Sunday, July 10, 2011

The Baby Shower






One of my BFF's finally got a baby. I have been friends with this girl for 18 years, and realized early on in the friendship, that, among other delightful things we shared, our taste in decor was one of them. We met in college, in the Costume Design program. We still share a lot of the same friends, most of them theatre people.
Now, here is the thing. I have given A LOT of baby showers in my life, but this one was special for a couple of reasons. One-friend waited a very long time for this baby. Two-this friend and our shared circle of friends are some of the few people I know that would actually get a shower like this. I mean, it was not simple and neither was the food. I don't know how things are where you live, but here, baby showers usually happen in someone's front room with cute baby themed decor and dessert.
That is not what was wanted here. I have wanted to do a baby shower like this for a very long time, and finally, I had the opportunity. I teamed up with another friend and away we went! Good thing we share similar tastes!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Update on Shawl

Okay, so I currently have 11 pattern sections of the shawl done, that is 11 of the 10 row repeat. Having measured its current size, and looking at the pictures of Kate's shawl, I am thinking that a total of 15 10-row repeats will give me about the right size, based on my size. I am 5'6" tall (not nearly as tall as the lovely Catherine), so I think mine will end up being a bit smaller than hers.
I am estimating, without the ruffle, that this will take just over 2 skeins of Rowan 4-ply soft. I think the ruffle is going to eat up quite a bit of yarn, but I haven't done any samples yet.
Oh, and with my current gauge, the 15 repeat size of the shawl will be about 64" tip to tip and 26" deep without the ruffle. I think I will cut out a fabric shape of that size to make sure it is what I want.
And here is a funny for you. Tonight, while at a birthday party for my nephew, I was asked what I was making. I told them a shawl. They replied that they like the stitch pattern, etc. I said thank you, I had seen a pic of Kate Middleton wearing a shawl and decided I wanted to make something similar. At this point, my SIL's brother said. "Is that how it works? You just look at it with your eyes and it comes out of your hands?" I laughed and said yes, something like that and his mom said, "Yes, Jess, it's MAGIC!"

Saturday, May 14, 2011

CopyKate Shawl

So, the Royal Wedding was a couple of weeks ago. Awesome. Dress was beautiful. About a week later, the lovely Catherine Middleton was spotted at the supermarket wearing this fabulous shawl.




Everyone on the lovely knitting site Ravelry has been freaking out about it. Ok, not everyone, just me a select bunch of others. It is a great shawl, and I am not about to pass up the opportunity to knit it. However, there isn't a pattern, no one knows for sure where she got hers (yeah, I know a lot of sites claim Minnie Rose, but that isn't the same shawl, just similar, and not as nice, if you ask me.)

Anyhoo, being the impatient sort, I decided to try and knit one up myself.



To my surprise, after I posted a pic, several people asked for a chart and instructions, so, folks, here it is! It is not perfect, I have not finished knitting the shawl and it is an experiment and I don't write knitting patterns. I am a fashion designer, not a knitting pattern designer. So, without further ado, here is the chart and some notes...oh, and a pic of my shawl so far.





















I began by casting on 8 stitches with the long tail cast on, then purled a plain row, then starts the shaping. Whilst shaping, you will also be knitting/purling the chevron pattern in the chart. It is a purl stitch, separated by 5 knit stitches for 9 rows in a diagonal pattern. Every 10th row is a garter ridge. The diagonal rows of purl stitches with the garter rows create the chevron pattern.
-I start out with regular shawl shaping, a kfb 1 stitch in from each edge, then a YO increase either side of center.
After 23 rows of this, I switch to a double increase on the edge,
-so kfb, kfb, knit in pattern to one before center stitch, YO, knit center stitch and then mirror the chart back.
After doing 28 rows of this increase, which gives the shawl enough curve to go around my neck, I switch to a shallower increase.
-K1, kfb, knit in pattern to one before center, YO, knit center stitch and reverse for the other side.
-On alternate right side rows, kfb, kfb, knit in pattern to one before center, YO, knit center stitch and reverse for the other side.
-Continue in this alternate row pattern of increases until shawl is your desired size. Leave stitches live.
I did a total of 15 "rows" of the 10 row repeat.




















Now, there are a couple of options at this point for the ruffle. You can pick up a bazillion stitches and knit a 1x1 rib or a 1x1 stockinette slip rib. To do the slip rib, on every right side row you slip every other stitch, purl normally on the wrong side.
The other option is a garter ruffle. Pick up 1 stitch from shawl edge, cast on as many stitches as you need to get the DEPTH of ruffle you desire,(mine is 17 stitches deep) then turn and knit back to the shawl, when you get to the last stitch, pick up another stitch from the shawl edge and knit this together with the last stitch of your ruffle, turn and knit back to ruffle edge. Continue this around. I picked up 2 stitches, then picked up a bar inbetween, then 2 stitches and one inbetween. On the neck, I picked up 3 stitches for every two rows.
On the two end corners, I did 6 shortrows down and then back up, to go around the corner.
Graft the ends of the ruffle together after you have FINALLY reached the end.
Hope it works for you! Contact me if you have any questions and I will try to answer them.
And here is the chart. The red stitches are the center and are not repeated. The dark block stitches are purls on the right side and knits on the wrong side. The blank spaces are knit on the right side and purl on the wrong side. The even numbers are right side rows and the odd are wrong side rows, so the first row you knit will be a wrong side. The chart only goes a few rows into the third set of increases, but you will simply continue in pattern from this point until you finish, get fed up or run out of yarn.
Clicking on the chart will enlarge it.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Epic Fail

So, obviously, I do not update this blog very often. For a good reason. I still have not managed to get an internet bridal shop open. I have a site, well had at the moment and will have again soon.
I am an idiot and missed the messages that my site hosting was going to expire, so my site was deleted. Fortunately, I have a fab web designer and he is going to repost my site, although, I will have to go back through and put my photos back up, since I never saved any new site files. Oh well. In the meantime, here are some pics of recent work.

Alterations-








Custom Made-
From Edit for site

From Evening wear

From Evening wear

From Evening wear

From Evening wear