I love blocking lace

There is magic that happens when you take a lump of knitting, soak it, gently squeeze the excess water from it and pin it to your blocking board.

I always find it breath taking!




Pre blocking: 17.5" x 27"
While blocking: 27" x 58"

I expect it will pull in some once it is freed from its pins.

Brandywine again...

I've decided to knit a shawl for a friend who needs a bit of a pick-me-up. She had commented a few times on my Peacock Brandywine shawl so I knew I wanted to knit a triangular shawl. I wanted to use a skein of handspun, but I didn't want any lace patterning to be lost in the color changes of the yarn.



After browsing Ravelry for hours, and favoriting more than several shawls, I decided to knit Brandywine again. I love it and I love how the garter stitch portion shows off handspun yarn so beautifully.

I was working the Ontario provincial election yesterday from 8am to 9pm and managed to squeeze in several rows throughout the day. I finished Chart A.



Should be able to find lots of knitting time over the weekend. I hope to block it by Sunday night!

Just in time...

I finished blocking my Peacock shawl and love how it has turned out. I love the lace part and I love the garter stitch part! I finished it just in time as I've even had a chance to wear it twice this week. M had a couple of hockey practices at the rink that I didn't want to freeze at.

Blocking

I finished the knitting on my Brandywine on Sunday night. I love the bind off - a reverse stocking stitch I-cord. This morning I grabbed my trusty blocking mats ($10 foam playmats from WalMart)and T pins; gave the shawl a little soak and rather aggressively blocked it. My fingers got deeply stabbed a few times. Why can't I block lace without bleeding?


I can't wait to see how it looks when it's freed!

There was about 120 yds of laceweight left when I decided to bind off. I brought it back to my wheel and added lots more plying twist, and then plyed it back on itself to create a heavy fingering weight cabled yarn. I know that I will find a use for 60 yds of fingering weight yarn, but that was definately not going to happen with the small amount of lace weight.

If my Calculations are correct...

I'm clicking along nicely on the Brandywine Shawl with my Peacock yarn.


I've finished 13 repeats of "Chart B" and with the amount of yarn left, I expect to be able to make 17 repeats before needing to ply more yarn. Once I'm at that point, I'll pin it to my blocking board and take some measurements.



If it's as big as I'd like it, I'll move on to "Chart C", otherwise, I'll ply up the third Peacock bobbin as a 2ply and knit some more repeats.

Silk Edged Hankerchief

I finished the edging late Friday night and blocked it Saturday morning. While the pretty little bit of lace was drying on my blocking board, I cut a piece of hankerchief cotton to the right size and packed some thread, scissors and a needle for a trip into town. Fortunately I didn't have to drive, so I hemmed the hankerchief in no time! Saturday evening, the lace was dry and stitched in place on the hankie.


I am very pleased with how this hankerchief turned out!


I am rather hesitant to use it, it's almost too pretty!

There is one thing I would change if I could. When I started spinning the silk, I didn't have an idea in mind for it. Now that it's all knitted up, I think it would have looked better if the color repeats changed more frequently. Hindsight being 20/20, I would have split the roving lengthwise into 4 parts and spun top-bottom, bottom-top, top-bottom, bottom-top. Other than that, I'm happy!

Edgy

I decided to knit a little edging for a hankerchief with the tiny bit of silk yarn. I searched Ravelry and was surprised to find quite a few knitted lace edgings available. I picked the Apple Leaf lace and decided to drop the point border on it as I didn't want the lace to be too wide.



I've included a blue 2mm sock needle, a sewing needle and a measuring tape for scale. I couldn't remember the size of my fine steel needles. They might be 1.25mm. I could have rummaged through G's tools and found his digital calipers to confirm the diameter, but it's cool and raining today and I was comfy and warm on the couch and didn't feel like going out to the garage!

My little itty bit of lace is progressing quite quickly. To turn the corners, I working a few short rows.



eta: I did eventually go to the garage. It was cold and damp. The battery in the calipers had died! I bought a battery on Friday and the needles are US0000/1.25mm

Look what I did today!

I finished carding the Sushi Club Rambouillet.


I will likely start spinning this during the hockey game tonight. I'll need something to take the edge off the excitement of the Habs endeavor to win against Sid the Kid. Go Habs, Go!

*****

Another in the "catching up" series...


I'm now at 15 repeats of the Print O' the Wave Shawl. It's just as fun as it was, but had sat idle for a bit until I picked it up again after finishing my Fountainhead Scarf.

Catching up

One of the projects I've been working on over the last month was a Phat Fiber SAL/KAL. The PhatFiberLady created a lovely shawl pattern, the Fountainhead Shawl, that was posted on the Phat Fiber Secret Site (click here for details on how you can access the secret site). This SAL/KAL ran for March and April, and since I'm not really a shawl person, I didn't really bite until mid-April, when I decided that I could make a beautiful scarf using this stitch pattern.

Not being the sort of person who likes to hand in a project late, I started spinning with a vengeance.


These are Knitty and Color's Flightless Bird batts. I had decided to spin a two ply laceweight and since I have a hard time spinning anything finer than fingering weight on my wheel, this was spindle project.




It took 8 days of feverish spinning to get ~600 yards of what I believe to be a breath takingly beautiful laceweight. To say this yarn is grey is so much an understatement. More like hematite, but much, much more than that.





With less than a week remaining in April, I cast on for my scarf version of Jessie's beautiful shawl. (Mod's here) And 5 days later it was blocking!



Although spring arrived early here in Northern Ontario, it is still quite frosty in the morning and I have had a few opportunities to wear my new scarf. I think I'm in love! None of the photos capture the beauty of the yarn sufficiently.

A Wicked Case if Startitis

All day Friday, I was feeling restless and unsettled. Like I had creative energy with no where to direct it. I knitted on the Print O' the Wave (still loving it). I started on some Anemoi mittens for my sister (love Eunny's patterns). I considered starting a Cisco hat, but didn't have yarn I wanted. I briefly considered spinning something to use, when I realized if I let this continue I might cast on for 20 projects before nightfall. (I'm still considering the spinning - probably a collection of Phat Fiber samples all spun into a fun colorful yarn, just perfect for a friend's baby's head!)

.

I decided to clean the kitchen to gain some perspective. It took three times as long as normal - I kept being distracted by my stash. Then I did laundry, but the yarn and needles continued to call. I sat down with a cup of tea and sorted through patterns that I want to knit, yarns I want to knit with, my notebook of original ideas... and still I felt that strange uneasiness... could it have been that small coffee I had just before lunch? I know I don't drink coffee much anymore, but Tim Horton's must have really amped up the caffeine for me to be unable to focus on anything.

.

Then my responsibilities rescued me for a while - B had skating, supper needed making, M had skating, had to put the kids to bed. G went to bed early, just after the kids, so I sat down with another cup of tea, feeling much calmer than I had earlier in the day.

.

I picked up the Anemoi I'd started earlier in the day to frog it as I realized I wouldn't have enough of the peachy handspun to finish both mittens if I did a corrugated ribbing for the cuff. I cast on again and just as I finished the cuff in the lovely cocoa Gloss an IDEA hit me!

.

.

I've been working on it non-stop and am loving it! But until I'm ready to reveal this cool pattern, I'll be showing more Print O the Wave and Anemoi!

.

No frogging required

After 4 1/2 repeats, I thought my Print O' the Wave was long enough that I could give it a light steam blocking and decide whether it's good as it is or if I needed to change needle sizes.
.
.
I love it! I'm also finding the Gloss Lace softer and squishier knitted up!
.
We're movin' on! 29.5 repeats to go...
.

Print O' the Wave

I have loved Eunny Jang's Print O' the Wave pattern since I first saw it on her blog years ago. And I've finally decided to try it out.

.

I'm not sure if I like the Gloss lace yet. I love the Gloss Sock yarn, but this doesn't seem quite as soft and squishy. I do love the Ultramarine color though. I've completed one pattern repeat... only 33 to go. I'll probably stop after 6 repeats and block it a bit to see if I'm liking my needle choice. A 4mm needle is suggested for lace weight, but I know I knit loose, so I'm using a 3.25mm. Eunny suggests here, that she also likes the resulting fabric using a 2mm needle.... so I'll decide in a few days whether to rip and restart or continue as I am.

.

A little something...

I felt like trying a bit of lace yesterday. Since I've been so busy in August, I didn't have time to work too many of my July Phat Box samples. But I grabbed a beautiful little sample skein of laceweight mulberry silk handspun from Dragonmaille and tried this pattern. I didn't have quite enough to finish the doily, so I cast off where I had to. This yarn was so beautiful. I wish I'd remembered to take a picture of the skein before I started. The spinning was even and I loved the way the single ply shimmered.

.

I think it's quite pretty and it looks sweet sitting under the vase that holds my spindles. It measures approximately 6 inches in diameter.

.

I'm not very good at waiting...

... so I plied the singles last night. Twice. I decided it would go more quickly if I plied the singles on my wheel. I can't make lace weight singles on my wheel, but I can ply them on it! I wasn't really paying attention to how much twist I was adding and also found it tough to decide how much plying twist to add with the wheel since I'd spun them on a spindle. Turns out I had totally underplied the yarn. So I wound it into a ball and ran it through the wheel again to add some more. This time the yarn looked much more balanced. After a little "soak and thwack" and some drying it was ready to knit with this morning!

.

I have 2oz of light fingering weight/lace weight yarn about 300 yds.

.

And I've decided not to knit "Inconceivable". I finished the first 16 rows and decided while I love the idea of this wrap and all it's versatility, it just isn't me. So I decided to knit something I know I love. A few years ago I knit the Rectangle Cover Shawl from Knitpicks for my SIL and I loved it (I don't think it's available for download anymore). I've decided to use my handspun for a slightly smaller version for me.

.

So far 30 rows. This will be frogged however - one of the hazards of jumping into a project without much forethought. I just checked how much of the lovely colored batts I have left and am beginning to suspect I may run out before the shawl is as long as I would like. What I should have done, was spun one ounce of singles with the colorful stuff blended in and one ounce of the corrie without the color and plied them together. Not really knowing how to unply something, and guessing that would be quite an undertaking, I think I'll spin up 2oz of the corrie and knit from the two balls, alternating rows. I'll still have to spin up more of the color-blended and more plain to finish the wrap... but I'm game!

.

Inconceivable

I decided to do a knit-a-long this summer. I wanted to try spinning laceweight and the Inconceivable Wrap KAL caught my eye. The pattern was available July 1st and many knitters are posting wonderful progress so far. But I haven't even cast on yet. I wanted to blend some of my Phat Fiber Box samples with a neutral roving like to get an amazing yarn like this (be sure to click on the picture to zoom in). But wasn't happy with what I had in my stash. So I ordered some light grey Corriedale roving and am finally out of the starting blocks.

.

From left to right:

"Beach Glass" batt from Giffordables

Mohair Locks from Wonders Mohair

"Ocean" batt from Corgi Hill Farm

"Sitka Spruce" roving from Northern Lights Fiber Co.

and some of the light grey corrie blended with the samples

.

I've spun up 2 ounces so far and will ply them tomorrow. A little soaking... time to dry... and then, I'll be able to cast on. Hopefully if the humidity stays low, I'll cast on tomorrow night!

.

This 2oz won't be enough to do the wrap, so I'll be spinning and knitting a-long on this one!

.