Weaving in ends – sneaky techniques with EastLondonKnit

EastLondonKnit has returned to the blog to help the speedy people already finishing up their Naloa in the ongoing KAL. Thanks Renee, and well done speedsters! 😉

(It is still not too late to start your shawl as the KAL runs till October 4th and there are many exciting prizes available for those who take part.)

I love how this technique hides the straggling threads and makes the weaving in seamless. So sneaky and clever!

Take it away, Renee…

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Hello!

Naloa features gently undulating stripes of colours in the lace edging.  Each colour change begins on a right-side row, thereby making an end to be woven in once the shawl is complete. (So if you’ve just completed a RS row, slide the work to the other end of the needle, and begin the next row from the RS again!)

There are many ways to weave in ends, but when working with lace, you have to be more careful to keep it tidy and invisible.

I used duplicate stitch in Naloa. It’s a handy technique for  solving many different problems.  Check out this primer.

First, thread a sharp tapestry needle with the end, and following the end from whence it came, trace the row back through 4-6 stitches, splitting the yarn with the needle.

Although I wove in my ends before the shawl was blocked, many people prefer to do so afterward, to make sure they don’t tighten the edges of the shawl too much.

I can’t wait to see your beautifully finished Naloa Shawl!

Happy knitting!

Renee

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Make sure to check out Renee’s other beautiful designs on Ravelry and find more  useful tutorials on her blog and follow her on Twitter or Instagram.

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Naloa KAL starting this Saturday Aug… 30th…!!

This last month has been a huge roller coaster ride for me as I have moved house/city and have relocated next to the British seaside! Your parcel of yarn-y goodness will now be winging to you from the lovely Hastings:

Hastings castle on the day I arrived!

With all the moving palava I realised only the other day that I’d made an error on the Naloa KAL start date. Huge apologies for the confusion…  We will be casting on TOMORROW – Saturday August 30^th, running to  Saturday October 4^th.

BEYUL fingering shown in ‘yurt’ and ‘turquoise tarn’ colourways , image © EastLondonKnit

There are still kits for the shawl on the shop…

Naloa by EastLondonKnit – detail, shades of BEYUL image © Kettle Yarn Co.

…and see the KAL group page for details of all the fantastic prizes!

I can’t wait to pick this project back up! The shawl will be my holiday knitting as I am taking a full 2 weeks off starting Sunday.

If you order any yarn after tomorrow please be aware that shipping will be delayed until September 16th while I am on leave.

 

Naloa shawl inspiration from EastLondonKnit

The ELK, herself, EastLondonKnit, has been kind enough to offer to help me out for the next few weeks as I am swamped with some personal stuff! Here she is for her first post, discussing her inspiration for Naloa! Thanks Renee!

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Hello!

When Linda told me she had a new, exotic yarn base made of silk and yak and that she was working on a palette for this new yarn inspired by Tibetan traditions, I was so excited!  The richness of tone and hue were visually intoxicating and I was only too happy to design something to compliment the beautiful combo of yarn and colour.

 

After much debate, we decided the undyed Yurt and the gorgeous Turquoise Tarn were destined to be a new shawl.

 

Now I have never been to the Himalayas, so I have no idea how accurate Google’s depiction of the beauty of the place is, but it looks stunning.

 

This is a Himalayan Tarn from Adam Elliot’s superb photography blog.

A beautiful image of a tarn from my neck of the woods.

I love the naturally bright blue green of the tarn against the stark, rocky mountain landscape, and took the water as my inspiration.

 

The summer-time weather dictated something lovely and lacy.  For this shawl, I wanted the ‘work’ to be right-side only— in other words, every WS row would be simple purling; I wanted the rivulets that radiated from the centre all the way to edges to create a distinct and easy-to-follow structure, and I wanted some variation on simple stripes. I began to swatch…

 

…and sketch….

 

 

And it wasn’t long before it came together. In the end, I think I managed a shawl that is enjoyable but not complicated to knit, which shows off a gorgeous yarn.

Naloa shawl by EastLondonKnit, image © EastLondonKnit

Happy knitting!

Renee

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You can find Renee on her website or blog and follow her on Twitter or Instagram.!

Naloa shawl now available – and impromtu London trunk show!

Renee Callahan’s breathtaking Naloa shawl is now available for purchase on Ravelry! A simple, elegant shawl, this is a top-down triangular shawl with streams of stacked eyelets running out from the centre to wavelets of lace in the border. Designed to be knit with 2 skeins of BEYUL fingering, Naloa features a simple alternation of colour to bring out the beautiful flow of the lace pattern.

As a little added bonus for anyone in the London area this weekend we are also holding at mini-trunk show at the EastLondonKnit studios for the annual arts festival Hackney Wicked:

You can drop by, enjoy the festivities, try on the sample and even purchase some Kettle Yarn Co. yarn to start the shawl! Renee will have some BEYUL in studio for you to see and fondle in person.

 

We are planning a marvelous Knit A Long (KAL) for this beauty which will start on Saturday August 9th and will run to the 13th September and will have some AMAZING prizes for various fun things. We’ll give you more details next week when we’ve worked them out.

Check the blog for details next week and get your Naloa Kit now in the shop while they last. I am planning on taking a bit of a break from dyeing through August, so skeins are limited for the time being!

yurt / turquoise tarn

yurt / electric amaranth

yurt / iceberg

yurt / sacred saffron

Next up…Fibre East!

Barely recovered from the last, but gearing up for the next big yarn extravaganza of the summer – Fibre East next weekend! So excited!

Only an hour and a bit out of London in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, the show will be open Saturday 26th July 10am – 5pm and Sunday 27th July 10am – 4.30pm.

It will be my first time at this show, so once again, please do come by and say hello and play with me. I am in the middle of the ‘Shetland’ room, right after the main hall, surrounded by spinning and weaving fun:

The amazing ELK herself, designer Renee Callahan– aka EastLondonKnit, will be joining me at the booth this weekend. We’ll be unveiling a new shawl design for Kettle Yarn Co. in my new yarn blend BEYUL – yak/silk/sw merino and showcasing her amazing patterns in the flesh!

tiny sneaky sneak peek of new shawl in progress!

We’ll have a number of glorious samples at the stall so come and give them a twirl. I think you’ll be as smitten with them as I am!

Asterisks

Veil of Leithen

Antiprism

I will also have some of my new autumn ISLINGTON fingering hues at the booth, like my new Neckinger Green:

This green is suitably dark and mysterious, hinting of murky hidden depths and secrets and is named after London’s subterranean River Neckinger, which in Victorian times ran past the notorious Jacob’s Island.

From Wikipedia —

“Jacob’s Island was notoriously squalid from early Victorian times. It was described by Charles Dickens in 1838 as “the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London”, and by the Morning Chroniclein 1849 as “The very capital of cholera” and “The Venice of drains”.

In the 17th century convicted pirates were hanged at the mouth of the river (the corpses were placed on display as a deterrent further downstream at Blackwall Point). The name of the river is believed to derive from the term “devil’s neckcloth” (i.e. hangman’s noose).

The environs are vividly described in Charles Dickens‘ novel, Oliver Twist as the place that one of Dickens’ best-known characters, Bill Sikes, meets a violent death in the mud of St Saviour’s Dock.”

Hope you are all enjoying the amazing summer as much as I am and looking forward to seeing some of you this weekend!

 

Antiprism – first Kettle Kit exclusive!

I have been wanting to share this with all of you for ages and can finally let you all see one of the amazing projects I have been working on – Antiprism!

Some of you got a chance to see this beauty in the flesh at Wonderwool last weekend, and may have even seen me wearing it to keep warm in the chilly hall. The wrap was like a warm hug in the damp cold!

The garter-stitch shawl/scarf/wrap is a collaboration with designer extraordinaire Renee Callahan – aka Eastlondonknit – and uses my bouncy, super-soft, 100% Superwash British Bluefaced Leicester fingering, TWIST.

Lightweight and bouncy the shawl is worked from side to side and features a frame of simple lace filled with wedges of alternating colour to show off the ombre combination of shades. A lace border is picked up and knit along the bottom of the finished shawl and then a binding is worked across the graceful undulating waves at the top of the piece.

The finished piece is large enough to be worn as a wrap, shawl or scarf and is a perfect year round piece to add a shot of boldness to an outfit. 
There are 5 colourways currently in shop for the kit. The groupings will change with available hues, and may not be repeated.

The kit includes yarn quantities needed for one shawl – 4 skeins of TWIST and a Ravelry pattern download code. Each skein is 50g = approx. 183 m | 200 y with the total yardage adding up to 732 m / 800 y.

I am having troubles deciding which colours to cast on! Which will you pick?