So much fiber, so little time

Halloween Black Cat Blogging

Huey celebrates Halloween by yelling at the birds.

New lace

OK, I'm still messing with beads.  I'm adding them to the "spines" of the hexagonal fern lace from Barbara Walker 3. Since there are at most 12 beads on any given row, the knitting is very fast, and I'll just keep going until I run out of yarn. There should enough to make the stole a decent size even before it's blocked.

Moon slivers

Dabbling

Today has been uniformly overcast. Needless to say, I didn't try for shawl pictures. I'm planning to add it to the lace photo album with instructions, which I definitely need to do while I still have my scrawled notes for short-rowing the corners.

I've been sampling the alpaca/merino/tussah with beads, and the only thing I've settled on is the needle size. The swatch doesn't have quite the right feel for a wimple, although it would make a lovely seaman's scarf. Unfortunately, I hate knitting all that neckline ribbing, not to mention grafting it. So, I think the yarn and beads will become a rectangular stole about 34" wide and as long as either the yarn or my patience allows.

As day fades

Here's the finished shawl - I barely caught the last of the sun, which meant a precariously low shutter speed. If it's not raining in the morning, I'll try to get better pictures for the lace photo album. At least the beads show in the pop-up picture, even if the lace itself doesn't.

Let the sun shine!

I just finished pinning out the beaded shawl. (Note to self: next time folding tables are on sale, buy two. This kneeling and crawling for half an hour is for the birds! ) I was in math geek mode and kept putting a tape measure against a center pin to make the circle as round as possible.

Onwards, next project! I excavated the alpaca/merino/tussah yarn, and I think I've decided on the stitch pattern. I also need to clear my warping board, which handily doubles as a glove and leash holder, to measure a sample warp for the poppana corduroy rug.

Blue skies, nothing but blue skies

The sun came out today for the first time in about a week. Fingers crossed that the forecast holds for tomorrow, because I'd really like to block the beaded lace shawl! Anyway, sunshine (or what passes for it in Ithaca) allowed me to photograph nearly 1100 yards of Storm Clouds yarn. I plied it off yesterday and washed it, but it's been too cold and humid for the skeins to dry completely. They're hanging outside right now in hopes of evaporating the last of the moisture.

I'm postponing the wimple-into-shawl for a while. The unscoured merino/cashmere yarn is just no fun to knit with (it feels way too much like cotton!), so I need to skein and wash it first. In the meantime, I'm going to pull out the remaining laceweight alpaca/merino/tussah skeins for a beaded wimple. Judging by my web hits in the last week, wimples are apparently hot items, which makes me glad. They offer many design possibilities in terms of both stitch patterns and yarns, and they're also practical and comfortable.

And just to enoy pissing off both Cubs and Red Sox fans, go Cardinals!

Sparkly fun

Here's about half of the lighter run of the Storm Clouds fiber. I'll spin the rest onto another bobbin and ply them into a fine 2-ply for lace or weaving.

Fiber blogland is quiet this weekend, no doubt because of the large number of bloggers at Rhinebeck. At least they're having warmer and drier weather than we are! I'm hoping the rain stops as forecast so that I might get a chance to block the shawl tomorrow.

All over, bar the blocking

I finished the beaded shawl yesterday! Unfortunately, our weather forecast calls for rain until Wednesday, so I probably won't be able to block it until then. There's a good-sized ball of yarn left, which means I could have made the shawl a repeat or two longer, but that's OK. I'll use the leftovers with some black 2/20 in a woven scarf.

Valerie's comment about a wimple-into-poncho intrigued me, and last night, I did a quick swatch in garter stitch chevrons using 2/8 merino/cashmere. I'm thinking of using these yarns for a child-sized prototype.

And this morning, I decided spinning suited this rainy day and began cleaning the wheel and the WooLee Winder, which have been sitting idle for a while. Much to my dismay, the stationary eyelet on the winder has decided not to thread back into place. I've emailed Nathan for help and, in the meantime, dragged out the original flyer. Bummer!

Update: The WooLee Winder is back together, although not before I started spinning the singles. It turns out that the tube with the slot had rotated slightly out of position. Nathan is a very helpful soul.

Annual occasion

Today was my annual "run-the-furnace-while-it's-warm-outside" day. I have forced hot air gas heat, so  I wait for a reasonably warm day after a cold spell to test the furnace. That lets me leave the windows wide open and fans running, while the summer accumulation of mold, dog hair and et cetera in the vents circulates through last season's filters.  Then I turn the furnace off, replace the filters, and wait until November to turn it on again. (The house definitely approached a meat-locker indoor temperature range this morning, so running the furnace has improved ambient conditions in the computer room quite a bit :)

Circumnavigation

The edging voyage around the circular shawl is 5/8's complete, and it looks as if I'll have plenty of yarn. That's good, because the lifeline broke, so I pulled it out. I'm hoping to have just enough more to put a narrow i-cord on the selvedge stitches, both to firm up the edge and to place pattern-enhancing beads.

Naturally, I'll finish everything just as we're heading into several days of rain and (yikes!) snow Saturday night, but it's supposed to clear up Sunday. Fingers crossed that Sunday will be blocking day...

Edging, ho!

O frabjous day, I started the shawl edging this morning. I had originally planned to use a lace edging, but after trying a few repeats, I pulled it out and went back to crosswise k1,p1. With luck, I'll finish sometime this week, and weather fairies permitting, be able to block it.

Lifelines

Many lace knitters seem to like using lifelines, i.e. stringing a length of smooth yarn periodically along the stitches to have a safe place to which to rip back. I hate 'em and prefer to use markers as a warning of pattern screw-ups. The only time I use lifelines is when I might possibly be running out of yarn, and so I threaded 14/2 mercerized cotton along one row of the shawl this morning. I think it took almost as long to do as it would have to knit the damned row, but I'd like to finish one more repeat before I start the edging, and if I do run out of yarn, at least I won't have to tink my way back.

Shauna asked about wimple patterns. Wimples are really easy to design: since they're just a tube, you only need to pick a favorite stitch pattern and know what roughly what your gauge will be. (And close counts, since the fit doesn't need to be precise!) I make the circumference 32-34" and the length (sans ribbing) about 20". Also, I start with a provisional cast-on so I can knit a k1,p1 band crosswise onto the top and bottom edges. That gives a cleaner and more elastic edge.

I choose the lace stitches for both wimples and shawls from a variety of sources. I'm particularly partial to the patterns in Die schönsten Strickmuster, Omas Strickgeheimnisse, any of the Barbara Walker stitch compendia, and The New Knitting Stitch Library.

A faint light

... at the end of the shawl tunnel. I just draped it over my shoulder, and it's nearly long enough to consider when to begin edging it. I still have to decide what kind of edging to use. It needs to fit both the pattern and the number of stitches, and I'd also like to highlight it with beads. Guess it's time to dig through the pattern books - I'm really glad I have a lot of out-of-print Tessa Lorant stuff!

Salvaged!

It took a combined technique and at least 6 hours. I tinked about 1500 stitches, which made it easier to see what patches were necessary. Most of the drops were easy to fix, but the 12 stitch section closest to the tip of the needle had unravelled pretty badly. Good thing it's spider stitch lace and not rose trellis! Anyway, the shawl is on a metal circular now, and I'm less than a row and a half behind the disaster point. I guess I should gather up the Natura corpses and send them back to Addi for refunds.

I need a break from the trauma :) so I think I'll sew up the spinner's lap blanket. I'd bought light and dark fake leather over a year ago but didn't feel like coaxing the sewing machine through it. The serger, on the other hand, should just eat it up. Then I can start to play with the Storm Cloud fiber.