Indiski Shawl

Progress has been made on the Indiski shawl since the last post.

After separately knitting both borders, sts were picked up along the straight edge of each one.
Want a closer look? First the sts are picked up (as opposed to picked up and knit, they're just placed on the needle) in the front loop of the chain selvedge edge. Placing them on the needle first lets you make doubly sure you've got the correct number and that they're all heading the same direction before they get stretched out in the process of knitting them.
Then, you knit the sts through the back loop which causes a little twist in them making a pretty join.

From the back you can see the twisted sts and the straight horizontal line is from the other loop of the chain selvedge edge.
The really important part when working the selvedge st on a piece like this, is that needs to be done very loosely; probably two or two and a half times looser than a normal edge st. This allows it to stretch along with the lace pattern during the blocking process.

After the inner border, the zig zag pattern, on each piece is finished, the miter is grafted together to join them together . Sorry no pics of this as it was an early morning maneuver without light enough for decent pics.
The inner triangle is then started, working from the sts on the left inner border and attaching them to the sts from the right inner border. There is a small error in stitch count in the pattern on the first row of the middle triangle but it's an easy fix.

For my peeve of the week, let me present my June Tactile club fiber. Isn't the color lovely. The solid is Osage Orange overdyed with Indigo making a lovely sage-y green and green aqua (not as blue as the photo shows). But...
the fiber content is Bamboo/Wool/Alpaca (49/28/23). Now, this is supposed to be a "luxury" fiber offering; you pay a premium for this fiber as opposed to the wool/wool blend club fiber. Never should bamboo, basically a rayon, be classified as a luxury fiber. Yes, there is alpaca in the mix but last month's offering was an alpaca blend and when I signed up, no where did it state that this was an all alpaca fiber club. Plus, I can get much nicer alpaca just outside of town. Last month we had to sign up again for the next three months and with this delivery of a pseudo-luxury fiber, I'm wondering now if I made a mistake. So, why does it matter? Just spin it up, you say? Well, bamboo and I are not friends and life's too short to work with fiber you don't like. If you'd like this fiber, just let me know, it's looking for a new home.

Wheel P*rn

Two and a half years ago when I got this wheel I took a few rather dark indoor pics and since that time haven't taken any others that show off it's real beauty. So, when I gave it a fresh coat of wax yesterday, I rectified that situation. Go put the kettle on and make yourself a cup of tea while these pics load.
Lovely Lendrum Saxony in Black Walnut.
Lovely wood grain on treadles.
Lovely wood grain on wheel and elegant footmen.
Side shot.
Shot from above. Yes, I know, the lawn is filled with weeds, but I'd rather spin than deal with them.
Long elegant spokes and little orifice hook.
More lovely wood grain on wheel.
Lazy kate and extra bobbins. My pic of the under table storage for the extra whorl didn't turn out.
Lennox spinning chair.
Ready to spin away the afternoon.

Now...With 10% More Whining

The blog. It's back open for business. It's come to my attention that some of the very popular blogs that get a bazillion comments feature a fair bit of whining. You know the ones--oh dear, I cast on the wrong number of sts. Twice. What to do, what to do. W-h-i-n-e.

Well, when we left off, I'd started working on one side of the border for the Indiski shawl. Just when I finished the last repeat, I looked down and noticed a mistake about 7 repeats back.

Oh, Woe is me! what shall I do!
RIP, of course. I've never quite understood this reluctance to rip out one's knitting. There was no deadline looming, the yarn is cashmere, and, after all, I like to knit. Just like that. It was knit back up and the second border done, too.
Once the inner borders are finished, the pieces will be joined at the center miter. The pattern calls for the yarn to be left attached at the corner and a new end started for the inner border with the top edging worked last. But because I'm working from a cone of yarn I decided to work it right away so I wouldn't have to estimate the amount of yarn to wind off and then deal with while knitting the middle section. It was either that or cut it and deal with another yarn end, which I'd rather not do.

In spinning news, I broke into the Blue Moon Sheep2Shoe kit I bought at Madrona. The color is called Dutch Canyon.
The colors seemed pretty bright, but alot of them cross the color wheel so I expected them to calm down once spun up. I tried Mel's trick of spinning a three ply fractal. For once I actually got a three ply sock weight yarn.
The singles were spun on the Joy and measured in at 57 WPI. It was plied on the Reeves. This is my new favorite handspun. Can't wait to knit with it.

Also, combed this delectable 2 oz of raw Peaches and Cream cria alpaca. It's a true gold color--think the color of a light Golden Retriever. And, seriously, it's as soft or softer than cashmere.Spun up into a heavy lace weight.

And, since this arrived while the blog was in limbo, I figured I'd post it now. The May/June Tactile club fiber. Club openings for the next three months are open until tomorrow. Just sayin', you might as well sign up. You know you want to.

Okay, that's it. Started out whining but it seemed to fade out at the end. I'll do better next week. Promise.

Yellow and Blue

This week we feature yellow. Of all the Iris colors, the yellow gold ones are my favorite.

And, we have yellow yarn, too. This is the finished Tactile April club fiber shown two weeks ago. Definitely laceweight and soft, soft, soft.
No, you don't see alot of loft on it because I don't believe in yarn abuse and will not do the semi-felting business often suggested for short fibers such as angora. With enough twist in the spinning, everything should stay put and it will fuzz up once it's knit.

And, we have blue. A new project, Galina's new Russian warm shawl design from the current Piecework.
The construction of this type of shawl is different than most triangle shawls. This is one side of the border. Using Colourmart cashmere. Mmmm! You need some. Really! You need some!

Blue, too, about these socks. This was one of the Hawaii beach projects and only the soles are showing since they're slated to be a new Heartland Knits design (and I believe in keeping those things under wraps until they're ready for their debut).See how the colors at one end of the skein are more muted than the other end. This is Fleece Artist SeaWool. Doesn't look so bad in the St st sole, but the stitch pattern doesn't appear to it's advantage in the brighter sock. Disappointing.

Were you disappointed that there was no blog post last week? Yeah, the lack of feedback lately has left me feeling pretty disappointed and blue about the whole blog thing. Please consider commenting. It will make it much easier to set aside the time to write a blog entry each week.

Try, Try Again

This time of year when the flowering trees are in bloom is so beautiful. Wouldn't it be nice if they could stay this way all the time.

Another type of bloom arrived this week. It's the initial offering of Tactile's fiber club. I know, after being dissatisfied nearly every month with the fiber club (which shall remain nameless) last year, I vowed never to join another one. But, I seriously loved all the colors at Tactile's booth at Madrona so figured chances were good I'd like their club fibers, too. Turned out I was right.
It's a nice set up. You get a solid in the natural dye of the month (this month being Weld) and then a handpaint using it and additional natural dyes (this month it's Weld, Indigo, and quebracho red). Also, you can choose between wool or luxury fibers. I choose the latter and this month it was Angora/Merino. Mmmm.

Also, the fiber comes with a couple of info sheets--one about the dye material and the other on the fiber content. Nice, very nice.
There was enough white space on them to put a little snippet of the fiber and some samples I made spinning each separately and then what they looked like plied together. You know how I love keeping records for stuff like this, so this set up is perfect.

Because I really wanted to get to spinning this right away, I didn't wait to think up some clever way to use both colors but decided to do the obvious and spin them very fine and ply them together.
Here is the handpaint spun on the Reeves measuring in at 72 WPI. The spinning of the solid is nearly finished so look for pics of the plied yarn next week.

This week the mailman also brought a copy of this lovely book. It's an English translation of a long OOP German book featuring lace by Herbert Niebling.
His stuff is so fun to knit. Plus, I seem to learn something about constructing lace in every piece.

The cloth on the left is one of my favorites in this book.
Hmmm, it might be very pretty in pink. What do you think?

Spring Blooms

The spring flowers have started showing their cheery faces in the garden.

Also blooming this week is the Niebling doily from the Spring issue of Anna. It doesn't have an official name but I was struck by how much it mirrored the look of the daffodils.
This doily was started using Joyce Williams Eastern European cast on--the one for starting socks on two circs. It makes it easy as pie to get going, but I sort of miss the little gathered sts in the center of the doily.
The chain cast off was blocked by having adjacent chains sharing a pin--this seemed to take away the loopy sort of edge my other doilies have where I used one pin for each chain.

Other doily stats:
DMC Cordonnet #50 thread
Size 00 (1.75mm) needles
Finished size: 13" diameter

I've also restarted (again) my Jonquil Wensleydale handspun cardi. Third time must be the charm because this one seems to be through the swatching phase and already past the cuff. Yay!

Wee One

A new spindle arrived this week. Just a wee little thing, smaller than I imagined it would be.
It's a Jenkins Turkish Delight. The wood is Pink Ivory and it weighs 1.3 oz.

Here it is all put together. Awwww. This thing is so cute it's impossible to talk about it without the pitch of your voice rising two degrees.
All filled up it looks like this. I'm spinning a wool/silk blend purchased last year at Shepherd's Harvest from Morning Sun Fiber Barn. It's a light airy roving. Since Turkish spindles generally spin slower than their top whorl counterparts, I'm finding it easiest to spin more of a woolen single. This little guy is completely mesmerizing to use.

Here's a shot of the underside.One nice thing about Turkish spindles is as you wind on, it forms a center pull ball. You wind over two arms and then under one arm.

In knitting news, I started another doily. This is the no-name Niebling in the latest issue of Anna.
It's very spiderweb-y and seems to be going together really quickly as I only started this on Friday night and am just about halfway done.

We'll see if that sort of progress continues now that the days are nice and the garden is calling.