sweetgeorgia

Soft Shetland, I mean Shetland Heather

Anne, the super helpful owner of She Ewe Knits, was nice enough to send me a small skein of Jamieson’s Soft Shetland to try out… I love this yarn! — it seems a little scratchy and hard at first, but then I swatched it up with the Na Craga swatch pattern, washed it and blocked it. The yarn blooms a little and softens up nicely while still being substantial. Here’s my little swatch:

Now, the only thing is picking a colour! Anne says that Jamieson is coming out with new colours for “Shetland Heather” (the new name for Soft Shetland) in the Fall, so I might wait until then to order the yarn. In the meantime, I’m going to order some BWA yarns for myself!

Shrug Sizes…

Heh heh, I like this photo:

It’s the too-small cashmerino shrug and the Rowan Summer Tweed shrug — I made the cashmerino one in the smallest size with the wrong (oops) gauge. The tweed shrug is the 3rd size and is right on gauge. What a difference those few stitches make!

New Projects

Well, the happy bride and groom left for Italy yesterday… two weeks in Italy, ahhhh…. snap …oh, yes, back to reality. Thanks for everybody’s beautiful and kind comments about the wedding photos!!!

It’s time for new projects. The two one-skein wonders are blocking, I’m wearing my finished Soleil, the DH’s second sock is almost done and I’m almost finished the lilac Paisley Lace Shawl! About 10 rounds to go — but since each round is at least 500 stitches, that will take me approximately… forever…

So! What’s in the knitting bag today? Dale Baby Ull! For the Baby Norgi sweater from Knitty.com. Armed with my new 2mm and 3mm Addi’s, steeking, here I come!

Oh, of course, this is just practice for a steeked sweater for me. I won a copy of Alice Starmore’s Tudor Roses on Ebay and am planning to knit something out of that next — I didn’t see any fair isle projects I liked in her Celtic Collection book, although I love the cabled Cromarty sweater…

In the meantime, I’m picking yarns for St. Brigid (from Starmore’s Aran Knitting, also out of print)… Here’s the Blackwater Abbey yarn sample card I just received… I’m considering either Pink Heather or Iris, so I ordered a couple 1oz skeins to test drive:

Now that I think of it, is it wrong to knit a Scottish designer’s sweater in Irish yarn?

Anyway, I also finally got up the courage to start spinning the Ashland Bay merino that I bought a few weeks ago. It’s so soft and smooth to spin! I love it! I’m spinning this thin for a laceweight 2-ply that I’ll use for a shawl. Maybe another Flower Basket Shawl or maybe the Meadow Flowers Shawl from the Knitters’ Stash book:

Blue

It’s been a crappy week — too much work, too little sleep, being snarky enough with clients that they actually notice (oops). Ah, you know. Here’s the shrug I’m rushing to finish… it’s in Rowan Summer Tweed:

And here’s proof that I’m still knitting the Manly Sweater. Here’s the finished front! Two sleeves to go.

So in my search for an appropriate Scottish Heather yarn sub, I’m going to try to get my hands on a sample of Jamieson’s Soft Shetland (soon to be called Shetland Heather Aran). Anne at She Ewe Knits is sending me a sample card and some yarn for me to test drive. I found the Simply Shetland site and have been considering these colours:

Yes, that’s right. In my current obsession with Starmore and that darned “Aran Knitting” book, I’ve glommed onto the idea of knitting a St. Brigid for myself. Funny enough, I’m actually ok with this aran sweater being oversized. What I’m not ok with is a huge fair isle sweater. I don’t want to put myself through this kind of stress.

Sixteen Swatches

All sixteen Level 1 swatches are done and blocked! Most are tagged except for the OXO Cable and the Two-Colour swatch, but here they are:

Yes, even though weaving in 38 ends and blocking 16 individual swatches takes a long time and is incredibly boring, writing up the documentation is even more so. Ah, but I shall be done soon.