Knitting update
Hold onto your socks everyone, there's actual knitting content in this here post!
Ene's Shawl by Nancy Bush from Scarf Style. I took a class with Nancy at Stitches and liked the style of the Estonian lace garments she showed us. I was intrigued by the fact that they weren't knit out of superfine yarns - the yarns used were closer to fingering weight than pace weight. I tend to veer toward extremes and have worked with some very fine yarn (although never with cobweb weight, yet) and I wanted to do something a little more moderate.
Yarn used: Jaggerspun 2/8 wool in color maize. I used to do a lot of felting of items that I machine knit, and I have a bunch of cones of this yarn sitting around. I haven't been doing as much machine knitting lately (I don't have big chunks of time available) so I wanted to use some of this yarn for hand knitting. I skeined the yarn onto my niddy-noddy and prewashed it to remove the spinning oil. It bloomed a fair amount in that first wash, and I expect it to bloom more when I was the finished garment.
Needles: size 6 Boye interchangeable aluminum. These have been my workhorse needles for a long time, and while they have their flaws (the cable is stiff, the join isn't great) they usually do the trick. I discovered partway into this project that one of the needles had a rough spot right at the join so I used some very fine grade sandpaper to gently smooth the rough spot and it worked much better.
I'm glad I snapped this progress picture when I did (yesterday morning) because I am now almost done. I just have to graft/bind off the last 16 stitches then it is ready for washing and blocking. This is the first time I have knit a bottom up shawl and it was fun to have the rows go faster and faster as I went along. I started this less than month ago (probably on July 5th or 6th) and it is basically done. July was a pretty bad month and I guess I really worked on this to try to work out some of my stress and fatigue. Who knew how productive stress would make me!
I'm not sure yet who will be the recipient of this garment. In choosing the color I tried to reach outside my normal tendencies in lace knitting (black, grey, white) and I'm not sure how much I would actually wear this color. On the other hand, many of my knitted lace objects are so fine that I'm wary of damaging them and they don't actually get worn that much. I think this would be a very wearable, functional garment. However, Punkin has asked me numerous times to knit her a shawl, and this might be a good match for her - not too big, not too delicate, and a happy, cheerful color. I don't know.
What's next? I don't know yet. I love knitting lace and would be happy to start another project, but I have many unfinished things that I should wrap up. I may try to finish my Ribby Cardi (just needs a zipper) and make some progress on Buddy's Fair Isle cardigan before starting something new.
I realized that I haven't documented our trip to Boston and I don't think I have the brains or energy to do so in a logical, rational way, but I have some photos to share:
Close to the end of our trip we went with the kids and the Italian's aunt (who recently retired after teaching elementary school for 30 years) to Drumlin Farm and we had a wonderful time. We wanted to go on an outing and do something outdoors but this was toward the end of our trip and we were getting tired so we wanted to do something local and modest in scale. Drumlin Farm was perfect. The kids got to see and pet some animals, go on a hay ride, run around outside, and it didn't take all day. It wasn't particularly crowded so the grownups got to enjoy each other's company without being too stressed about losing track of the kids, and the weather was perfect.
The kids were particularly entranced by the pigs, as you can see from the photos above. There were a number of pigs, both big and small, but the one that they couldn't tear themselves away from was the 600 lb. mother pig that was happily sleeping the day away. I think they were awed by her size!
Ene's Shawl by Nancy Bush from Scarf Style. I took a class with Nancy at Stitches and liked the style of the Estonian lace garments she showed us. I was intrigued by the fact that they weren't knit out of superfine yarns - the yarns used were closer to fingering weight than pace weight. I tend to veer toward extremes and have worked with some very fine yarn (although never with cobweb weight, yet) and I wanted to do something a little more moderate.
Yarn used: Jaggerspun 2/8 wool in color maize. I used to do a lot of felting of items that I machine knit, and I have a bunch of cones of this yarn sitting around. I haven't been doing as much machine knitting lately (I don't have big chunks of time available) so I wanted to use some of this yarn for hand knitting. I skeined the yarn onto my niddy-noddy and prewashed it to remove the spinning oil. It bloomed a fair amount in that first wash, and I expect it to bloom more when I was the finished garment.
Needles: size 6 Boye interchangeable aluminum. These have been my workhorse needles for a long time, and while they have their flaws (the cable is stiff, the join isn't great) they usually do the trick. I discovered partway into this project that one of the needles had a rough spot right at the join so I used some very fine grade sandpaper to gently smooth the rough spot and it worked much better.
I'm glad I snapped this progress picture when I did (yesterday morning) because I am now almost done. I just have to graft/bind off the last 16 stitches then it is ready for washing and blocking. This is the first time I have knit a bottom up shawl and it was fun to have the rows go faster and faster as I went along. I started this less than month ago (probably on July 5th or 6th) and it is basically done. July was a pretty bad month and I guess I really worked on this to try to work out some of my stress and fatigue. Who knew how productive stress would make me!
I'm not sure yet who will be the recipient of this garment. In choosing the color I tried to reach outside my normal tendencies in lace knitting (black, grey, white) and I'm not sure how much I would actually wear this color. On the other hand, many of my knitted lace objects are so fine that I'm wary of damaging them and they don't actually get worn that much. I think this would be a very wearable, functional garment. However, Punkin has asked me numerous times to knit her a shawl, and this might be a good match for her - not too big, not too delicate, and a happy, cheerful color. I don't know.
What's next? I don't know yet. I love knitting lace and would be happy to start another project, but I have many unfinished things that I should wrap up. I may try to finish my Ribby Cardi (just needs a zipper) and make some progress on Buddy's Fair Isle cardigan before starting something new.
I realized that I haven't documented our trip to Boston and I don't think I have the brains or energy to do so in a logical, rational way, but I have some photos to share:
Close to the end of our trip we went with the kids and the Italian's aunt (who recently retired after teaching elementary school for 30 years) to Drumlin Farm and we had a wonderful time. We wanted to go on an outing and do something outdoors but this was toward the end of our trip and we were getting tired so we wanted to do something local and modest in scale. Drumlin Farm was perfect. The kids got to see and pet some animals, go on a hay ride, run around outside, and it didn't take all day. It wasn't particularly crowded so the grownups got to enjoy each other's company without being too stressed about losing track of the kids, and the weather was perfect.
The kids were particularly entranced by the pigs, as you can see from the photos above. There were a number of pigs, both big and small, but the one that they couldn't tear themselves away from was the 600 lb. mother pig that was happily sleeping the day away. I think they were awed by her size!
posted by Marie at 8:29 AM
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