I noticed something while reviewing my “active” projects the other day. Everything I’m working on is lace. Stoles, shawls, more shawls…all of it. Not a single sock, sweater part, hat, glove in the pile. Just something lacy followed by more lacy. This could constitute a rut.
First there’s my main project, the handspun Comfort Shawl sampler. I am so close to finishing this that I foresee a marathon knitting session sans break to finish those last few rows. I’m on the second to last color/fiber on the last ball of yarn. The last two new fiber sections took up around eight rows before merging into the next segment, so there is really about a dozen rows until the end. A dozen. I must finish this.
My even more mindless than a feather and fan project is a Wisp that I started in March with the intent of using the entire ball of yarn. I’m so bored with this project that I may just measure and decide it’s long enough. This project gained a few inches while we sat in the theater Thursday night waiting for a midnight showing of The Dark Knight. You know how much I hated (spoiler warning) the latest Indiana Jones? I loved this new Batman installation with the same intensity of feeling times a million billion. Seriously, it’s that good and I’m not just saying that because Bats is my favorite super hero and he can kick your super hero’s ass.
Finally, I’ve pulled Mellifera out of hibernation. She’s still a little baby shawl. This is another handspun project using singles made of merino and tencel. I’m hoping to make at least a bit of progress on this before I get distracted by another project.
I could almost kill for something cabled and not lace, but if I stop what I’m working on, I’m afraid I won’t pick them back up.
The basket it was used to be on my desk. At some point, I or a cat knocked it off the desk and it was wedged between the wall and my portfolio case by the window. If I ever bothered to draw anymore, I’d have found it weeks (months?) ago. It has been reunited with its mate in yet another basket, but this time in a visible location where I would immediately notice if it were knocked off. I’m pretty sure this is the culprit as I’ve found her picking her way across my desk when she thinks no one is looking.
On the knitting front, I’m nearly finished with the second ball on the Comfort Shawl. While I love spinning and knitting tencel blends, I don’t have the same affection when it comes to 100% tencel, particularly when spun into a low twist single. Mixed with wool, tencel acts much the same way as silk. On its own, there’s an artificial shininess that in no way resembles silk. I’ll be glad to finish out the tencel rows and move back to the squishy goodness of wool.
Now that everything is dry, I can say without a doubt that this is yarn and not FSM.
There’s about 800 yards in this skein. Short of my goal, but more than enough for the intended project.
This yarn is slated to become a Spring Things shawl with the modifications made by kelp!
Realizing that the average person can only look at a shawl in progress so many times before their eyes cross, I took a look back at my MP08 list to see if there’s something I could use as a side project. I noticed line item number four which says that I will “spin every bit of roving and top purchased up to the end of 2007” and realized that I haven’t done any spinning in months. This is the item that I thought I’d have done ages ago.
Instead of dwelling too long on why I have only been dusting my spinning wheel, I determined to begin working oldest to newest in terms of fiber stash. Of course, despite what my husband thinks, I don’t really have much of a fiber stash. The llama does not count as stash. I probably have less than 4 pounds of prepared, ready to spin fiber. Honestly. Ask Jen.
Opening my closet, I saw this little number which has been aging for over a year. I’d initially planned on turning it into a shawl, got distracted and then forgotten about it. This is 10 ounces of wool top in Gold Hill.
After popping in a DVD, I did something else that I’ve ignored since purchasing wheels. I pre-drafted. Initially, I wanted to produce a 2ply fingering to lace weight yarn, but chatting with Jen convinced me to go for singles with this third and then use the remaining fiber for a 2ply. This is the fiber left to be spun after my first spinning stretch.
Yet another movie went into the DVD player to keep my occupied while spinning. I made a valiant attempt to spin the entire 3+ ounces into laceweight singles before bed. I started spinning at 11pm on Monday night. Stop laughing. It may have even sounded a little crazy to me.
I got around 70% spun before I gave up and went to sleep. The next night, another DVD and more spinning. I watched the movie, Once, a second time (because I freaking love that movie) to finish spinning and get the singles skeined. Freshly spun singles can look a little…spaghetti-like.
It also made a pretty festive hat, but I didn’t think to take a photo of that before dropping it into a sinkful of water. There will be photos of the finished yarn as well as my plans for it once the wool dries.
The Comfort Shawl remains an interesting knit, although I’m still not sure how I feel about the piece as a whole. There are sections that I adore, like the blue next to the green, and other parts that I feel “meh” toward. I suppose I’ll reserve judgment until it’s all done and blocked because if I say that I don’t like it now, I’m probably just going to have to retract that later. For a change of pace, here’s a real, non-camera phone photo of my progress.
The blocks of color started getting more narrow with the green merino and the current soysilk section will be even more narrow as it is more uniformly thick throughout and less lofty than the previous section. Even though I’m unsure of the shawl as a whole, I’m loving knitting so many different fibers and seeing how they all knit up. This is definitely a good way to make up a sampler. I’m pretty sure the spindle spun silk I posted last week will knit up very similar to the soysilk and I can’t wait to get my hands around it.
I think I can get a couple more rows out of the soysilk, and then it’s on to the adult alpaca you see on the outside of the next ball of yarn. If memory serves, this ball will be adult alpaca, superwash merino, tencel and then BFL.
