Although allergies have been whipping me badly, I managed to get a bit of spinning in today.

I’ve started rotating my hooks slightly in order for the laceweight to wind on evenly. It makes a big difference, as you can see. The right side was wound on without any hook adjustment, whilst the right side had hook adjustment. I usually wouldn’t rotate my hooks like that, but I was worried about the silk collapsing onto itself.

What you see is about 17 grams of the silk spun up. Only 135 grams to go. ;)

Totally weak. I started spinning for my Aeolian shawl last night. Here’s what more than two hours of spinning yields:

Not much to look at is it? It is, however, a start.

Here’s a view of the sample:

I’m aiming for a laceweight of 40+ WPI once it is plied so this is going to take a while, but I am dedicating almost all of my spinning time towards it. I’ll post another progress photo once you can’t see the bobbin core.

I’ve finished the eight repeats of the blossom chart as stated in the pattern, but I still have 62g (out of 100g) of my yarn left. Even though the edging of this shawl takes a surprising amount of yarn, I think I have enough to do a few more repeats. I’ve decided that I’ll knit the blossom pattern until I hit 50g or until it will reach from fingertip to fingertip, that way I’ll have a really lovely large shawl. Maybe another 3 repeats?

I’ve put a lifeline in just in case I’m wrong. ;)

A little heads up to anyone who might be interested. We are planning to do a spin-along and knit-along for the Aeolian Shawl from the most recent issue of Knitty over in the Wildcraft group on Ravelry.

Anyone is welcome to join using any fibre, or if you don’t want to spin for it then any yarn. Just pop over to the group and say hello. We are officially (and I use that term loosely) starting on the 1st of May.

I’ve decided to use some lovely peacock silk for my shawl:

I do plan to add beads as per the pattern, but have decided to wait until the yarn is spun up. If I’m purchasing over 2,000 seed beads I’d like to make sure they match the finished yarn rather than the unspun fibre. I’m always amazed how fibre changes once it’s spun up.

There’s been a lot of knitting and spinning going on at Casa del Sheepspace, and I thought it was about time I started writing about it again.

One of the main projects on the needles at the moment is Laminaria which I’ve dubbed the Green Goddess shawl. It is a free pattern that is available through Knitty in their Spring 2008 issue.

Ravelry Project Page

I’m really enjoying the pattern thus far. Although it’s not a pattern I’d recommend for anyone who can’t read their (lace) knitting, it is a pattern that I’ve found easy and intuitive as long as you check your knitting once in a while and don’t make any mistakes. There is usually a lot of tinking involved if you do make mistakes as the stitch pattern doesn’t seem to be one of those where you can easily drop down a few rows to fix your mistakes.

The yarn I’m using is Fyberspates Fairy Lace, a single ply merino/nylon blend handdyed in Wales which I bought at Woolfest 2008. I’m really enjoying working. It’s surprisingly strong for a single and the colour is gorgeous, although I do find that it doesn’t take very well to tinking.