Handknitting Handspun

When you start to spin your own yarns, you generally don't do it to get yarn to make something.  The evolution of  motivation generally goes like this:

1)  Just proud that the string you're producing stays together - usually producing a wacky thick and thin yarn
2)  What stays together begins to feel something like yarn
3)  The yarn you're producing is in pretty colors
4)  The pretty color yarn is now a little more even
5)  The more even yarn is now becoming a little finer
6)  The yarn is made from yummy fibers that you can't stop petting
7)  The yarn is made from yummy fibers that you can't stop petting and is so pretty you can't stop cooing to it

As you can see, each step is sort of an end in itself with it's own gratifications.  And there's not much reference to knitting or weaving something.  The yarn is an end unto itself.  Having that end become an item of clothing, comes  much, much later and somehow, rarely produces the joy of the having the yarn itself.

Funny how that works.

That being said, I've decided I need to (and sort of want to) start knitting with it.  Of course, it's like a mother thinking no one's ever good enough for her son.  The search for a pattern that will show off this handspun can be agonizing and there may be a few missteps along the way.  But sometimes you see a pattern and you sigh and think, Yes, this is the one.

That's what happened with the Wisteria Shawl from the All New Homespun Handknits and the blue-faced leicester that I bought purposesly to spin to make a shawl.  Here's how it came out:

I'll get some action shots at some point but this shows the lovely (easy) pattern and how the hand dyed roving (FrabjousFibers) lays out in a lovely, soft variegation.  I wish you could feel the softness and lightness of it.  Those are really it's glory.

And I did that!