Sound Barrier

I've been back at the quilt books again. This time the culprit is Blockbender Quilts, by Margaret Miller.

It is packed with knitable inspirations, and my imagination is full of the way diagonals seem to curve when a grid varies in size. The one that called the most is actually a piece of a larger quilt.

 

It made me think of breaking the sound barrier. How could I resist?

I've put together two of my available colorways (Sandy specials), but I didn't merge them because I want s clear difference, so I've kept them divided by a book.

And here's the start.

It looks like a scarf so far, doesn't it? That won't last.

2011 #6 Butterfly

Finished and blocked!

 

That's a yardstick, as usual, to show the size.

Why is it called Butterfly?

This was my solution to that odd place in the center top. I took two of the caterpillars in that one crazy yarn and fashioned this.

The top has a nice curve to it now, which will be perfect for keeping the shawl on one's shoulders.

Here are some other looks.

 

All the lace patterns were little bits and pieces from the Niebling book. The edge is very lacy, and I used size 17 needle and didn't compensate for the yarnovers, so that the size grew enough to be fluttery.

Then I bound off in dark purple and silver, for a dramatic finish.

I like this one a lot.

Still More Lace

Getting near the end.

I'm beginning to bring in the darker colors, shading towards the border.

I like the bits of silver running through it, like veins of metal in rock.

Heart of Lace

Here is current progress:

I'm still not sure if the top will block out straight, but a curve isn't a bad thing -- it helps keep a shawl on the shoulders.

I'm enjoying the pinks, since they aren't my usual palatte.

Lacy PinK

I've begun the next one, inspired by this book of Herbert Niebling's amazing lace patterns. (It's available at Schoolhouse Press and at Laci's, among others.)

I looked through the book for a square pattern, thinking I'd do half of it, breaking along the diagonal, and that would be a good start for the center top of a triangle shawl. I chose the one on p. 88-9, and worked it through row 24.

It bunched up more than I excepted, perhaps because the construction of this particular pattern had the increases coming in large amounts suddenly, instead of incrementally. I'm hoping it will block out and show itself more politely, but I'm ready to put some pom-poms or a knitted rose in the center if I have to.

Once I got the middle triangle done, I did my usual trick of putting in a textured row to set it off, in this case some of that yarn with catepillar pieces, and then began the various bands to expand the shape.

Here is the colorway I'm using. (Thank you, Sandy!)

 

You can just see on the right my bag of end pieces, which I collect to make magic balls or pom-poms. This one is getting full.

I love these colors!

2011 #5 The Unnamed One

Finished and blocked.

I don't have a name for this one. I used the same colorway as my previous one, and it always amuses me how different the same colorway can look.

As usual, here are some closer looks.

I made 4 scarves on my recent trip, but only two made it home -- the others were claimed by relatives.

Here are the two survivors.

Progress

Slowly but surely, the shawl grows.

 

Or else we get littler.

Or maybe we have vision like eagles.

Zig! Zag!

I was interested in the Summit Shawl in Knitty because it looks so unusual, so I cast on just to see how it worked. It is an interesting idea, but it didn't turn out to be so interesting to knit -- too many short strips for my taste. So I didn't get too far, and ended up just ripping it out. Life is too short to knit something that isn't intriguing.

If you look at the picture, the pattern is worked from right to left, vertically, end to end, however you want to say it. I wondered if it couldn't be knit bottom to top, horizontally.

This scarf is my proof-of-principle attempt, done on large needles with one of my magic balls.

I certainly managed the general shape! I didn't try to copy the exact look, since I wanted a scarf and wanted it quick. I did it in garter instead of stockinette so it would be reversible, and I only did a few ridges between the interesting rows.

Here is a closer look.

 

Essentially, I case on a multiple of 18, and then knit several ridges. Then I knit 6, wrapping each stitch twice, cast off six, knit 6 double-wrapped stitches, cast on 6 stitches, repeat from the beginning. On the next row, drop the extra wraps so you have long stitches, and then knit several more ridges.

It worked fine, except I should have realized that it would grow at the ends, so on the second wrapping row, I had to start and end with 12 wrapped stitches, and on the third, I had 18 wrapped stitches. That actually worked out for a scarf, but it was something to keep in mind.

Because of using the magic balls, each end looked a bit different, but the scarf is so long that the gradual color change doesn't really show up very well.

Here are the two ends so you can see the difference.

A nice diversion, and I think I'll try it again, maybe just wrapping one extra time instead of two.