattern, was extremely helpful as well as putting in the occasional life line. The directions were very well written with enlarged charts to follow and the pattern was fun to knit.  I highly recommend it.  Look here to see the other finished shawls...each one is gorgeous.

Blocking:  Ahhhh the magic of blocking.  Look at this pattern completed before blocking:

Pre-blocking

Now look at it after...It was so much fun to block and see the magical transformation.  That's my favourite part of knitting.

After blocking

So if you are looking for a shawl pattern to knit this summer you can't go wrong with Kristin Kapur's design.