The Elegant Elefant

Knitting, weaving and craft adventures, with a side of books

[theelegantelefant]

Happy holidays sale in the shop!

Want some shawls for holiday gifts? Or a treat for yourself? Come check out what is for sale at The Elegant Elefant! From today through the end of cyber Monday (Dec 1), enjoy 20% off all shawls in the shop using the coupon code HAPPYHOLIDAYS. Keep an eye out for more listings and fun sales all month!

Thanks for looking and enjoy your weekend!

A

[theelegantelefant]

Woven Wednesday-new shawls in the shop!

Happy day before Thanksgiving!

I finally have some photos of new shawls listed right now in my shop, The Elegant Elefant!

The first is this beauty. I am IN LOVE with her:

I used some magnificent STR lightweight yarn for the warp, and this beautiful purple tencel for the weft. The colors are magnificent in person, and I am hoping the camera captures them well

I really love what the purple tencel did for the colors. Its just beautiful. It deepens the pink, and makes the greens just glow!

You can buy this at my shop here.

Up next is a little lighter and less rich, but still just beautiful. Again, STR for the warp and silver tencel for the weft this, is more playful and fun!

This goes from a periwinkle blue to gold to pink and is delicate and fun

It actually makes me think of a clear autumn day. Blue skies, gold leaves, and some fun red maple trees adding brilliant color. 

This shawl is also listed at my shop and you can buy it here. 

Come check out the shawls! Need a holiday gift? These are ready to ship and beautiful accessories! Want something a little different? Contact me about custom scarves!

I am away from my loom this weekend (spending Thanksgiving with my mom) but I am hoping to have another shop update at the end of next week for more ready to ship shawls! Stay tuned!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Anna

[theelegantelefant]

FO- Brownstone and wine tasting

Hey all!

Happy almost Thanksgiving! I am so excited to have a couple lazy days of knitting in my future this week :) 

For today I FINALLY have some good pictures pictures of Brownstone in the wild. My partner D really resisted pictures of him wearing it, but he had to suck it up ;)

On Saturday we went to the SF vintners fair at Fort Mason, which is an incredible event. About 150 local winemakers cram into the festival pavilion at Fort Mason on the water and your ticket gives you unlimited (that's right UNLIMITED) wine tastings. They have one ever spring and fall. Last spring was my first time, and it was a little embarrassing to be honest. I apparently could not handle three straight hours of drinking wine. This time though, I kept it together :). Pro tip- pack a lot of snacks. I ate at least once an hour and drank water, neither of which I did last spring. It made for a much more enjoyable adventure.

Fort Mason being on the water on a beautiful Saturday also made some great FO pictures. I love this sweater. The yarn is a beautiful forest green from the sadly discontinued Cephalopod yarns, and I made the sweater a little more fitted than the model in the original Brownstone which I think looks just fantastic on D.

I have lots of notes on my ravelry page here and have talked about it a little in past blog entries. I made the collar shorter, and eliminated the button. I made it with less ease than recommended, and knit about an inch longer on the body and the sleeves. Overall I think its a fantastic sweater.

This weekend I made some progress on my Samantha which I think also is shaping up to be awesome. I am loving the cables.

Look for an update of shawls at my shop The Elegant Elefant in the next couple days. I will post a blog about it on Wednesday and list the scarves either tomorrow or Wednesday when I get some good lighting for pictures. Get ready- these scarves are beautiful!

Happy Monday!

A

[theelegantelefant]

Projects on a plane and custom weaving

I have been on east coast adventures! Well just one adventure....introducing my fiance to extended family in Jersey. It kept me busy and away from updating...but now I am back!

Turns out, you can accomplish a lot of knitting on two 6 hour plane flights. My goal had been to grade midterms, but I couldn't manage to do it with so little space (sorry kids). Now, knitting was hard in that amount of space also, but let's be honest....I really wanted to be knitting, not grading, so I made it work.

I spent most of the flying working on my Lady Rebecca, and I am just about done with the body!! Woo!!!

I love this cardigan. Its not my normal go to colors, but it has been such a great knit. Its quick and fun, with the rope cables adding JUST enough interest to keep me moving, but not too much that I can't read while knit, which is how I've been knitting lately. 

It's very hard to capture the color on my camera. Its not quite as green as it looks here, nor as blue as it looked in the last entry. It is mostly grey, with green undertones, and beautiful. I am slightly nervous that the buttonband seems to be bowing a little....it is definitely not as stretchy as the rest of the body. I'm hoping it will block out nicely. I knit the body about an inch longer than the pattern called for and added two more paired increases. Other than that though, I knit the pattern as is. Next up, the sleeves!

By the way, remember that polka dot boxy bag I sewed a while ago? I commented that was larger than I realized it would be? Turns out its perfect for the right sweater. 

On the plane I took a break from my cardigan to cast on another sweater (because why not), Samantha by Amy Miller. I wanted a comfy cabled sweater and Plucky Traveler Aran is the perfect comfy yarn. Its this luxurious merino, silk, yak blend that is SO NICE to knit with. I went out of my comfort zone with this one as well, picking a pink color called Bashful:

I managed to swatch and do the ribbing on the plane, although sadly I needed a needle size larger than what I brought, so the ribbing is all I accomplished. But I am excited to start!!!

I also went back and worked on an early WIP that hasn't gotten a lot of love lately. Have you guys seen those scrap sock yarn blankets?  I started one a couple years ago and have been slowly chugging away at it. A square here and there. Sometimes, like now, I rekindle my interest enough to do like ten squares. I think I am about at the 3/4 mark and I am going to try to force myself to finish it soon. If anything, then I can get rid of all those sock yarn minis I collected over the years

I must say, I love it. Its the big burst of color. This was a quick picture I took today while snapping photos of my WIPs, but next time I am going to spread the whole thing out to get a picture of all of it. 

I have some weaving to show as well, but they need to be washed and all that to see all the beauty so next time! Once they are washed they will be listed at The Elegant Elefant. Which brings me to custom woven shawls!

The holidays are coming, and since I really just posting scarves one at a time, I want to make custom scarves available as well for those who might be interested in holiday gifts! Contact me at my shop, The Elegant Elefant on what colors you would want and we can find the perfect yarn for you! Get custom orders to me before Thanksgiving, and I can easily have the scarves shipped to you by mid December, in time for the holidays! Or do you like some of the scarves I no longer have available, like the space dust rainbow? Or a more casual tan/blue scarf? We can repeat those!

I should also have a couple more listings ready in a week that will be ready to ship, so stay tuned!

Happy Friday!

A

[theelegantelefant]

WIP....Thursday?

Hello!

O man this has been one of those weeks. You know, the ones where you have so much to do, work like crazy, but still manage to fall behind anyway?

My advisor is out of town for the week and I am TA-ing for her. So what that meant was I became in charge of the class this week. I did the lecture Tuesday (my first ever lecture!) and ran review sessions for the midterm, finished the midterm and gave it to them today. While trying to finish up some science as well. Crazy.

So I started writing my usual WIP post yesterday morning, then got distracted. Tried again during the afternoon-interrupted for questions by a labmate. And then by the time I made it home around 9:30pm I was just tired. 

So here is it! A little late but still pretty good :) 

I made a ton of progress on the sleeves for my On The Grass!! 15 whole inches done in a week! Woo!!! 

Unfortunately still need five more. And for some reason these last inches are going by WAAAAAY more slowly that the first 15 went. So it looks like I won't quite finish in time to qualify for Joji's Fall KAL, which ends on the first (that's my fault though...gonna go out tonight and tomorrow for Halloween stuff!! :) ) 

Regardless of whether it is KAL eligible or not, I really really love it. This picture captures the colors much better, although still not perfect. The yarn is BEAUTIFUL. It has those rick colors that just make you happy to look at while knitting it. You know how that is? 

There is a bit of pooling on the left sleeve :/ I was reading my book while working on the sleeves so it took me awhile to notice. I started alternating skeins about halfway though and I think I am just going to leave it. We will see how it looks on. 

I have also made some great progress on my Lady Sunnyside! 

This one is so much fun. I love cables. I feel like it makes everything move so quickly. 

My favorite part (besides the already attached buttonband which I have raved about before) are the cables that line the raglan increases. It adds such a fun detail to the sweater

That pattern is so well written. I feel like this is going to be a great staple to my wardrobe...just something to grab and throw on with jeans!

Not a WIP, but I did finish weaving my Supernova scarf!!! On Sunday my craft friends came over for an afternoon of relaxed crafting that turned into an awesome 7 hours of relaxation, knitting and weaving (and a lot of New Girl) it was easily one of the most relaxing days I have had in a while.

I wasn't sure if I was going to love this one but I think it is amazing!! The colors are so pretty! Very different from my usual choices (I am a blue girl all the way)

This is woven with Three Irish Girls Adorn Sock (100% superwash Merino) as the warp and silver tencel as the weft. It is heading to my Etsy shop, The Elegant Elefant, so if you like it, come check it out!

Next up on the weaving agenda is this rainbow beauty. I can't wait to see it!

I also am going to sew up some project bags for next time!

Have a lovely (and safe) Halloween and I will see you next time!

A

[theelegantelefant]

WIP Wednesday-A case of castonitis

So I was hoping to be finished with my On the Grass this week. Last week, as I finished Brownstone, I thought (with hubris) "Well I'll just throw together those sleeves and I can post pictures of TWO sweaters next week!"

Throw together those sleeves....as if that ever happens

I am a fan of two at a time. Sleeves, mitts, socks, you name it. If I have to knit two, I am going to cast on both and figure it out. No matter how awkward it is (and if you have to alternate skeins on both sides it can get pretty awkward) I can't handle re-knitting something. I had a sock sit without a partner for almost a year before finally finishing the second sock. However, sometimes two at a time with sleeves just takes a while. And when the sleeves are 3-1 ribbing, they can take even longer cause if I am not paying attention I find myself accidentally falling into a 2-2 ribbing, or just purling for an inexplicable amount of time (how does that happen????)

So I only have three inches of sleeves done right now. Out of 20. Oof. But the sweater is pretty

Two nights ago I settled in to do some knitting. I pondered what to work on. I had the On the Grass sleeves to finish. Or I could work on my westloop shawl 

But I wasn't feeling sleeves (and definitely not sleeves with just ribbing). And then I knit one loong row of westloop and felt...eh. Not Westloop.

So what's a girl to do? 

Cast on a new project of course. And naturally a sweater. Thats the most logical step. 

So I finally cast on Lady Sunnyside . I am using Plucky Trusty in Manderley in the rope cable version. What is fun about this pattern, is you knit the buttonband WITH the sweater, so at the end you are pretty much finished. For someone who really doesn't like picking up stitches, especially when the goal is to get the same number on each side at the end (which almost never happens for me), this is a revelation. And it starts off so fun! You knit the back cable separately and then pick up stitches along it (can't get away from it, but at least it isn't too many :) ) 

This color is a chameleon. Dark and broody, under my lights at night (which isn't a great judge, since they seem to cast terrible lighting on all my projects) its a grey-green, but in the daytime you get more of the blue tone to it. These are not my colors at all- I like bright saturated colors, but I wanted something a little more neutral. I realized I don't have a good cardigan I can just grab and throw on no matter what brightly colored shirt I am wearing. But I cannot knit with just straight grey. It has to be grey with something else. And this color definitely fits the something else.

I finished the cable for the back and picked up stitches last night, however didn't manage to grab a good picture this morning. But just for good measure here is a terrible picture with my cat Aphasia cast as my knitting assistant.

Actually in this picture you can kinda see the grey/green look to the yarn.

Remember that bag I mentioned last time? Finally got good pictures

 I love this bag. It is from a pattern from So Chick called the No Guts Boxie Bag, designed so that the inside looks as nice as the outside. Which works beautifully. Although doing 8 boxy corners almost killed me. The fabric is from A Verb From Keeping Warm, in Oakland that has an amazing selection of fat quarters, which are perfect for these bags. 

This was originally meant to be the first bag added to my etsy shop The Elegant Elefant however when finished I noticed something sad-

The handle got twisted while I was sewing it up. I positioned it while the bag was turned inside out, pinned it and sewed it up. Then turned it right side out and there was my twisted handle. 

So no etsy shop for this guy. I do love it...I am sure I can find something to do with it. Or I may just chop the handle off. Who knows. So no boxy bags in my shop, but soon! I have lots more fabric to sew :) 

It holds my WIP Westloop at the moment :) 

That sums up all my projects right now. What are you working on?

A

ps. Here is a in progress shot of my next shawl for the shop, with Aphasia looking on. Until next time!

[theelegantelefant]

Sunday Funday

I turned yesterday into a craft marathon. I had the house to myself for a bit, so I let loose and took over the dining room table. 

First I finished my weaving. I called this scarf, Space Dust Rainbow. The warp is Socks that Rock Lightweight in Space Dust and the weft is gold tencel. And o gosh do I love this shawl.

The colors just flowed through the scarf beautifully....reds, golds, teals, light blue. The gold tencel really brings it out. And I love the drape of these scarves...they are so cozy.

The best part is, someone spotted the WIP on ravelry and noticed it was heading to my etsy shop, The Elegant Elefant. They contacted me asking whether the shawl could be preordered. I was ecstatic. This was so exciting for me! I am a process crafter, so really just the action of weaving, sewing or knitting satisfies me. I wanted the shop to be a place where I could sell those extra things that don't have an intended home yet so others may enjoy them. And someone wanted to buy something! I was thrilled.

This shawl is now winging its way to the lovely Raveler, and I have my first ever sale :) . It felt pretty cool.

I wanted to also set up another warp yesterday but got distracted so thats for tonight. I am going to pool a scarf using this yarn:

Its a little out of my own comfort zone, so it will also head over to the Etsy shop once completed :).

Last weekend I took a trip over to A Verb For Keeping Warm in Oakland to get a few fat quarters to sew a few more bags. I left with way more than a few. 

I love the fabrics they sell. They are so fun!! Yesterday, after finishing weaving and while the scarf was washed and dried I sewed up a smaller boxy bag with a new pattern.

Better picture to come when I get some good lighting but I love it!! I was going to send this one to the shop as well, but when I turned it out through the liner once completed I discovered I managed to somehow twist the handle in sewing, so it looks like this one I will keep. It fits a two (maaaaybe three) skein project perfectly, so I have it modeling my Westloop shawl at the moment. 

That sums up my Sunday. What did you do with yours?

A

[theelegantelefant]

Adventures with weaving

So I recently picked up weaving as a new craft. I had been thinking about it for a while and when I stumbled across a Schacht 20 inch flip loom on Ravelry for a great price, I jumped on it. And I am so glad I did!!! Weaving is so much fun and suddenly I can use all these single skeins of yarn that are just languishing in my stash.

My first scarf on the loom

I fell instantly in love with the pooled yarn technique in weaving. You take handpainted yarns (Socks that Rock yarns from Blue Moon Fiber Arts are PERFECT for this) and as you warp the loom, you line up the color change so they blend together. The results are just beautiful

So naturally, the first thing I did was make pooled scarves for gifts for everyone. It was so much fun

This one was for my mom

One of the biggest problems I had was how to weave with the 20 inch loom. I didn't own a stand, and its a lot to balance on your lap. My back was killing me from leaning over it and it was just too big. I could comfortably do it on the dining room table, but then I couldn't watch tv and was pretty isolated. 

I passively mentioned this to some friends I craft with. We jokingly started a craft guild, with all of us hanging out and watching tv and crafting on SOMETHING. I usually knit, but there are a variety of crafts occurring here- embroidery, mosaicing, felting etc. Its a fun time :). So the moment I say "I would love a stand for my loom but they are just too expensive" the group immediately starts plotting on how we could build one ourselves. And suddenly the very next week, we are measuring my loom, my couch, everything and driving over to home depot to get everything together.

Check out my fabulous stand!

4 pieces of wood, 4 brackets and a bunch of bolts and suddenly we have a stand. Seriously.  I was so very excited. We spent less than $40 on it and it is perfectly functional. Weaving suddenly got A LOT simpler.

It's not too portable like this, but I don't really like carrying around a 20inch loom anyways, so I am okay with that. It is perfect for sitting on the couch, or in a chair and watching TV while weaving. 

I instantly warped up a scarf I had been planning and finished it up in no time. 

I call this my Ocean Waves scarf. It looks like rippling water. I love the blues...a mix of teals and navy that blend into each other beautifully. 

This is also the first item in my brand new etsy shop, The Elegant Elefant. I am so excited about this!! I have always wanted to start one, just for fun, for my eclectic crafting adventures. I am hoping to fill it with beautiful woven shawls, and maybe some sewing projects as well (another project I want to tackle-sewing with my woven fabric)

Come check out the store! It's brand new (this is the only item at the moment) but I am working up a couple more scarves now and will hope to add more stuff by next week! 

Meanwhile...in knitting...

I finished Brownstone!! Sweater Curse I am coming for you!

I had D try it on before blocking and it already fit him well so I am so, so excited for him to be able to wear it. It is steadily cooling down in the bay so hopefully soon!

For myself, I am working on the sleeves to my On the Grass (will hopefully have FO pictures of both Brownstone and On the Grass next week) but I am also getting ready to cast on a cardigan for myself in more Plucky Trusty-

This is Manderley, a color based off of the book Rebecca. Its a moody grey, blue green color that is just BEAUTIFUL. I have so much trouble capturing this color on the camera but I am hoping to get more pictures this weekend, and a cast on shot. They are going to become a Lady Sunnyside. I realized I wanted a more standard cardigan I could just throw on and run out the door...so I am knitting one!

That's all for today...Happy Thursday!

A

[theelegantelefant]

WIP Wednesday- All of the cephalopods

I have a whole pile of projects that got abandoned during plucktember that I am DEFINITELY going to finish this month. The weather is cooling down finally, and at least one of these sweaters is for me. So I need to get knitting.

All of the yarn in these projects came from my favorite yarn company, Cephalopod Yarns, that sadly closed this summer :(  They had the most beautiful variegated yarns, and the most amazing rainbow colors.

Beautiful cephalopod yarn rainbows

I have the problem of being yarn monogamous- I find a company I love and I buy all my yarn from them. So I luckily have a fair amount of Cephalopod Yarn stash to keep me busy awhile.

Up first is my On the Grass pullover, another beautiful Joji pattern. This is knit in Cephalopod Yarns traveller, colorway The Forbidden Isles, a squishy DK yarn that was one of my favorite sweater yarns. 

Double seed stitch really makes the variegated yarns work.

I have made quite a few modifications to this pullover. I added short rows to the neck to make it a little deeper, and extended the twisted rib section to cover most of the top. 

An early picture of the top before joined in the round....Don't you love this yarn?

The pattern also had no waist shaping, and I decided to add some. About two inches from the armholes, A started paired decreases on both side seams, and repeated that every inch four times. Then knit straight two inches, then repeated that with paired increases. 

Then I knit until about 15 inches from the armhole, and about to do 2 inches of ribbing. Then just the sleeves! (yay?)

Up next we have a sweater for my partner. The first sweater I have knit for him. That's right, challenging the sweater curse. He proposed this summer, so I feel like it isn't so bad?

This one is Brownstone, another Brooklyn Tweed pattern (I love them), also knit in Cephalopod Yarns Traveller base, colorway Aokigahara.

Looks so unattractive without a collar 

This is meant to be a cozy pullover with a ribbed collar. Only a couple modifications to this one. The pullover is meant to be worn baggier with lots of ease, but dear D doesn't like that bagginess, so knitting it smaller. The collar also is deeper originally, but I liked the narrower look of the collar another Raveler used, so I am following her modifications, and started the collar later. 

I am currently working on the sleeves, two at a time in magic loop.

Ignore the headphones shoved into the couch

The other modification I made, was instead of knitting the sleeves first and attaching to the yoke, when I got to the yoke casting on provisional stitches and then finishing the yoke, coming back to the sleeves after. I regret that decision. I like the idea of being able to try on the sleeves, but picking up those provisional cast on stitches was a PAIN, and I can definitely see the line where I did it. Plus then I would be done with the sleeves :/. That being said I have about 9 inches knit of a total 18 inches, so chugging along. I would like to finish this before the weather cools so D can get some wear out of it.

  And finally, a shawl. A triangular shawl in fact. 

This is Westloop, by Stephen West, knit in Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga, a luxurious MCN fingering base. The two colors here are Knobby Cucumber (the pink) and Decorator Crab (the variegated) and I think they are so much fun. This one has been languishing on the needles while I battled sleeve island, but I will hopefully pick it up again soon. 

Another WIP, I am working on is chugging my way through the new David Mitchell book, Bone Clocks. This is a fantastic book. I was lucky to get myself on the library hold list early, so when it came out I got first dibs. 

It is another book of nested storylines, similar to Cloud Atlas, but not quite to the same magnitude. I love it. Its a little like a bunch of novellas, lightly connected together (although I am starting to sense the larger picture). All the stories are fascinating, and the way the tone and style of the writing shifts for each character is remarkable. More on this when I finish, hopefully soon.

Thats all I've got on the needles today! I am hoping to have an entry on all my weaving soon (when I actually get it going) so stay tuned :)

Happy Wednesday,

A

[theelegantelefant]

Craft-ventures..and a book sale

I took an impromptu three day weekend last weekend. One of my favorite september events is the SF Big Book Sale. It is put on by the San Francisco Library, and they pretty much take over the Fort Mason Pavilion with 500,000 books. Books everywhere. With a price of $2 a paperback and $3 for hardcovers, regardless of what book it is or what condition. So every year I stock up. You can try anything because for only $2 you aren't losing too much. And you are supporting the library. Win win :)

My first couple years at it, I went crazy. Tons of books. Now I am more reasonable. I only bought 12 books this time :)

My original plan was to go when it opened at 10, spend just an hour or so, then make it back to work by lunchtime to finish things up. That was a terrible plan. I stayed two and a half hours, hit traffic and made it back by 3. And ended up just working from home a couple hours. Kind of a lost day :)

Saturday though I accomplished a ton. Not work, mind you, but crafting that needed finishing. With only a few days left in Plucktember, I needed to finish my stuff.

Echoes of color came out BEAUTIFULLY. I love it. It blocked wonderfully, and is so soft. I can't get over how pretty it is

I took it off the blocking mats Saturday and promptly left it at a friend's house Sunday after watching football. I already miss it. 

Saturday also gave me a chance to sew buttons onto Levenwick. I have to say, I was concerned about the fit...it was hard to gauge how it was going to look.

It is perfect though!! The buttons completed everything. All the adjustments I made (described on my ravelry page here ) created a sweater that is the perfect fit for me. And the color. Guys, the color. Amazing. Such a fantastic blue.

If you can't tell by my glasses, earrings and flats, I love blue. Love it. And this is the best addition to my wardrobe. 

To complete what I decided was an all-day crafting affair on Saturday, I also sewed a large boxy project bag with some fat quarters I picked up last weekend from A Verb For Keeping Warm. I wanted to sew myself a larger project bag than I had before to actually fit sweater knitting.

The bag is so fun. I used contrasting blue fabric for the lining and handle, and then a teal zipper from Joann's

I used this tutorial on Skip to my Lou which was a great beginner tutorial. This was my first zipper!! I am really proud of this bag. It is a bit too large (of course) but a perfect start to what will be many more bags. I love sewing them. 

Peeking out of that bag is a WIP I will talk more about tomorrow. And soon I will be posting my weaving currently in progress as well as the stand some friends and I built for my loom. 

Happy Tuesday!

a

[theelegantelefant]

WIP Wednesday...and a first entry!

As I knit and weave and sew and read my way through my stash of fiber and books I wanted to create a place to share my projects and notes. I hope to make this blog a fun mixture of my knitwear, things I weave (while I learn to weave), the occasional sewing, spinning or dyeing project and maybe some book chat. And since I am a graduate student using my crafts as a relaxation tool, you may also get a little bit of science chat too. But hopefully not too much ;) 

This year I joined in on this fun adventure called "Plucktember". It is a challenge to knit as many things as possible in September using mostly Plucky yarns, through the Plucky Knitters group on Ravelry. I discovered Plucky yarns last February at Stitches West and have since collected some fun (albeit more expensive) yarns to knit with and I decided to take part!

I set myself two knitting goals for the month. An Echoes of Color shawl, by Joji Locatelli using three colors of Primo Sport and a Levenwick sweater by Gudron Johnston, a Brooklyn Tweed pattern (more on the awesome-ness of Brooklyn Tweed another time) with this MAGNIFICENT teal color in Trusty, a great worsted weight yarn. 

And though I thought for sure there was no way I can finish a sweater and a shawl in one month, it looks like I just may finish. 

The Echoes of Color shawl is in three colors I didn't think I liked together in the skein, but have found I LOVE knit up. Dandy Lion is the gold, Dress Code is the blue/slightly lavender color and a one hit wonder I found at Stitches West that reminds me of Lollipop Guild is the bright purple/pink color. I think its fascinating how the gold changes the tonality of the other two. In the skein, Dress code is much more purple-blue, however the purple completely vanishes next to the gold. I am now working my way through the looooooooong top border with 6 days left in September. The construction of this shawl is amazing and I love knitting Joji's patterns. I made some modifications for the sport weight yarn, since it's a heavier yarn than called for and I have less yardage. The original shawl has fringe down the side, which I omitted (I am not big on fringe anyways so not a huge loss) and I cast on about 30 fewer stitches and did one less repeat of the first stripe pattern. It looks like it is going to block out to a perfect size and I can't WAIT to finish it!! Tomorrow, the class I am TA-ing is watching a movie, and I am hoping to sit in the back and get a lot of knitting done.

The Levenwick is just amazing. I cannot wait to try this on. I did a bit of sizing mods to it, but overall I love the whole pattern. The collar, which some say flops a little I changed to a smaller size (I cast on about 16 less stitches) and knit on smaller needles than called for, and finally attached to the body using a three needle bind off. Hopefully that gives it a little most body.

I played with the increases and decreases as well to better fit my gauge. The row gauge on this pattern is very tight for a worsted weight, and I cannot seem to get close to it. So a few raglan adjustments. Overall the knitting went wonderfully fast and here it is, cast off and ends woven in last night, finally blocking:

Now all I need to go buy some buttons...what kind to buy?? 

Hopefully soon I will have some modeled shots :)

Have a lovely wednesday, 

a