Shawl Update

Hi, All. I brought my car in for a fix and a tune up so I got a lot of knitting done on my Wing-of-the-Moth shawl. I had gotten almost this far when I realized I just wasn't happy with it and ripped it out. Now I'm much happier with it and it's zooming along nicely.

Sorry about the bad pics, but it's the best I could manage today. I'm about 1/3 of the way to the start of the border. With every other row getting longer, it's going to take a while. It's pretty easy to knit. A good beginner shawl, in my opinion.

The green pin is on the center line of the shawl. The reason I ripped out the shawl was that I just didn't like the YO's on either side of the center stitch. I changed it to a make-one on either side instead and I am much happier with the way it looks.

I just joined another KAL. Just what I need, but I so enjoyed reading about the Mystery Shawl 3 that I couldn't resist. The one I joined is Secret of the Stole put on by Nautical Knitter . It really looks like a lot of fun. The first clue will come out October 5th which will give everyone time to get supplies and knit their swatches. I've ordered Alpaca Cloud from Knit Picks in the Tide Pool Heather color. I've never knit with machine-made alpaca before, but I like using my own hand spun alpaca so this will be nice. I am getting tired of natural colors, too, so I am looking forward to working with this.

Knit Picks has great marketing with their free shipping. Since the 4 skeins of Alpaca Cloud was less than $45 I just HAD to buy 6 skeins of Bare-Merino Lace Weight to get the free shipping. Can't resist free shipping. Ha! Not sure what I'll be doing with it, but I'm sure I'll think of something.

I've got a busy weekend ahead. It's my granddaughter's 3rd birthday tomorrow and she is coming to stay with us until Tuesday afternoon. My husband went to a great garage sale and picked up a bunch of cool stuff for her. I made her a cake today and we'll be having pancakes and sausages for supper. Her favorites. Lots of sugar so she'll be zooming around here all weekend, I'm sure. I LOVE being a grandma.

I took a long nap this afternoon, so I guess I'll be up all night. I better get cracking on getting the house ready for the 3 year-old. A local kid died a few months ago when she ate some of her mom's perscription meds that were in a child-proof bottle. Really tragic. My husband and I both take several so I always double check and make sure they are locked up. We keep them in a locked tool box. No taking any chances even though the bottles have child-proof caps. These kids can get into anything.

Have a great holiday weekend, Everyone.

New Tools

Woo Hoo! New stuff! First off is my stuff from The Woolery. I have ordered from them several times and I'm always pleased.

This is some Tussah silk noils. The plan is to dye them several colors and mix them with wool for a tweed type yarn.
This is the Support Spindle by Royale Hare . It is GREAT. I actually mastered the one-handed long draw within a few minutes of using it. I can't wait until my grandkid goes home so I can actually use it.
These are the Viking combs by Indigo Hound. I have their 5-pitch English combs and love them. I wanted these to use on shorter fibers.

Then, Knitpicks had a 40% off book sale at KnitPicks . Sooooo:

I now have all of Elizabeth Zimmermann's books. I got my first one, "Knitting Without Tears" for 5 cents at a garage sale. I fell in love with her style.
I heard so many good things about this book that I thought I would get it. I all ready do socks on 2 circulars on occasion, but there is always something new to learn.
I really like the sock book by these ladies, so I had to get this one. I like the idea of "Knit-to-Fit", too. Knitting a sweater that actually fits my body is a rare thing. I'm hoping this book will help.

I really haven't had a chance to read these yet. I'll let you know what I think when I've gone through them. At a glace, they look pretty good.

Gotta run. The lightening is hitting hard outside and I have to unplug the modem. We've lost one computer and one answering machine to lightening already.

Spinning at the Fair

Hi, All. Man, I've had an extremely busy time since I last posted. Taking care of step-dad, sleep studies at hospital, out of town guest, traveling to get a much needed new (to us) truck and spinning at the Carlton County fair. This was in one of the county newspapers, The Pine Journal . I guess I'm famous now. I had been spinning on my wheel and this kid was sent over to me by another spinner because she knew I had brought my spindle. This kid comes by every year and is just a joy to spin for. I hope he keeps coming and maybe we can reel him in as a new spinner some day. I spent 4 days (around 28+ hours) spinning at the fair this year. I love it. The costume gets a little cumbersome, and the weather didn't cooperate, but I had a blast anyway.

This is the yarn I spun last year which is the same as the stuff I spun this year. It's a mix of all my left-overs from combing. It works really well. I can show people all the different animal fibers in my bag before I hand card it and spin it up. I usually card up a rollag and then spin it so they can see the process. This skein is a mix of several wools, alpaca, silk, mohair, and llama plus a little chunk of blue tencel that I tried. As exhausted as this makes me, I still can't wait until next year to do it all over again.

Soon, I hope to get some pictures taken of my shawl. I have only worked on it for an hour or so, but it looks like it will turn out nice. Take care, Everyone.

Plying is done

Well, the plying for the Wing-of-the-Moth shawl is finished.

I ended up with 1210 yards of 2-ply out of 10 ounces of the alpaca, wool, silk, and mohair. The yarn is very soft, shinny, slippery, and a bit fuzzy. The colors got pretty much muddied up. More blended than I wanted, but I guess that's the way it is. We'll see how it knits up. It really feels nice.

Book Review

I'm a little behind but here is my review of Wrapped in Comfort by Alison Jeppson Hyde.

First off, it's an all around great book. Lots of good photos of the items both off and on models so you can really see what the garments look like. All patterns have both charted and written instructions.

The patterns include 12 shawls in which there are 1 beginner level, 4 easy level, 5 intermediate level and 2 experienced level. Also, there are 4 scarf patterns of which there are 1 beginner and 3 intermediate level.

There is good discussion of instructions: Skill levels, needles, yarn, gauge, yarn-overs, decreases, increases, knit, purl, joining new yarn, life lines, charts and written directions, blocking, shaping and construction of top-down circular shawls, neck edges, sizes, and designing your own.

There is a story for each pattern. Very well written and enjoyable to read.

The instructions are extremely well thought out and easy to understand.

All in all, I would highly recomend this book to all levels of knitters. It is a perfect knitting book.