Saturday, May 15, 2010

Free Pattern: Pythagoras Shawl




I have an FO and free pattern to share: a simple top-down triangle shawl named Pythagoras.



Pattern: Pythagoras Shawl
(A basic top-down reversible triangle shawl with 2 yarns)

Yarns
MC: Plymouth Yarns Outback Mohair in Rust - 1 skein (218 yards).
CC: Unknown fingering/light-sport weight silk blend in gold color purchased from thrift store. Any silky fingering or light-sport weight yarn will do, about 100 yards (or half the yardage of your MC). A good substitute: Celia by Adrienne Vittadini.

Needles etc.
Size 10 circular needles
Size 10/6.00 Crochet Hook for bind off

Pattern Instructions

Using mohair yarn, CO 7 stitches. Place markers on either side of center stitch. These stitches constitute the top-center of the shawl. I know this is weird, but it works, I promise.

You will work 4 rows with the mohair (MC) and 2 rows with the silk (CC), creating stripes with the bright silk yarn.

Work triangle as follows:

Row 1: K1, yo, k2, yo, slip marker (sl m), k1, sl m, yo, k2, yo, k1.
Row 2: Knit all stitches and slip markers as necessary.
Row 3: K1, yo, k until 1st marker, yo, sl m, k1, sl m, yo, k until 1 stitch before end of row, yo, k1.
Row 4 and all even rows: As row 2.
Rows 5-6: Using CC, work as rows 3-4.

Continue in this fashion until you have worked 15 CC stripes. Work 4 more rows in MC, then prepare to bind off. Using CC yarn and crochet hook, BO as follows:

Step 1: Insert hook into first loop on needle, single crochet (sc) 1, chain (ch) 1.
Step 2: Insert hook into next loop on needle, sc (pulling yarn through both loops on hook), ch 1.

Repeat step 2 until all sts are bound off. The extra chain stitch in between each single crochet creates a nice, loose edge. At the end of the BO, break yarn, pull through loop, and weave in the end. Break the MC yarn and weave that in, too. Done!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Air Blogging and an FO



This is officially the first Knitty Professors blog post from 30,000 feet.

I'm on Delta with their new Wifi service (that I paid out the nose for). Adrian is asleep on my chest, strapped into the Ergobaby carrier.

I'm headed to San Francisco to visit some friends, including raptwithfiber, who'll be picking me up from the airport. We're going to explore some yarn shops and I'll have some columns to write from out there.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Knittyprofs Featured in Oregonian

Peggy McMullen over at the Oregonian paper contacted me about their knitting blog.

(Wait, their local newspaper has a KNITTING blog? I want to move THERE.)

She wrote a nice post about the EZ Pi Shawls I've been knitting.

You can read it here.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Awesome: Green Knitting

A wind-powered scarf-knitting machine:

image

Although, people like knitting. A different approach would be to harness knitting energy to power other things. For example, as I’m knitting, I could also be charging my cell phone or laptop.

I don’t know why these things don’t exist everywhere all the time. I’ve been trying to convince my BF (a power engineer) to rig up a laptop charger that would be powered by an under-the-desk pedaler like this one:

image

Not only would you get in some extra exercise while stuck at your desk, but you’d be reducing your energy consumption. Who’s with me?

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Philosophical Question

Do you ever feel like everything you knit sucks? Like, everything you knit looks like something that would be on the TJ Maxx clearance rack, and as you flipped through the rack, you'd even be afraid to touch it lest its ugliness stick to your fingertips?

I'm knitting a lot of lace shawls right now because I can't seem to make a sweater that doesn't look like its ugliness is contagious.

But then, other times, I'll go a whole week and realize that I wore a hand-knit sweater every darn day. What is this weird split feeling I have toward knitting? How about knitzophrenia? (I hate it! It's ugly! It's awesome! I love it!)

Right. I'm totally nutters.