Saturday, May 30, 2009

FO: Anatomy of a Shawl


I found slightly over 5 oz of this hand dyed BFL in my stash that has been there for years! The bright Spring colors begged to be spun and knit.

My husband takes one look at wool rovings and calls them "sheep guts". Well, these sheep guts had a great time on the spinning wheel. Here is a single ply on the wheel.

For those nonspinners out there, it takes two of the above to ply together (twist in the opposite direction that it was originally spun), to make a two ply yarn like below. From the 5 oz of roving, I spun aproximately 470 yards of two ply yarn to make the skein below. The yarn was between a DK and a light worsted weight.

Then I tried several shawl patterns. I wanted to make a simple shawl that would show the effects of the yarn and make the most of the yardage. I decided to knit "La La's Simple Shawl" pattern from Ravelry on size 10 needles to make it lightweight and lacy. Here it is resting in one of my knitting baskets.

I knitted about 460 yards of the skein and made adjustments in the pattern to finish it with a nice edge due to the length left of my yarn. I was quite pleased with the results and will definately try this pattern again. The finished shawl is approximately 66" across by 31" in length. The shawl is lightweight and oh so soft and cozy! It is a surprise gift for a friend who wears a lot of pastels. Hope she likes it!

Well I'm back to my wool stash to see what else I can play with! Happy spinning and knitting!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Just Catching Up: A FO

Remember this? I was seeing stripes in previous post...

AND I was reworking a few skeins of Noro salvaged from a scarf into this...

Which grew into this....

It's been finished for quite some time. I just needed to catch up on my posting of it. It is a simple neck down raglan cardigan with seed stitch borders. The yoke is Noro Silk Garden colorway 224 and the body is merino Shepherd's Wool Great Lakes colorway. It is a warm and very cozy sweater which I will look forward to wearing next fall and winter.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Emergence of Something New

Slowly, the leaf unfurls into the first warm breath of Spring.

Patiently the lace reveals it's beauty in the sun.

Cautiously, new growth breaks thru the ground.

Boldly, the lace claims its presence.