The Miralda’s shawl I’ve been working on flew off the needles over the weekend. Now if I could only teach my knits to throw themselves onto the blocking board.

I’m quite pleased with how the shawl turned out. Mostly.

The Malabrigo lace is wonderfully soft and it will make an excellent next to skin item, however I did notice that the yarn tails from the double stranded cast-on seem to have felted together slightly by the time I went to weave them in. Nothing else in the shawl seem to have this issue, so I assume it just has to do with the tails since the knitting seems perfectly fine, however you definitely don’t want to overwork this yarn.

I also found that the centre neck area of the shawl didn’t block out overly well. It has a slight point to it that developed over the course of the day after I took the shawl off the blocking mat. When I first took out the blocking wires it was fine, but it now has a definitely point, and a slight (and I do mean slight) kite shape to it. This will in no way effect the appearance when worn since I wear my shawls as scarves, but it is something I noticed. It may simply be a fluke since it is a slightly damp day here and wool does like to suck up the moisture, however it is something I noticed even when it was fresh off the needles. I’ve not had a problem with top-down shawls doing this before, so it may have something to do with the method of construction. Or it might just be the weather. I have a feeling it is a little bit of both.

Modeled by our willing Poang chair:

Even with those things said, I’m looking forward to wearing this shawl come winter. I also learned a few new stitch techniques.

Pattern: Miralda’s Triangular shawl (Knitted Lace of Estonia; Interweave Press)
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace (Velvet Grapes colourway)
Needles: 4mm Addi fixed lace needles
Mods: None. (Yes, I’m shocked, too.)

My Annis shawl is finished and blocked.

I’m mostly happy with it, though I’m wondering how much the long edges are going to curl with wear. Only time will tell. However, the pattern was easy to follow, and other than operator error, it went swimmingly.

Here’s the best self portrait I could manage.

It took 55g of my 2ply handspun, or approximately 285 metres. I have a fair bit of the yarn left over, but for now it’ll just go back into the stash.

I’m looking forward to testing out the shawl to see if this is a shape I like. I’m starting to have the feeling that I really need a deep shawl for the way that I wear them, but only time will tell. If nothing else, I’ll know whether I not I should be queueing more crescent shawls!

The WIP department

My Miralda’s shawl (Knitted Lace of Estonia) saw lots of love this week. In fact, it was about the only project that saw any love (unless you count buying buttons for my cardi).

I’ve just finished the main diamond chart.

My first skein of Malabrigo lace is starting to dwindle and I’ll soon be on to the second skein. I’m really loving this, and I’m just going to go with that feeling and knit on it to my heart’s content (knitting time permitting).

The yoke section of my Icelandic cardi is going really well. I’ve got about 6 or 7 more rows of the chart left to knit, which means I should be able to cut the steek this week. I’m excited. I love cutting a steek. Of course, I’ll try to remember to try it on before I get too crazy with the scissors.

I have been finding knitting on the cardi slightly difficult though. The weight is just a wee bit too much for my wrists, and my left hand (I strand with a yarn in each hand) starts hurting quite a bit after a few rows. Again, I think it is the weight. So I’ve taken it easy and tried to only knit a few colourwork rows at a time… though as the yoke gets smaller I can accomplish more. Funny that. ;)

Since I didn’t want to tax my wrists too much, I decided to wind up some yarn for a new project.

This:

Became this:

Which in no time at all became this:

This is the Annis Shawl by Susanna IC that appeared in Knitty a few years back. Great shawl. I knit it once before (and ran out of yarn and frogged the project) and it is a great quick lace project. The shawl is a crescent shape and is constructed from the bottom up and all the lace is done right up front. After finishing the lace chart, the body of the shawl it worked using short rows and it just flies. I had to restrain myself from finishing it too quickly. It is kind of addicting, and a perfect little shawl for an odd skein of handspun. To recap, this is the yarn I recently finished spinning. It was bought in batt form from Spinning a Yarn and is comprised of Merino, Shetland and sparkle, which I spun as a heavy 2ply laceweight.

The one thing about this shawl is the nupps. I love nupps in shawls, but I often have a hard time knitting them. I’m using my Addi Lace Interchangeable needles for this project and I just don’t find them pointy enough for doing a 7-stitch nupp, though I’m sure my fixed Addis Lace needles would be fine. Instead, I used a small crochet hook to draw the yarn through the nupp stitches and it worked quite well, if slightly more time consuming.

I’m quite excited to add this to my collection of shawls. I wear my shawls like scarves, so I expect to get a fair amount of use out of this shawl during the transitional months of spring and autumn.

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.