Ms. Cleaver Chronicles

photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

Yesterday, I had the absolute and distinct pleasure of releasing a pattern with Quince & Co.

Every since this Maine-based yarn producer opened up shop literally up the street from where I work, I’ve been a huge fan and when the opportunity arose to publish this shawl pattern with them, I leapt at the chance!!

I still can’t believe that that’s my shawl up there. It’s more to do with Carrie’s photography than anything else, but man, I love the Quince photos.

photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

One of my knitolutions for the year was to design a shawl and I knew I wanted to do something ocean-inspired, without leaning on my usual oceanic blues and turquoises. (Not that I’ve given up on those). When I picked up these skeins of Tern and saw the colorway was called Seagrass, that settled it.

Alaria (the name is from a genus of seaweed) flows between three simple lace patterns reminiscent of aquatic foliage. The shawl is a traditional triangle shape and all lace work is done on the right side rows only.

The sample was knit in two skeins (about 440 yards) of Quince & Co.’s Tern – a fingering weight silk/wool blend. It blocks beautifully and the silk gives it just a hint of sheen. (I will note that when I knit the sample, it used up all the yarn except for a teeny-tiny amount, so depending a knitter’s gauge, it could sneak into a third skein).

As designed, the shawl is a great size for throwing over your shoulders or bunching up as a scarf, and should a larger shawl be required, additional repeats of 24 rows can be easily added to the first and/or second lace patterns.

photo © Carrie Bostick Hoge

You can queue up the pattern on Ravelry, or purchase the pattern via Quince & Co ($6 USD).

A few weeks ago, Casey of Elegant Musings asked for fellow bloggers to join her in a blog tour of Cherished Collections and having previously mentioned my “wicked apron collection,” and made no secret of my love of aprons, I jumped at the chance to share my, wait for it……. aprons as part of the tour.

I’d like to say my love affair with aprons began in my middle school home economics class, when our final sewing project was a simple bib apron. In true 90′s style, my featured sunflowers and was sadly lost in my first post-graduation move after college. But in truth, my apron obsession probably came because I lost that apron and needed a replacement.

I picked up another bib apron from ebay, in blue gingham, which I still use, but it was then I discovered the adorable half apron, of which I have now amassed eleven. I used to have an even dozen, but I passed one featuring a chicken off to a friend.

My first, and still on of my favorites, also came from ebay and features adorable pockets in fishy fabric, which I later recreated the shape of for a Christmas gift, when I lived in Chicago.

Surprisingly enough, only one of my collection is one I made (yellow gingham),  with most of my apron sewing skills having been put to gift-making.

A good chunk of my aprons have come from antique stores, where I grabbed them for around $5-6 dollars (black & white and embroidered pink). At least one has come from a garage sale (grey gingham with chicken scratch). A few I can’t recall where they came from.

But my most precious one are the ones that have been given as gifts, including the Christmas bells from a roommate, the green hostess apron from a knitting friend, and the rose hostess apron from a co-worker- perhaps my most precious one, because it was her grandmothers. As was the plain white one I embroidered with Raggedy Ann.

And I use each and every one of them, because as they become dusted with flour and sugar, they become all the more cherished to me.

It’s been a bit busy around the Cleaver household for the past week, because on July the 2nd, this guy joined our lives.

Meet Steinbeck (formerly know as Drake). He’s a 3-year old shepherd terrier mix, we adopted via Lucky Pup Rescue. This handsome fella came all the way from Texas to live with us.

They say it takes a few weeks to a month for the dogs true personality to come out, but thus far we’ve discovered that Steinbeck is a 60-pound cuddle muffin, who wants nothing more than to sit on the sofa and be in your lap. Which is just fine with me.

IN just a week, we’ve pretty much fallen in love with this guy, as for what he thinks of us??

Time will tell.

Since I first started publishing knitting patterns in earnest back during the spring  of 2010, I’ve had a significant backlog of items that I came up with and knitted way back when and am only finally getting around to making patterns for them. (See Exhibit A.)

While the Smocked Tank isn’t the last of the backlog (there’s one more to go), it did take the longest from incubation to actualization. I hope you’ll agree it was worth the wait.

2008 version

I first knit this idea for myself in June 2008. So, um three years later, here’s the finished product. Graded for  bust sizes 30 (32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48) inches/ 77 (81, 86, 92.5, 97, 101.6, 106, 113, 117.5, 122) cm.

Knit in the round from the bottom up, the tank is very fitted, with curvy side shaping and is finished off with i-cord straps.

The tank utilizes 455 (495, 525, 585, 620, 670, 700, 720, 765) yds of worsted to aran weight yarn with a significant silk, bamboo, or rayon content for drape and sheen. Knit to a gauge of 18 sts and  24 rows = 4”/ 10 cm in Stockinette stitch on size 10 US / 6 mm needles.

The sample was knit in Berroco Ultra Silk in 6138 Lilac; 98 yd/90 m per 50g/1.76 oz skein; 40% Wool/ 40% Nylon/20% Silk, which has since been discontinued.

So if you need a quick summer knitting project, with a bit of a romantic flair,

the pattern can be queued up here, or purchased via the links below:

$6.00 USD