whitknits

I’m working from home today, so I took the opportunity to block the shawl. The final few rows nearly killed me, I think (a cast-off that requires you to essentially knit every stitch twice, when there are a good 450 stitches in the row…well, it takes awhile). But now that it’s all pinned out…holy crap, it looks so beautiful! By the way, that’s a king-size (well, actually, two twin-sized beds pushed together with a king-size mattress cover over them) bed that it’s blocking on, which means it’s nearly six-feet long, from tip-to-tip. Wow.

Here are the stats:
Pattern: Sivia Harding’s Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl
Yarn: Knitpicks Bare Merino/Silk. 2 full skeins, plus part of a 3rd.
Needles: size 5 Knitpicks Harmony circulars
Time to knit: January 16 – February 27th

For all my posts on this shawl, click here.

I had a busy week, going back to my regular schedule of classes and meetings and whatnot, so I didn’t find any time to post last week. Which is really quite alright, since I wouldn’t have had much to post about. The one and only thing I am working on, crafting-wise, is the shawl for my very-soon-to-be sister-in-law to wear at the wedding, which is less than 2 weeks away! Luckily, the shawl is very, very close to completion:

Ok, ok, so that just looks like the exact same blob I posted about last time. But no! It is really so much bigger than it was last time; it’s starting to get rather unwieldy on the needles:

I’m halfway through the final chart, meaning that I have only 20 rows remaining to complete. Granted, there are so many stitches in each row at this point that a row takes me a good 10 minutes to finish, but still…if I’m serious about it, I can finish the shawl today. Do y’all have any idea how thrilling that is? Not only will I have made something absolutely beautiful for a person I’m very excited about welcoming into my family, but I will also have cleared off the needles so that I can work on something, anything, other than a giant blob of lace! Because don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved knitting this shawl, but if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you probably know that project monogamy is not my strong point. But I’ve had to keep a single-minded focus (with the small exception of some spinning, just for sanity’s sake) on this shawl in order to finish it in time, because realistically, it’s at least as much knitting as a fairly complicated sweater would be.

Here are a few closeups, just for fun:

I really love the look of this leafy section. It was a blast to knit, as well. Just for kicks, here is an even-closer-up view of it:

I love the texture! Of course, the texture is all going to be blocked out once I finish, leaving a wonderful drapey shawl full of leaves, ferns, and flowers. Perfect for a spring wedding!

I’m starting to freak out just a wee bit about how on earth I am going to block this shawl. I’m definitely open to any lace-blocking advice y’all can offer me. If you look at the example of the shawl on pattern page, you’ll see that it’s not exactly a small shawl (my fingers could tell you the same…it’s a lot of knitting!). Our house is not exactly a big house, and much worse, the only room we can really shut off from the cats (because our doors are not so great at latching…something we really could fix, but I suppose we are a bit lazy, and it doesn’t matter all that much when it’s just my husband and I living here!) is a rather small bathroom upstairs. I’m not even sure if the shawl, once it’s all spread out, will fit in there. Eeeek! I’m actually contemplating blocking the shawl in one of the labs at school, if I can manage it. We’ll see what I figure out. In any case, this is the last you’ll be hearing about the shawl until I have it all blocked out.

Look at what I got to see when I went outside to take a picture of my handspun:

Is that not just the most amazing clear, brilliant blue sky you’ve ever seen? It made me so happy. I’m going to have to come back and look at that picture when the weather gets all grey and dreary again.

Here’s the picture I went outside to take:

I’m so proud of this (I know, I say this about every thing I’ve spun so far, but I really am!). I plied up my singles from yesterday, and it became a really nice looking 2-ply, probably about 25 yards or so of a really reasonable chunky weight. I can’t wait to spin up some more of that roving…maybe I can get enough for a hat or something. We’ll see.

Happy (now-belated) Valentines, y’all! Yesterday was my first day back at the office after quite a long time stuck at home with pneumonia, so I didn’t get around to writing up a post. My colleagues definitely spoiled me yesterday with the hugs and candy and treats. But, note to self: sugary food is not morning food! Between the sugar crash and the exhaustion from actually being out and about for the first time in awhile, I was so wiped out and headachy by the time I got home that I basically went straight to bed. Usually I’m good about not having sugar in the morning, but Valentines Day totally did me in.

Today I spun up my first little bit of colorful roving! I’d been working with the undyed stuff while I figured out a little bit of the mechanics, but I really wanted to play with the colorful stuff. I got the pink roving (“Candy Hearts” BFL from FreckleFaceFibers) with the goal of spinning up some Project Spectrum (and Valentine’s Day) themed yarn.

I’m so proud of this! I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this. My singles are around Sport-DK weight, so hopefully when I turn this into 2-ply, it won’t be ridiculously bulky. Not that bulky yarns can’t be fun, but I’m just not all that into knitting with the superbulky stuff, and I do want to be able to knit things with the yarn I make. Who knows what this’ll turn into, eventually!

I totally wore myself out with my spinning escapades this morning (it doesn’t take much to totally wear me out right now, though), so I barely have the energy to write a blog post, but I’m just so giddy about this that I have to post something:

I made useable yarn! This morning (day four of my spinning career) I started back up where I’d left off yesterday, and got my spindle pretty full (that’s the picture on the top left). I’m really proud of how relatively even my last two days of spinning has been…it’s a pretty solid heavy worsted weight. I decided I wanted to give plying another go, so I wound what I had into a center-pull ball, and plied from both ends. It’s not the world’s most even plying job, but it actually worked out pretty well, and when I skeined it up, it hung all nicely and balanced. So I was naughty, and didn’t set my twist….I know, I know, but it was only like, 10 yards of yarn, and I really just wanted to play around with knitting it up. After I plied, it became a delightfully fluffy super-bulky, knitting up at about 2sts/inch. I made a useless little strip of stockinette (with a garter ridge, just because I felt like it), which I will proudly hang on to as my first object knitted with yarn I made all by myself.

Oh, and lest anyone worry that this is turning into a spinning blog, I am most definitely still knitting. The problem is, my current project looks like this:

It’s going to be gorgeous, but there’s only so many times I can post a picture of a lump of lace. I did my best to try to spread it out, but there’s just too much on the needles right now:

At least in that picture you can sort of see the center panel of ferns, though they’re sort of squished. I’ve only got a couple more ferns to go, and then I’m on to the border lace. I can’t wait until I get this finished and can block it out all the way…and then see it on my lovely future sister-in-law. The wedding is less than a month away now, so I won’t have to wait long (but I need to get cranking, because the rows just keep getting longer).

I gave it another try this morning (with my hair pulled back into a tidy bun this time around…I learned my lesson yesterday!), and here’s what I got:

The picture on the top left is of my very first attempt at spinning yarn that did not incorporate my own hair. It’s sort of terrible, but I know I’m supposed to expect that! The picture on the middle left is of my second attempt, which I did manage to keep a bit more even. The big picture is this second attempt, with my hand for scale. It’s sort of “Lamb’s Pride Bulky”-ish, except, you know, crappy, and only a few yards long. The final picture is of the sad results of my attempt to ply the two first yarns together, just for kicks. I have something of an idea of what might’ve gone wrong, but as you can probably see, I mostly managed to just remove the twist from both of the strands. Ooops.

I am so full of questions right now. It’s strange…with knitting, when I was teaching myself, I was more than happy to just play around and try things out on my own until they looked right, but with spinning, I feel so much more nervous and uncertain. I think most of that is because whereas with knitting, I could screw up royally, unravel the mess, and try again…with spinning, once I’ve royally screwed up a chunk of fiber, it’s pretty much done. And I know, in the abstract, that I’m not really “wasting” it, since it’s all part of the learning process, but it still, uh, sort of feels like I’m wasting it.  Maybe I can ball it up and use it to stuff handknit toys, or something.

I think I know where I’m going wrong with some things. Like, I know my yarn is crazy bulky because I’m letting way too much fiber into the twist as I’m drafting, but I’m failing to actually turn this knowledge into an ability to actually let less fiber in at a time. One thing I totally don’t get is how to keep the yarn from untwisting when I decide to stop spinning…the ends of both of my little pieces are just untwisting themselves into fluff, which is exactly what it seems like they should do, once I stop holding the twist in with my pinched fingers. So I just don’t get how that’s supposed to NOT happen, even after reading lots and lots about the whole process and watching pretty much every video I could find. I’m half tempted to clip a barrette around the ends or something, but I’ve never read/seen anything about that, so I feel like I’m missing something.

I figure I’ll just keep trying a little bit at a time, in hopes that my hands start to work out what they need to do. I can’t handle too much at once right now anyway, as I’m tired and achy as all get-out, and am under doctor’s orders to be getting as much rest as possible lest I wind up needing to be hospitalized for this respiratory stuff that I can’t seem to kick. So…I’m off to take a nap. Maybe I’ll dream of spinning.

Look what came in the mail today:

Well, actually, the book was acquired a few days ago, so that I could read up in advance. But the spindle and a little bit of fiber came today, and (fortunately?) I’m stuck at home sick, so I figured I’d give it a try.

Oy. I suck at drafting, and I wish there were someone I could watch up close to figure out what the heck I’m supposed to be doing, because it’s just not translating from the book to my fingers. Oh, and guess what I managed to do on my first and only attempt at spinning with actual fiber so far?

I spun a little bit of my own hair, still attached to my head, into it. OUCH. So, there’s my little PSA for long-haired would-be spinners: pull it back, or at least, don’t be a total illness-addled klutz and wind up letting it get into the mix (not as hard as you’d think, if you’re doing “park and draft”, and lean over your work). I’m setting it all aside for now, and hoping that the next time I try it, it goes a little more smoothly. I don’t want to destroy all my practice fiber in the first go, after all!

So, Project Spectrum started yesterday, and despite being focused on the shawl, I wanted to have something appropriately themed to work on. Alas, since fire colors are generally not terribly flattering on me or any of the loved ones for whom I knit, I don’t own a lot of yarn in the colors for this 2-month period. The yarn you see above is the lone representative of fire in my yarn stash.

(my favorite orange critter tries to get in on the action)

It’s sKnitches Kettle Drum, in “Goddess”. The color is fantastic…semi-solid, and sort of creamsicle-esque. This is probably my very favorite base yarn, a merino/bamboo/nylon blend. It’s the same yarn as I used to knit my Giotto With The Flow socks. I briefly considered knitting a second pair of those, but decided (with Lolly’s encouragement) to go for something a bit more fiery. I’m turning them into Flickering Flames Socks, and have actually already completed the picot hem…but they’ll be set aside for awhile so that I can work on the shawl this weekend (and work on a bunch of assignments and whatnot, as well).

My plan for this year’s Project Spectrum (ha, I typed “Project Runway” here, first…yeah, I’m a little obsessed!) is to let socks be my element-themed projects, since trying to plan larger projects to coincide with the themes just doesn’t work out well for me. We’ll see how it all goes…mostly I’m just excited to see what lovely PS-themed projects everyone else comes up with!