Did someone say "knitting?"

I know you're all here for the knitting, but first: I finished the first draft of Molten Trail, the third book in the Elemental Keys series, earlier this week. It's shortish -- just over 41,000 words. But I'm confident I'll be able to add another 5,000 or 6,000 words in my next pass, which will be happening here presently. In any case, we're still on track for a late September-ish release. More news as it happens -- maybe even next week.

In the meantime, I offer you a post filled with lovely knitted things.

Time sure flies when you're having fun. My last kniting post was in March, and here it is, late August. Summer isn't the best time to knit, and certainly not to knit with wool. But that's why the gods invented air conditioning, right?

These last five months have been all about shawls. I already have about 30 shawls and shawlettes, which is a little embarrassing to admit. I keep thinking I should stop making them. But then some lovely new skein of yarn catches my eye, or I see an intriguing pattern, and I'm off.

Speaking of intriguing patterns: Last time, I showed you the Level in progress. Here's what mine looks like, now that it's finished:

Copyright 2019 Lynne Cantwell

In this project, I learned the importance of using yarns with more or less the same heft. The copper yarn, it turns out, is a DK; the blue is fingering weight; and the speckled yarn is single-ply that's more of a light fingering. I found I had to duplicate-stitch over some of the places where the yarns met, as the slanted ends of the lines weren't as obvious as they were meant to be. The colors go well together, at least. (And isn't it impressive how this shawl coordinates with our circular rug?)

The next project falls into the "lovely skein of yarn caught my eye" category. There I was at my local yarn store, minding my own business, and this skein of fingering-weight yarn nailed me at the door. So I brought it home and looked for something to make with it. The Hitchhiker Beyond pattern won.

Copyright 2019 Lynne Cantwell

Unlike most shawl patterns where the detail is at the lower edge, this has straight lower edges and a sawtooth design along the top. It was fun and quick to knit -- all good things.

The pattern for the next one is called the Ridgeline. The designer is in British Columbia, and had the Canadian Rockies in mind when she created the pattern. But I had yarn in my stash in Southwestern colors, and the Rockies stretch into New Mexico, so I thought my color choice was justified. And I love the way it turned out.

Copyright 2019 Lynne Cantwell

Finally, we come to the Amulet. Now, alert hearth/myth readers know that I'm not a lace knitter. And I also never knit with black, except under extreme duress -- it's hard to see the stitches and makes what's supposed to be a fun hobby way less fun. But then I realized I could use a black shawl. Then somehow the black yarn I found (the colorway is called Raven - I can't imagine how that caught my eye) got paired with a skein of red yarn. And as long as I was going there, I figured I might as well go completely nuts and add beads, too. 

I finished knitting it a couple of weeks ago. But thanks to Molten Trail and life in general, I didn't get around to blocking it until yesterday. It doesn't go as well with the rug as the Level, but you win some, you lose some.

Copyright 2019 Lynne Cantwell

Earlier today, I pulled out the blocking wires and pins and put it on. Instantly, I was in love. I'm sure I'll find somewhere to wear it.

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The more I think about it, I think I may post an excerpt from the new book next week. 

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These moments of bloggy knitting have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

As promised: a knitting post.

Knitting, they say, is a great stress reliever. They often say this just before throwing their current work in progress across the room in frustration, but anyway.

Since we last chatted about knitting back in October, I've been flying through projects like the hounds of Hell were after me. I'm not sure why. I think it's partly because I've had weaving on my mind since taking that two-day workshop in November and would like to get the loom out again -- but I had several knitting projects queued up, with patterns and yarn purchased, that I wanted to finish first. Too, the queued projects all use wool yarns, and I'd like to finish them all in time to wear them before the weather gets warm again.

First up: a cardigan. The pattern is called Old Growth and it's in the Tin Can Knits pattern book that I bought in Colorado last summer. I loved the design as soon as I saw it -- the button bands are offset from the center front, which allows for a tree-shaped lace panel on the wider side. That panel, I knew, would not only look awesome, but would keep the boring torso portion of the sweater from being too tedious to knit. I even found buttons with a nubbly surface that looks like tree bark. Here's how it turned out:

Next, I resurrected a shawl project called Sepia. I don't typically have many UFOs (UnFinished Objects) lying around -- I tend to start one project and stick at it 'til it's done. But this one I started and put aside. The pattern calls for increases along the center ridge of the triangle and at either end -- pretty standard stuff -- but in this case, the designer used backwards-loop cast-ons for the increases, which are super easy to do but I'm not nuts about them. To make matters worse, you're supposed to pay attention to the slant of the loop -- so you'd twist the loop one way for right-leaning stitches and the other way for left-leaning stitches.

I ripped out and started over a couple of times, trying different increases, but in the end I gave in and did what the pattern said to do. Mostly. I also gave myself permission to not stress about whether I'd done the correct slant for each cast-on stitch. I'm sure a fair number of the increases are slanting the wrong way, but it doesn't seem to matter much.

My third project was another sweater -- a pullover called the Pavement. You start at the top and knit down in stockinette, in the round, except for garter stitch at the collar, cuffs, and bottom edge. There were short rows in the collar back and for the shirt-tail hem, which kept things interesting. In all, it was a surprisingly quick knit -- partly because I was rushing to finish it and shorted the sleeve length by an inch or two. Ah well. It looks fine with a turtleneck underneath.

I might pull out the garter stitch and lengthen the sleeves someday -- but not right now, because I've moved on to my fourth and final queued project. It's another shawl, called the Level, and it's my third Nancy Whitman pattern -- she designed the Eden Prairie and the High Street shawls that I've enjoyed knitting and wearing. This one has her characteristic blocks of color, but this time they're narrow lines on a plain background, with a lovely wide border.

I'm not very far into it yet, as you can see.

Eventually I'll have three copper-colored stripes and three blue ones. It's been going pretty fast, but the rows get progressively longer. And then I get to knit the border. Let's see, it's the beginning of March...spring will be here in two and a half weeks... Hmm. Well, at least I got the sweaters done in time to wear this winter.

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These moments of knitted blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.