Sunday, January 13, 2019

Shawling along...

I thought I'd have my Lace-Edged Poncho finished this week, but I got sidetracked by a pattern shared in a Shawl CAL on Our Happy CAL Place on Ravelry.    People were whipping out this fun striped shawl in no time and I decided I needed to give it a go.

Once you start making this thing, it's difficult to put it down.  So I kept going and had it finished over the course of three days: 
Pattern:  Cakes Two To Tango

To be completely honest, I'm not too sure about the colorway.  It's the color Spirit in Lion Brand Mandala yarn.  Made up in this shawl, I go from thinking it's pretty and interesting to thinking the bright turquoise color is just too much.

But the experience of working this pattern was a happy one and I may try it again with other yarn.  Mandala is a DK weight yarn and it made a nice weight shawl/scarf - even if the bright turquoise isn't exactly my thing - in winter, anyway.  

I don't know, though...  maybe if I had a dark gray coat (or maybe a coat in colbalt blue 😃), I'd love these colors.  See what I mean?  I keep flip-flopping.

I like the pattern, though.  And I think this would be a fun project made from individually selected colors along with a neutral color (as opposed to using self-striping yarns). Or maybe that's just me wanting to be more in control.  😉

Here's a picture showing it more "shawl-like":
I do love the picot edging

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And while the colors in my January/February Temperature Shawl are going to be all over the place (and also leave me little control), I'm enjoying this month (or two-month) long project:

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And lastly, my Lace-Edged Poncho got just a little love this week.  


I'm not real sure what I'm doing with the colors here.  I had some idea of doing graduated widths of each color as I progress down the shawl, but I didn't start out with a concrete plan so I'm not sure how this is going to end up.    I'm also considering not making the lace edging.   I don't know.  I like the concept of this short poncho.  But I may find I'm doing too much adapting of the pattern.  We'll see. I'll just keep crocheting and hopefully next week I'll be finished and will like it.

~~~~~

And now finally...  
with this post, my 2019 Stash-Down begins!

My goal this year is to use up 
100 skeins (or more) of my yarn stash.   
I'm happy to report 
I'm starting the year out strong:

2019 Yarn Stash-Down progress:  6.4/100 skeins

While I don't expect anyone to keep close tabs on my stash used vs projects made, for the sake of my own personal accountability I'd like to put down here that this week I ended up donating two skeins of yarn after trying it and not liking it.  I don't know how often that will happen, but I'm giving myself more encouragement to get rid of yarn I know I don't care for.  My "getting rid of" will be my gain - and hopefully someone else's.   Again, not that I expect anyone else to care, but I will probably make note of that kind of thing in YOP posts when it happens.

And this year, behind the scenes, I plan to be knitting more dishcloths to use up some of my kitchen cotton stash, and the yarn used for those will show up in the week's tally that the cloths are made in.  But I only plan to show those cloths (in one picture, most likely) in the last YOP post of the month.  

And that's it!

To see what other YOPers are up to, 





20 comments:

  1. All of your shawls are gorgeous, but the first is stunning - I love the colour - that blue ...

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  2. Personally, I think the bright turquoise is a great plus to the shawl. It gives it that umph it needs during the dreary winter months. Looking forward to seeing the end result of your poncho as you design it to your liking. The skeins out is already going well this year. DISHCLOTHS!!!! I need to get back to doing some more of those. They are my calming project and so nice and quick to do.

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    1. Okay... I'm back to liking it. :) Thank you, Marsha!

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  3. You have been busy Becki and I love the shawl and can see though how well it would be to play with different yarns and colours with it! Well done on the skein count and using up your cotton yarn on dishcloths sounds like a wonderful way to use up your stash.

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  4. Love that shawl! Another project for the que.... When you changed colours, did you just use another cake of the same colour way, but started with a different shade in the yarn? Did the two strands ever end up matching up anywhere?
    I love the blues, they are a nice contrast to January weather!

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    1. I probably should have explained, but I think the pattern does. I used two cakes of the same color. You alternate cakes (or skeins) every other row. And because both of my skeins were pretty identical, for me that meant starting once cake from the outside and one from the inside. I cut my yarn a couple of times, and I think it was because I was having some overlap (possibly the light and dark grays overlapped and I didn't feel like it provided enough contrast. I confess, I also added another (lighter) shade of gray from my stash. It's the gray color that is true gray. The grays in the Mandala, Spirit colorway are blue-toned. If I were just making a scarf for around my neck two Mandala cakes would be more than enough (and for a smaller person, two cakes would make a plenty large enough shawl), but I wanted to make mine as large as I could and didn't want to run out of the gray color for the edging. As it turned out I had left over mandala yarn, so adding another (different) skein was probably completely unnecessary. I think using contrasting colors would be fun. The only other Mandala colorway I have is Chimera, and I just didn't think the colors would work together. Who knows, though... it might have made a really interesting combination. Did you see that last week I gave you credit for inspiring me to make the Lace-Edged Poncho? I'm afraid mine will look very little like yours, but I loved yours so much I decided to make one. :)

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    2. Yes I did, and thank you very much. I used mine today at a sewing class and it was perfect. I think you will love it.

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  5. Love the colour as well. Another destash of 100 skeins?? How big is your stash?? Lol

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    1. Lol, indeed. If we all don't laugh at my predicament, I'd have to cry. My stash is too large. If you want to know the details, you'll have to go looking for the post where I revealed my discovery of how out of control my yarn hoard is. I'll give you a hint - it's somewhere in January, 2018.

      If you actually go and find that post, don't ask yourself how on earth could someone amass that much yarn? Ask you self what kind of genius is she that she could organize and store it in such a way that she had no idea it would take her the rest of her life to use it up? THAT is truly the question.

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    2. Oh I love this question as I was just thinking it, but love the response too. I may hunt down that post from Jan ‘18...it may help me curb my yarn buying...although it’s my fibre stash that has burst out of its storage boxes.may. You make me want to have another attempt at crocheting and learning to follow a pattern. If you can crochet a shawl in 3 days that is so pretty when knitting takes so much longer. I am not really a blue person but I very much like the shades on your shawl.

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    3. I’ve sold yarn on Facebook market place and marked it as sold on my Ravelry so that counts as destashing...so giving away or selling your yarn should count.

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  6. Personally I love the turquoise - it gives it life (if that makes any sense whatsoever!). Hmmmm - I see that there might be a quite interesting post dating back to January 2018 showing your stash....must go....

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  7. Love the questions about your stash! Honestly, I have a lot, too. Most of it is half done projects. I need to finish them. The first shawl is fabulous! Blue (any shade, but turquoise 1st) is my fav...and the name cakes 2 to tango is just super fun.

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  8. Solid outcome on that shawl. Great goal and good luck.

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  9. I always love all your projects. I started the Granny Triangular shawl for the CAL but the starting edge doesn't look as neat as yours. Do I know what I'm doing? No! But I'm too old to start every project over a zillion times to make it 'perfect' so I just "carry on". If I did that I would never have any finished objects! LOL! Yours always look perfect and I'm sure they are. I love the blue shawl and thank you for explaining it in the comments. I'm not a poncho gal but your color scheme is really pretty. You finished your shawl already...amazing....I'll be lucky if I finish by the end of the month. This Konmari method has me wanting to throw everything out! LOL!

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    1. Hmmm... I'm not sure where you mean it wasn't neat (at the beginning where there's a slight bit of a hump starting out, or all along the top edge)? One does carry the yarn and it has to be covered up to look good. The picot edging covered it perfectly. I block a lot of things (possibly most things), but honestly, I didn't even need to block this shawl - I was really surprised. Don't know if that's because of the yarn or the pattern. (Shrug) I only wish this was a rounded shawl (or that I could find a similar shawl that is rounded (instead of pointy in the back). I love the stitch pattern, but don't know that I want more triangular shawls. It's nice that a shawl like this can be worn as a scarf, though - it makes it more versatile.

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    2. Now that I think about it, I didn't like how the edge looked when I ended a row making 1dc, ch-1, 1 dc in the last chain space. So I ended up making 1 dc in the last chain space, ch-1, then 1 dc in the top of the last stitch. For some reason, starting each row making the 2 dc's in the first chain space didn't make for a wonky edge, but ending a row with 2 dc's in the last chain space did. This little change I made did produce a smoother edge. So glad I remembered that. I hope it helps if you ever decide to give it a go again, Sam.

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  10. The shawl is very pretty Becki, I like the colours!

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