M-m-m-MY PAGONA!!!!!!!

Sing that to the tune of "My Sharona" and you'll have what I lived through at the yarn shop for a good month and a half straight!

Backing up a bit, I feel it necessary to say that almost everyone who worked at/visited the yarn shop where I work became enamored, mesmerized and hypnotized by Stephen West.  Who could blame them???  Not only does this man create incredibly beautiful and whimsical knitting patterns, but he's cute as a button as well!

Good God, flippin' beautiful.

Anyways, Stephen's pattern for his "Pagona" shawlette, from West knits book 1 became the popular knit about town.

Considering about 1/2 the clientele and 1/2 off the staff were making this project at any given time the word "Pagona" came up quite often.  Then, the singing began.  One of my favorite clients in the shop began singing "m-m-m-MY PAGONA" (again, sung to the tune of "My Sharona") every time the name came up, and as I mentioned before, due to the pattern's popularity and visibility was about every 2.2 minutes.  Slowly this became nearly Pavlovian, with the entire shop bursting into song, again, every 2.2 minutes.

Now that every one has finished knitting this pattern I have only just recently stopped having nightmares where the song is on a continuous loop in my ears.

So, I'll post the pictures of M-M-M-MY PAGONA, ahem, I mean my completed Pagona shawl.....

The pattern calls for sock weight yarn, and I was thrilled because I still had some left over Ella Rae Lace variegated purple and black that I LOVED!  The pattern also stated that it should be knit on size six circular needles.  When I knit my gauge swatch I decided that it would just be too open a stitch for me, so I downsized my needles to a size 4.  Sadly, this increased my need for more yardage.  Fortunately I was able to find another skein  in my colorway and dye lot at the shop, and thank goodness:  My altered pattern went from requiring 380 yards to nearly 530 to reach the same 14" length before creating the garter stitch border!

I LOVE this pattern due to its versatility and simple appearance.  And its ability for making people sing.

It's a Good Thing This Pattern Was Easy...

Let me just start by saying I absolutely LOVE my job working at my LYS.  It allows me so many opportunities to see fabulous needles, yarns and patterns...This, too, is my constant downfall! So many neat knitting things!  Darned stash enablers.  But I digress.  I'll simply say I saw a nifty pattern for a cute sweater and had to try it =)

This is Plymouth Yarn Company's Quick Top Down Jacket in Baby Alpaca Grande yarn, pattern # 1756.  Quick is definitely a plus with my currently busy schedule, and I had always been intrigued by that particular yarn.  Of course those who know me also know that I do NOT like working in bulky weight yarn.  Ah well, no matter, I'd try it anyways.

I was in lean times, so at the pricey cost of the yarn and my poor decision making in what size I am I decided to make it in 2 strands of worsted weight in a cheap yarn just to see if it turned out well and in a size that would fit.  I ultimately made a purple and black combo sweater in what I thought would be an appropriate size, for a 36" bust, the smallest size on the pattern.

Of course, for that to work smoothly would be waaaaaaaay too easy.  It DID knit quickly, in 2 days, and the purple and black yarns made it have an awesome tweed appearance!  Too bad even though I knit it exactly according to pattern with a comparable weight of fiber and exact needle sizes it was SO not my size.  Boo.
Fortunately it fit my best friend Robbin, and she loved it!

So, back to the proverbial drawing board.  I decided to make the same pattern in only one strand of worsted this time, and on one size smaller needles.  I also omitted 4 stitches from the back section of the pattern, thus altering the size to a 32" bust.  Success!  Result!  This time the finished product fit!  An added bonus was that it only took 145 yards to complete!  And, I don't know if this was a bonus or not, but since I had already made it once the day prior it only took me 1 day to complete this time...

 

It's a good thing that I got more proficient with this simple project and was able to complete them in less and less time.  Another friend saw me in mine and wanted one, then so on and so forth until I had made 4 in one week.  I have a feeling that I could make them in my sleep at this point.  Maybe that's why I look less than thrilled in my photos.

Good thing I liked the pattern!

Raves for New Knitting Products!

From time to time I have to just write a post to either rant or rave about products on the market for knitting...Here's one of them!

Item #1, Knit Pick Harmony Knitting Needles:

I just purchased these from my LYS (conveniently where I work!) after lusting after them for who knows how long after seeing them on knitpicks.com 

I had been using either fixed circular needles, which I love, or an older interchangeable set that I'd had for 10 + years.  The aforementioned needles were still lovely, but since I do more and more lace projects these days I wanted to find something with pointier tips (which the Harmony needles have, indeed!) and were still interchangeable so I could easily change needle sizes midway through a project.  AND, added bonus, they get pretty points for being a beautiful rainbow stained birch wood with purple cables...Squeeeee!!!!!


My photo does not do their beauty justice...

But, oh, lucky you, you can see them (and buy them!) HERE 



Item #2, The Barnes and Noble NOOK!

Ok, so a NOOK isn't INTENDED as a knitting product, but if I can make a hat with a pair of chopsticks and an old unraveled sweater while on vacation, I'm sure I can make it be!

When I bought this I actually had no idea it would only encourage my knit-geekiness...LOVE!
Not only can you buy books (Including popular knitting books), but you can take your pdf patterns that you download from Ravlery, etc. and store them on your device!  Gone are the days of lugging around my pattern binders!  I can store more patterns that I currently own on this thing of remarkable wonder!

I didn't go with the color version, though I'm sure patterns would be fabulous there.  I just went with the run of the mill basic model.  And I'm loving it!  PLUS, there are tons of free patterns to make cutesy little knit sweaters for them like the one I'm starting soon: