Thursday, July 27, 2006

Progress on the shawls front

Today's post actually has pictures, thanks to my wonderful boyfriend who visited and brought his camera. Now I can prove that I really do knit and spin here!

I've made it past the trees on my Pacific Northwest Shawl. Slow and steady, I'm moving on to the sand dollars.

Here are some pictures of my latest spinning and swatching:

This is a closeup of two ply, fingering weight soy silk. This was my first attempt at getting laceweight, and my first try with soy silk, which is very similar to real silk. The result looks like seaweed to me. It is very soft, and slightly lustrous.

Top: the two ply fingering weight from above, middle: the single that made that two ply, bottom: finally, laceweight two ply.

I made swatches of each to compare.

The bottom two are only half of the swatch pattern for the Peacock Feathers Shawl, as I got tired of it once I realized the yarns weren't going to work. In this picture the yarn order is reversed. Two ply fingering weight on the bottom, too big. Singles in the middle, too small and uneven looking. Top: two ply laceweight.
The winner:
The color variegation is not too much for me, and the weight should be just right. Now I actually have to do all the rest of the spinning, and then the knitting. This will be a long project, but worth it, I hope, in the end.

It has been extremely hot here, but we are rewarded with beautiful sunsets:


This is the view from my backyard. Things like this make it a little less hard to bear when I'm missing my boy.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lovely spinning. I'm partial to green anything, and I love the color of your soy silk. So nice and even, too.

7:29 AM  
Blogger Abigale said...

Oh wow - that is gorgeous - and it will be perfect for the peacock feathers shawl. Very impressive :-)

Love the sunsets too!

Abi

10:55 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love your seaweed yarn, and I envy your skill! Very, very gorgeous stuff. Hear's hoping the time flies until your man (I think we have to call him that now, right? ;) He's all growed up!) can come and join you.

7:20 PM  

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