Sasha Knits!

After winding up that skein of Dream in Color Smooshy last night I was eager to cast on with it, so I spent some time browsing patterns on Ravely.  Socks were out, since I don’t want to half hide the beautiful colors in my shoes, and so were scarves as I have enough of those on my menu for right now.  One skein isn’t enough to do a sweater or a shrug, so what to do with it? I found myself drawn to the shawl section of the pattern database.  I found a few that I liked, but nothing that really seemed to match what I had in mind.  While looking at what other people have knit using the DiC I chanced upon a spectacular shawl design called Springtime Bandit.  It was love at first sight!

I got to work and cast on (using a different method than what the pattern called for) and knit the set up rows.

The pattern only includes one side of the repeats and you’re supposed to knit the other side by sort of mirror-imaging the charts.  That was a bit strange to get the hang of at first, but it became easier as I went along.  The beautiful purples and reds of the yarn combined with the leaf motif in the pattern reminded me of a Red Barberry shrub, so that’s what I decided to name it.

I was in need of some stitch markers and I wanted some fancier ones then what you can get at your average craft store, so I decided to make my own.  It took me a while to dig my craft desk out from under temporarily abandoned projects and to locate all the supplies I needed, but I was able to complete three different sets.  The first set is made of faceted crystal quartz, the second is snowflake quartz, and the last set is plastic letter beads.  I bought them over a year ago and ended up never using them, so I decided to make myself one of those cheesy knitting term stitch maker sets.