NiseyKnits

I'm making progress, little by little, on the giveaway shawls. I finished another one on our vacation trip, but only got the chance to photograph it this past weekend. I used the  Moody Kerchief  pattern by Kirsten Kapur of Through the Loop ). The winner of the shawl, Alexandra, wanted this shawl in the Twig and Peacock colorways of Quince & Co's Chickadee yarn .  This was quite a quick knit, and I'm glad I was able to get to it during the trip. Alexandra, I'll be sending your shawl later this week. :) I hope you like it. Thanks again to Irene of LivedStories and the lovely Lilia for the beautiful photos! I only have one more to go (Yay!) - the Roma Shawl (also by Kirsten Kapur) for Megan. That's all for this week. Next week I'll share a few new items I've knit up for the shop. Have a great week everyone, and enjoy the long weekend!  

I first posted about this shawl blanket in the Megdans Part 1- Pictures post about a year ago. I designed it for my mom to showcase my newly acquired knitting skills. I ended up submitting the pattern to Tangled magazine, and it was accepted. The magazine Tangled Nearly Fall 2012 just came out, and my pattern is in there!! Woohoo!! This version was knit in KnitPicks Swish Worsted yarn, in the Dove Heather colorway. It's a shawl, and a blanket. It's up to you to choose how to wear it. And the pattern is free on the Tangled magazine website. Enjoy it, and I can't wait to see pictures if you do knit one! UPDATE: You can download the pattern directly here .

About a year and 3 months ago, I bit off more than I could chew. I didn't know it at the time, of course, but I took on more than I could handle when I held this giveaway and awarded 6 prizes. :) Don't get me wrong - I'm not sad at all about the giveaway. I was just so excited to get the chance to knit six different shawl designs by Kirsten Kapur that I jumped right in.  I'm ashamed to admit that till now, I had only finished two shawls. Only two out of the six.  In a bid to cleanse away a bit of that shame and get the gifts to the recipients, I've finally finished two more of the shawls. They are both knit from the Snow Drops and Snap Peas shawl pattern (that was the winner if I recall. A lot of people loved it.) The red version is knit in the Hollyberry colorway of KnitPicks Swish DK. I started the shawl in October last year, and just finished in June this year. Tsk tsk tsk...bad bad Denise. :) I also finally got my schedule to line up with Lilia's (the mode...

First, let me apologize for missing last week's post. I got a long needed vacation and the week just flew by before I knew what was happening. I hope you all enjoyed your July 4th festivities, and are ready for the second half of 2012. Crazy right? Second half ALREADY. Anyway, today, I'm here to let you know that I finally knitted something for myself!! Yay!! I don't know how long it's been since I made something for myself. I started the Xenia shawl by Vanessa Smith, but it's lying in the WIP basket because I got swamped with design submissions in the past three months. Once the Knitscene Accessories 2012 magazine came out and I saw my Sunehri Shawl  in all it's glory, I decided to knit one for myself! I originally designed this shawl in Malabrigo Worsted Merino, in the Cadmium colorway. I had just a little less than one skein left at home, so I decided to use it up in a shawl for myself. Now if you haven't tried my pattern, let me talk it up a...

I am so excited for this week's post! I submitted two patterns to Knitscene Accessories magazine last year, and luckily for me both of them were accepted. The knitting deadline was mid-December so I spent most of late November and the first two weeks of December knitting frantically. In fact, I think I pulled an all-nighter in order to finish the Sunehri shawl, block it, and mail it so it would get to the editors in time. It was a tough night. If you don't believe me, ask my neighbor Claudine. :) I had to borrow a fan from her to speed the drying process during blocking. Anyway, enough of my chatter. Here are the two patterns! I'm so excited!! I designed the Sunehri Shawl on the fly. I thought it would be cool to use the elongated stitch pattern in a shawl. However I had never designed a shawl before. I looked online for instructions on how to design a shawl. (Trust me, a Google search works wonders!) I found this post by Michelle Miller of Fickleknitter. Michelle is ...

You all know my friend Zeina. She's the lovely lady who has been modeling most of my knits for the past year or so. Sometime last year we went to a yarn shop together so she could choose the yarn she wanted for me to knit something for her. She chose Mirasol Tupa yarn in the Daffodil color (#801)  and we bought 2 skeins. She likes the color yellow, you see. I first made a crochet necklace for her using the Mirasol Tupa yarn, from this Crochet Necklace pattern by Creative Yarn. However the necklace took very little yarn, so I still had almost all the 2 skeins leftover. What to do? I let the skeins languish in my ever expanding yarn stash until last week, when I was home sick with an ear infection. I wanted to knit something I didn't NEED to have done by a certain time, so I decided to knit a present for Zeina.  I chose the Little Shells pattern by Holly Griffin-Weidner, as it required 250 yards and seemed like a quick knit. And it was!! I cast on for the ...

I have another FO this week! I finally finished the Tan Moody Kerchief, got it blocked, and even photographed all over the past weekend! No scrambling to take photos before the daylight ends, and no staying up late the night before to put up a blog post! Yay!  This version of the Moody Kerchief was knit in Knit Picks Palette, using the Coriander, Almond Heather and Camel Heather colorways, and made the color changes like I did in the Sunset Moody Kerchief . I hope Veronica's mom likes both her shawls.  Thanks to my lovely model Zeina Newman for being so willing to come and help me out whenever I call. Such a wonderful friend! Now I'm off to work on some more WIPs and UFOs. Have a wonderful week and thank you so much for reading!

I finished some projects! Yay! I completed the Merlot Scrunchable Scarf from last week's post, the one for my sister's bf. He visited us briefly this past weekend and he's darling. He even enjoyed playing with my son!! He tried on the scarf and loved it, but I didn't give it to him as I hadn't blocked it yet. It's now blocked and photographed, but I took the photos late in the day so they are pretty bad quality. The model I had lined up for this photo shoot (my sister), decided that she needed to take a nap in the middle of the day, and when she woke up she didn't feel like getting all dolled up for a photo shoot. So I lost the daylight needed for good pictures, and had to pull out my trusty plastic bodyform. One of these days I'll get a beautiful fancy-looking bodyform... For the photos, I tried for some artistic, close-up shots to make up for the bad lighting and my rudimentary photo-taking skills. Here are a few pictures of the Merlot Scarf. I think...

I am singing with the Christmas Choir at my church this holiday season, and the colors we will be wearing are black and white with some gold or silver accent. As the knitting gods would have it, I had just attended the Interweave Knitting Lab held in San Mateo from Nov. 3rd to the 6th, and had just snagged 2 balls of Lana Grossa Lace Lux Yarn in Bronze Colorway from the Jimmy Beans Wool booth. I promise you that I had no knowledge of the color choices until AFTER I had bought the yarn. I got the yarn on Saturday and the first choir rehearsal was Sunday. I realized that the knitting powers that be had decided that I should FINALLY knit something for myself, so I set off to look for the best pattern to showcase this beautiful yarn. My search for the pattern that would work well with this yarn brought me to Xenia by Vanessa Smith. I have purchased one other pattern by this designer and although I haven't knit it yet, I am in awe of the stunning detail and simple twists sh...

Today I have a new pattern for all my knitters out there. It's a very simple pattern that creates a gorgeous, warm shawl, just in time for the cold weather. I actually finished this last year but only got the chance to write it up and put it up now. Here it is, the "Wrapped in Clouds Shawl/Scarf". Thanks to my friend Johanna P. for modeling this at work about a year ago!! The pattern has also been added to Ravelry here .  Wrapped in Clouds Shawl/Scarf A friend of mine saw a shawl similar to this somewhere and asked me to recreate it. I did my best to imitate the look of the shawl, but I cannot for sure say that it’s the same shawl. I thought I’d share the pattern with anyone who might be interested in a light but warm shawl made by striping thin cotton yarn with bulky single ply wool yarn. Because of the lightness of the bulky wool, this shawl can also be worn as a scarf by wrapping it around your neck. The finished product is classy and elegant for very...

I finished a 2nd giveaway shawl!! Woohoo! Those late nights are really paying off. Here is the the  Snow Drops and Snap Peas  shawl by Kirsten Kapur in the original  Quince & Co Chickadee yarn  Snap Peas colorway for Anjali. It took me a little while to finish this one as I had to deal with about 400 stitches getting to the end of this shawl. However it's done and blocked and all ready to set sail to Anjali's house. Enjoy the pictures, and many thanks to my friend Josie for agreeing to an impromptu photo shoot. Anjali, please send me your mailing address at niseyknits@gmail.com, so I can get this package in the mail for you. See you all later and enjoy the rest of your week!