Saturday 23 July 2016

Chunky Lace Capelet - Design SB168

With the wedding season upon us, and in hopes of increasing sales, I decided to return to a really quick knit that is really pretty as well, that is in a much lower price range than many of intricate shawls.  I bought in some yarn in the right thickness and quantities and got knitting.  They are all the same design, in the same size, and I made them one after the other so will just put them all in the same blog post.  They are all made from Twilley's Freedom Super Bulky 100% wool, which is a single ply yarn, except for the green one which is made from Rowan Amy Butler Sweet Harmony which is 100% merino wool, which is a chainette ply yarn and is a discontinued yarn.

Beginning on 26th April 2016, the first one I made was in Pearl, an off-white and I made a few in this colour.  I didn't take any work-in-progress photos other than the Pearl shawl and the Blossom shawl.


I started off by making these in pearl and they have a natural light coloured wooden toggle button fastening.


 On 10th May I started knitting a black version, which has black wooden toggle button fastening. 


I began making 2 green ones on 28th April, these are the ones made with Rowan Sweet Harmony and they have a green wooden toggle button fastening.


I also made two in shade Bluebell on 12th May, which was a discontinued colour when I bought it.  I mixed up some of my eldest daughters artists acrylic paint and painted the wooden toggles to match the shawl.


 Onto garnet next and I made this on 13th May, painting the toggle button to match.



. Fuchsia pink next, on 16th May, again with painted toggle button fastening.


I had a little break whilst I done other things and then came back and made some more.  All the blues are muted tones, so on 18th July I made one in Misty Morning and one in Moonlight, again painting the buttons to match. 



On 19th July I made one of these shawl in Blossom, a baby pink and painted the buttons to match.


Next up was one in a very dark pink called Vintage Rose and one in Ice Blue, both on 20th July, again with painted buttons to match.



The final one of these that I had the supplies to make was in Amethyst and I made it on 21st July 2016, again painting the buttons to match.



The photo below shows some of the buttons on plastic chopsticks, the perfect thing for popping the buttons on and holding whilst you paint them so you get a nice smooth finish, having being painted they are then stud in clean empty jars to dry.  The once dry the colour was checked again against the knitted item.  They were usually given at least two coats of paint and then finished off with a clear varnish to seal the paint so that it can't rub or wash off.  The coat of varnish has made the buttons a little bit darker but they still match with the shawl.




Friday 15 July 2016

Clusters of Bronze - Design LF427

Hot the heels of the last Twilley's Goldfingering 1970's fringed shawl comes another one in a different design, also designed by Twilley's back in the day.  I managed to get my hands on 24 reels of vintage Goldfingering in a bronze colour and decided to make one of the other designs in the pattern book that requires a larger number of reels of one colour than the tri-coloured motif shawl.


This design is also made up using motifs that are also joined as you go.  Instructions were not full and clear on how to work the corner joins and this took several attempts to figure out the best way to do them for the nicest result and its quite pretty already.  Starting on 20th June, I was finished by 14th July 2016.


Before and after pictures of blocking.



This shawl is huge, on me at least as I am only 5'4", but is stunningly beautiful.