Moving On . . .

Hello all! I have moved! Please find me here at www.sskandco.wordpress.com. While blogger has been good to me, I have been frustrated with a few things as far as the design of my blog is concerned, so I have decided to move on. I hope you will all continue to follow me. Thank you, and I look forward to talking with you more on the other side!

xoxo Shannon

Progress on "Aya" and "In The Pink"

//Here it is, almost half-way done! I love the progression of color in this yarn, it is a joy to behold. Have any of you knit with Noro before? Well, I have not and this is also my first time to work with silk. It definitely has a different feel but the visual and tactile effect is spectacular, don't you agree?!

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//A little peak at the "In The Pink" scarf as showcased in this previous post. I am happy with the color change I made and really like the progression!

//New and exciting stuff in the world of blogging:

• Sheep & Stitch:  A fairly new site (to me anyway) with a lot of information to offer, namely about knitting, patterns, etc. 
• Little Things Blogged: a great crochet site with great colors and pictures.
• Tolt Yarn and Wool: a neighborhood knitting and spinning shop located in Carnation, Washington. Check out their blog.
• Harmony and Rosie: written by a displaced Brit living in Vancouver, a very simple and elegant blog with some great pics.
• And last, but certainly not least, Liesl Made: another great knitting/food/sewing, etc. site with great images written by a girl named, (wait for it) Liesl who lives in New Jersey.

//Patterns I am ogling in my Ravelry library:

• Stonecutter by Michele Wang
• Couronne by Helene Rush
• Opposite Pole by Joji Locatelli
• Channel Cardigan by Jared Flood

Any favorite blogs and/or patterns you would like to share with the rest of us? Happy hump day!

xoxo Shannon

"Pink" Stripes On The Needles and Kaffe Fassett

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//"In The Pink" Scarf Design. Here are the facts:

• Yarn: MC - Stitch Nation (Passionfruit), 100% Peruvian Wool, DK weight
• Color A - Briggs Little Soft Spun (Carnation), 2-ply 100% pure wool, DK weight (if you're not familiar with this yarn, it is a product of Canada, from one of their oldest woolen mills. I picked it up at TNNA one year.)
• Color B - Dark brown, 100% alpaca, DK weight
• Needles - #8 circulars
• Border: MC - 8 rows of garter stitch
• A - 6 rows of stockinette stitch
• MC- 6 rows of stockinette stitch
• B - 6 rows of stockinette stitch
• MC - 6 rows of stockinette stitch
• Etcetera, etcetera until scarf measures 59 inches
• End with MC, knitting last eight rows in garter stitch
• BO all stitches 

I did end up changing the color choices a little bit from what you see in the swatch. This change is however, reflected in the above directions. Instead of using a multi-color yarn for my first color change, I used the Briggs Little Carnation instead.

I have long been an admirer of Kaffe Fassett and recently acquired his book, "Welcome Home". I love how he uses color and the freedom with which he does so. He doesn't worry about dye lots, designing right on the needles. So I have been playing with colors and trying to put them together in a pleasing way and also trying to be a little less constricted in my design thoughts. I hope you like my choices. It is pretty exciting to do, I highly recommend it.

If interested, Creative Bug offers three Kaffe Fasset workshops: two quilt design classes and one pillow design class. His assistant and fellow designer, Brandon Mably, also teaches two classes one of which I am enrolled in "Magic Ball Color Play" which encourages the use of leftover yarn in your stash and learning to put colors together. 

Would you like some help knitting stripes? I know I would. Here are a few places to go:

• TECHknitting: She always has a lot of good information on any technical problems you might have in knitting. This post addresses jogless knitting of stripes in the round.
• Fluffandfuzzknitting: A good article on changing colors when knitting stripes.
• Cottonandcloud: How to knit single or odd numbered stripes without cutting the yarn.
• Millamia: Here is a great article on knitting single row stripes.
• The Knitter: Yet another great post from Jane Crowfoot, one of the UK's leading knitting experts.

I hope this inspires you all to try knitting with colors and stripes. Let me know of your efforts and/or tips!

xoxo Shannon