Leftovers

Sometimes leftovers are the best part. When I spun the yarn for my #Roseroot shawlette, I had 2.1 ounces (61 grams) of the merino/cashmere fiber left over. I wasn't really sure what to do with it.

I figured that if I spun it very light lace weight, at least that would give me the most yarn to work with. 

I spun and I spun and I spun until I wound up with this.

Then I plied and I plied and I got this. 

The thing with spinning with a fine wool like merino is that it's super crimpy. That means that, while I ended up with 406 yards of finished plied yarn, after it was washed and dried, it came to 377 yards of finished yarn (2,872 yds/lb). 

Not knowing that got me into trouble a few times when I thought I had plenty of yarn for a project only to end up short 

If I hadn't gotten bored, I probably could have gotten even more yardage but I'm happy with how it turned out. 

Now what to do with it…

Cracked it!!

As I was trying to figure out what had gone wrong on my practice piece, I kept thinking of my Grannie who would be on round 82 of a crocheted doily or tablecloth and I could see her counting. Somehow something hadn't fitted and she was determined to figure it out. She would count back round by round until she found it and even if it was in round 3, she would rip back to make it right. 

I used to tease her about it, first asking how she could have missed the mistake through 79 rounds and then telling her no one would know and she should just fudge it. She would frown at me and shake her head. "I would know it wasn't right."  And she would continue to rip and rip until she had it right. 

That's how I've felt tonight. Not the part about knowing there was a mistake because anyone could see it wasn't right, but the ripping out to almost the beginning because that's where my mistake was - on the 2nd pin of the piece. But as soon as I took it out and did that one thing right, everything else fell exactly into place. 

I'm sure there's a lesson there somewhere. 😳

Moving along

The good thing about the hot temps is that it's easy to justify staying in the house and working on my lace projects.

Exercise 5 and 6:

One of the most challenging things about lace is learning how to move from one element to the next, making sure that all the bobbins are in the right place ready for the next element. 

It's kind of like a good pool or snooker player. They hit each ball while in their head placing the cue ball in the right place not just for the next shot but several shots down the line. 

My problem is sometimes my mind is away with the fairies and I'm not paying attention to what's coming up. But they say practice make perfect so I just keep practicing. 

I really like this little edging. 

It would be lovely on a baby' garment. Very sweet and dainty. 

The corner makes a very tidy turn by switching out the worker pair with the next pair in line. By doing this it saves the pucker that would happen if you tried to work through all the passives with the same worker. 

I remember seeing this with another pattern but I'd forgotten about it. Very nice, elegant solution.