The Sticks and Strings are Moving Along

I'm finally back to doing some knitting, picked it up over the weekend. My good friend Cindy, aka Baxterknits, has a new shawl pattern coming out, and I was jazzed when she asked me to proof-read it. I'm not so advanced a knitter that I can do much knitting in my head (my imagination is something else, lol!), so I cast on and zoomed along.

Like the other patterns from Baxterknits that I've done, this is a good design, more complicated-looking than it is to knit, and a good project for traveling or SnBs. It's essentially a 4-row pattern, which I found easier to knit from the written directions than the charts. This is also another of her patterns that can be done with those lovely one-skein-wonders we have in our stash. This yarn is Dream in Color's Smooshy sock yarn in Blue Lagoon, done on a US4 needle. The final version of the pattern should be available soon at Ravelry and Cindy's blog.

Last year Cindy authored a beginner's sock book for Leisure Arts, 'I Can't Believe I'm Knitting Socks', (it's part of a Leisure Arts series) and there are a lot of nice patterns and how-to's for newbie sock knitters. This year, she's done a book of kids' knitted designs, 'Lots of Love Knits for Kids; I haven't seen this one, but the cover is really cute! You may be able to find these at Michaels' and Jo-Ann's stores, which carry lots of pattern booklets from Leisure Arts.


I also made a lot of progress on my Woodland Shawl, the shawl for the Elves in the Ravelry 'One Shawl to Rule Them All' KAL. The group chose one knitted and one crocheted shawl for each of the Races of Middle Earth who were the Companions in the Lord of the Rings saga. This shawl is also being done in Smooshy, this one in Beach Fog. For some reason this immediately made me think of Galadriel, all sort of pale and misty.


The pattern is another really easy one, basically one 8-row repeat done twice, offset from the previous repeat, and the stitches on the wrong-side rows are knitted as presented. The edge is scalloped in the shape of the leaves in the pattern, and I think I'm going to block it this way, rather than trying to give it a straight edge. This one is also IMO easier to knit from the written directions.

This Smooshy yarn is really a joy to knit with, nicely sproingy and the colorways are subtle, with just hints of different colors, no striping or pooling.