Sock-Yarn Shawls KAL

Now that the book is out and people are getting into their hands, I am happy to report that the Sock-Yarn Shawls KAL will be starting soon on Ravelry! Woot!

Here are the details:

START DATE: Feb 11, 2013
END DATE: March 22, 2013

Pick a shawl, knit it, tag it, post a finished pic in the finished pic thread in my Ravelry group before March 22, be entered to win prizes. It’s that easy!

Tag your projects with the tag SOCKYARNSHAWLSKAL on Ravelry so everyone can check out all the awesome shawls being knit during the KAL!

I'll be knitting a Timpani Shawl. I haven't decided on the yarn just yet, but I know that's the pattern I'll be knitting during the KAL!

You can check out the chatter thread or the details thread in the Jen Lucas Designs group for the the latest KAL news. Hope you can join us!

Inked.

I was on Pinterest today, looking at knitting tattoos as I like to do, and I suddenly remembered that I never showed off my new knitting tattoo to the blog!

So, back in October, after almost five years of thinking about it, I went and got my very first tattoo. Knitting related, of course. 

 

My friend, Pam, has a son who is a tattoo artist. Pam is a knitter and crocheter, so I thought her son would have at least some idea what a proper yarn ball looks like. :) I think he nailed it.

Three months later and there are no regrets with this tattoo. I think I love it more now. Not gonna lie, I have started thinking about a second fiber-related one. It will probably take me another five years to work up the nerve to do it.

Just a little bit nerdy.

Last week on Ravelry, the hot right now pattern was the My Year in Temperatures Scarf by Kristin Cooper. It's what she calls a conceptual knitting pattern. So you can pretty much do whatever you want with your scarf, the point is to assign yarn colors to temperatures and knit 2 rows for each day of the year.

I thought this was kind of a cool idea, and I like things like data and spreadsheets, so I thought I'd give it a go. I decided on ordering some Knit Picks Comfy Worsted for the project and it arrived yesterday, so yesterday I played catch up and started on my scarf. I knit through the high temp on January 8th.

I am knitting mine in a garter stitch chevron pattern because I love garter stitch and I love chevrons, so why not? :) I cast on 48 sts and away I went. My plan is to add four rows of ivory at the end of each month.

Here is the rainbow I chose for my scarf:

Living in Chicagoland, you see pretty much all temperatures here. So, maybe it will look like clown barf by the end of the year, or maybe it will look awesome. Either way, it seems like a fun little project to work on throughout the year. I'm going to try to knit on it once a week so I don't get too far behind. I'll of course post the progress of the scarf on the blog (maybe one a month or every other month), but you can keep up with it on my Ravelry project page too.

Some Mindless Knitting....

As I have been trying to submit my designs to more places lately (like print and online mags, other people's books, etc.), I have been swamped in the land of swatches and various deadline knitting. I mostly like doing these things, but at some point in the process, I just want to knit something kinda mindless, for myself, with no deadline.

So I cast on for a mindless garter stitch shawl thingy.

I am using Anzula Cloud and, as always, I am in love. So squooshy!

My plan for the shawl is to work a garter stitch body and then try a knitted on lace border. If it turns out like I think it will, I'll have a new design for publishing in the near future. :)

Happy knitting!