Sing Me a Song of a Finished Skye Boat Shawl

An easy shawl....a slow knitter.

I cast this sucker on for our family road trip to Michigan back toward the end of June.  I finally bound off last week.  I can't even recall what took me so long to finish it - other than all the traveling we've been doing over the past several weeks.  Summer is just a slow time.  I remember last summer as the months-long Doodler knitting, so, I shouldn't be too surprised.

The Skye Boat Shawl is clearly named after the lovely song which stands as theme song for silver screen adaptation of Outlander (my favorite books EVER!!!  Go READ them!).  Written by Judy Marples, it is a lovely, simple knit.  The repeat is easy to memorize, and Judy's instructions are easy to understand and to the point, which is always glorious.

The yarn has been in my stash for a few years....maybe even over FOUR.  It was originally meant for the Julissa sweater for myself, but, well....we see where I've gotten with sweater knitting for ME.  And seriously - that sweater is GORGEOUS.  Why have I not knit it???  Anyway, the yarn is Colour Adventures in the Dia Merino DK base.  I think part of why I hadn't knit this Georgin colorway is that I never felt it was quite MY color, though I loved it.

Clearly, though, it would work in a shawl!  And since I hadn't yet knit a heavier-weight shawl, I decided to go for it - though it DOES always make one nervous to use part of a sweater quantity of yarn, right???  :O  I have, I am guessing, two and a half skeins left, which clearly isn't enough for a sweater for Camden, which is a darn shame.  Such is life.

Also!  Reds, as we know, are hard to capture on camera - well, at least to an inexperienced photographer such as myself, though I promise it basically does look like what you see in the photos.  It maybe seem as though the photos are washing it out or brightening it, but the colorway just looks like that, aha!

And...goodness!  Days in the life of us in Michigan!!!  Omigosh - too many photos!!!

Minus two cousins

Amelia faces....

Matt has the camera, but that's a lot of people!

In which I appear nekkid!  A lovely invite to Nicole's beach house!

Giggling sisters???

                                      

Sisters and Sisters

Besties since 5th grade!

                                                       

A little fog burning off Lake Huron at Mackinaw Island

                                      

Matt being a creeper, photo ONE

Matt being a creeper, photo TWO

Matt and Willow being creepers, photo THREE

Not Just a Song: Penny Lane, the Sweater

Oh, holy cow.  Has it been four score and eighteen decades since I last blogged???

Feels like it.  I actually swear I have a pair of socks and something else I need to blog about, but the dog days of summer blew past AND dragged on, if that's possible, and I have done NO sewing.  So, in all actuality, DARK days.  Camden has no clothing for the fall, other than a few dresses.  Thankfully, she just wears swimsuits and leotards all summer, so, we've been golden so far ;)

But check out, peeps!!!  What a fun sweater (project page here)!!!  This is one of those great yarn, easy pattern, lovely outcome sort of posts.  The sweater is obviously meant for the coming months (not sure why I chose to do a short-sleeved sweater AFTER this one, LOL), but I'm glad we're ready.

Getting that dance on!

The pattern is Penny Lane, by Julia Stanfield (Facebook page here).  I'm belatedly noticing that she has a sale in her Ravelry store with code "k2tog kal" - if I publish this today, August 13, go check it out!!  It's a pretty simple pattern with cable work down the front, only.  I did find the needle requirements written sort of loosely, so, I wasn't sure which needles to use where, only because I'm weird, I think.  I originally tried the neck on a smaller needle but went up to a size 5 and did the main sweater on size 3 needles.  My only issue with the pattern is that the sleeve count at the split is too high - in my opinion.  I think it's too much positive ease, and I wish I'd thought about that/realized that before I was as far in. In the end, I went with laziness, but I super decreased those sleeves.  In project pictures on Ravelry, you'll probably notice other people knit looser sleeves, but I don't like them baggy on the forearms.  The sweater is definitely meant to be knit as a tunic, when it's knit for girls, but I knit it a bit shorter - in essence of time and hand-pain.

My yarn is Colour Adventures, base Dia Twist DK in colorway Raspberry Chocolate (I also just checked out her store, and she has a lovely green gradient worsted set in stock!), and it was super lovely to knit up.  It's definitely tricky to get the colorway across correctly in the pictures.  I always recommend Elena's yarn, and she does co-ops a couple times a year, where you can pay less for her yarn, which is awesome.

This photography stuff is EASY ;)

Nothing much else to say - other than crazy photos, due to light and a kid who doesn't care to pose these days ;)

And....how summer has been going....

Awww, little guy can only party so long

Friends in town!!!

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit!

LOL at the only slide camden was able to use....

Of course....