sweetgeorgia

Diamond Fantasy

Vancouver is seriously lacking sufficient light to take photos right now. These were shot at 6400 iso. 6400. I can’t even believe it.

The Diamond Fantasy Shawl is done and blocked. Knit out of the Silk Lamb Lace yarn, I followed Sivia’s instructions to the letter — the shawl is 10 repeats with the icord edging. The perfect size. Divine and soft, I love it. If you are in Vancouver and want to see it up close and personal, it’s actually at the three bags full shop right now. I’ll probably leave it there for a couple weeks… and I doubt I’ll need to wear it anytime soon!

Secret Cove

Life has thrown me a few happy, crazy, angsty days since my last post on Thursday. Jen and I are both long-time volunteers involved in the organization of the annual DanceSport BC SnowBall Classic DanceSport event and we spent the past couple days tucked away in the Sunshine Coast participating in a massive strategic planning meeting that covers all things “SnowBall” from now until 2010. It was eight or nine hours a day of thinking, analyzing, dreaming, planning — all very inspiring. It’s so uplifting to be around people who are all so optimistic and enthusiatic. Their passion is palpable. The entire committee stayed at the gorgeous Rockwater Secret Cove Resort in Halfmoon Bay.

When we weren’t indoors, this is what we got to see:

And this is what we did each evening after dinner:

Jen is borrowing my Ashford Joy wheel indefinitely and so we were both spinning and chatting until late each night. A perfect way to relax after all that work — and I managed to get more of my Gotland spun up. Relaxing AND productive. No better combination.

As for the angst, see this lovely new 50/50 silk/wool laceweight yarn that I dyed?

Well, I can’t decide if I like it as the Diamond Fantasy Shawl or as the Kiri Shawl. Ridiculous, no? I started knitting each shawl from either end of the same ball of yarn… I’ll let you know which shawl wins out… when I decide.

So handspun it hurts

Use your handspun. It’s the only way you can determine if your spinning is any good. I read that somewhere and it’s stuck in the back of my mind all the time now.

Last May, I bought 1/2 lb of Ashland Bay merino roving from Penelope Fibre. It sat in the stash for a few weeks because I was intimidated by it and worried that I might ruin it. I sucked up the courage to start spinning it laceweight. Finally, in January, I finished all the spinning and started knitting the Lotus Blossom Shawl.

This is my real first, large-scale handspun and handknit project… and here it is off the needles:

Lotus Blossom Shawl

• Pattern: from Fiddlesticks Knitting, designed by Dorothy Siemens
• Yarn: Handspun Laceweight Merino (I have about half of my spinning leftover! So I must have used about 100 g)
• Needles: US 6 / 4.0 mm Addi Turbos
• Changes: I used a smaller needle size just because I didn’t have any other needles handy, so I had to knit chart 2 twice to give the shawl extra length
• Finished Measurements: 70″ x 35″ (definitely smaller than the pattern specs, just slightly bigger than my blocking board).

What are things that people always say about spinning laceweight… the singles need lots of twist to hold the finer diameter, take all the tension off so that you can get lots of twist in, blah blah blah. This handspun is irregular in grist because I spun it over such a long period of time, was still getting a hang of spinning fine and also because I switched wheels part way through! But in some places, I think the yarn had so much twist that it became wirey and dense. If I were to do it again, I would spin it all a little softer.

This leads me to sampling. What a good idea. It’s like knitting a gauge swatch (which we always do, right?!). How does the fabric feel knit at that tension with those needles. How about going up a needle size, going down a size? Is the fabric too dense? Too drapey? When your knitting with commercial yarns, the yarn itself is taken out of the equation — it’s your job to just pick the most appropriate needle size for that yarn (ok, I’m oversimplifying). But when you are making the yarn, you need to look at how your yarn works up as fabric and if it is appropriate — will it be hardwearing? Will it pill or fuzz? All those variables are under your control now. So, spin a little bit, knit a little bit. See if you like it.

That’s what I’ve done with this new project:

There’s about 2 oz of Cashmere/Silk 50/50 top that I bought from Deep Color Studio this past November… Again, nervous about spinning it up and ruining it. So I tore off a little piece and spun it up laceweight using my new highspeed bobbins and whorl (I’m using 19.5:1 for spinning singles “from the fold” and 17.5:1 for plying). I washed the yarn and have started knitting it up in Evelyn Clark’s “Trellis Scarf” pattern from the Spring IK magazine. I figured if I liked it, I could keep going. If I didn’t like it, I could just go back and modify how I’m spinning it. As it turns out, I like it.

Spread those feathers…

The Peacock Feathers Shawl is done!

After a clumsy crochet cast off, there was a quick soak in some Lavender-scented Eucalan and then lots of pinning onto the blocking board. I used my make-shift blocking wires for the top line of the shawl. The individual loops at the bottom edge of the shawl had to be pinned out individually. I was not a perfectionist here. Alas, as much as I love my blocking board, it’s not big enough for shawls. I have three towels placed at the edges of the board in a sad attempt to extend the area.

Peacock Feathers Shawl:

• Pattern: from Fiddlesticks Knitting, designed by Dorothy Siemens
• Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr 2/18 in Cinnabar (3.5 oz skein, but I have lots leftover)
• Needles: US 3 / 3.25mm Addi Turbos, 3.25mm Addi crochet hook
• Changes: I used a smaller needle size because I was unsure if I would have enough yarn to complete the project.
• Finished Measurements: 83″ x 41″ (a little smaller than pattern specs which are 88″ x 43″)

As mentioned by many, many knitters before, Fiddlesticks patterns have large, clear charts and very well-written directions. The crochet cast off was easy with Dorothy’s inclusion of a step-by-step photo instruction page.

The only one time I really goofed was when I brought my shawl with me to dinner but forgot the chart up in my office… I attempted to engage in dinner conversation with Richard while knitting and also trying to channel Dorothy Siemens… hoping that I would be able to figure out some of the non-repeating portion of the pattern just by looking at it. Well, I guess I’m not that “sensitive”, so I have one goofy plume.

On multitasking, or not.

It’s 9:15 pm on a Sunday night and I’m still at work. These are the days when I envy those people with lovely 9-to-5 jobs, hour-long lunch breaks and paid vacation time. This past week, I’ve been at the office until about 9pm every night (except spinning night) and last night. It is insane how much work I have to do, but what has surprised me completely is that I nearly made my Olympic goal.

I have three more rows to knit on the Peacock Feathers Shawl.

Over the past week, I was able to squeeze in the shawl by multitasking… knit while I generate big PDFs, knit while I wait for stuff to finishing uploading, knit while doing my bridesmaidly duties for Jo…

But more importantly than multitasking, is well… not multitasking. One project at a time. One thing at a time. This shawl has gone so quickly because I focused all my attention on it. Might be something to keep in mind next time I want to cast on for something new in the midst of all these unfinished projects.

I leave you with a photo of something I’ll post about… when I dig myself out of this pile of work.