Sometimes progress is slow

Sometimes I feel like I'm finishing things all over the place and sometimes I feel like projects take FOREVER!! I'm there right now.

I have projects laying all over the place and this weekend I'm hoping to bring a little order to the chaos.  I may not get many projects significantly forwarded but at least things will be a little more clear and I'll have a plan.  I hope.  

A while back I spun a pound of beautiful Blue-faced Leicester (BFL) and silk.  I was trying to go for a DK sort of weight, which I mostly did, although it really wanted to be spun more finely than that and the beginning of all 3 bobbins I filled were significantly finer than the rest of the bobbin.  As a matter of fact, this sort of worked in my favor but more of that in a minute.

Just before spinning the BFL/silk, I'd finished spinning a lace weight plum silk roving that spun up beautifully.  Both yarns needed to be washed and I flaked out and washed them in the same tub.  Fortunately the water wasn't agitated but still some of the purple leeched onto the white yarn.  As soon as I realized what I'd done, I separated them and rinsed the white yarn.  There were only a few very light splotches of purple but it wasn't good.  As usual, I moved into "make it work" mode and decided to tea-dye the white yarn.  I figured that would cover up any remaining purple splotches and give it a nice warm feeling.  And it did.

The other "mistake" I made with the white yarn was that I put entirely too much twist into both the singles and the plying.  Or so I thought.  I was afraid that I'd ruined this beautiful fiber and made it tight and tough and that there would be no softness to it.  The plying helped some of the overtwist of the singles and I think the washing/dying process helped a little bit of the overtwisted ply.  By some happy accident, the yarn turned out perfect for the Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi Shawl I decided to make with it. 

Normally I would use a much lighter weight yarn to make this shawl but I wanted this one to be a cozy up on the couch while it's cold outside (and it does get cold in Texas - for at least 2-3 days of the year). If this yarn had been spun at this same weight but with less twist, it wouldn't have taken much wear and tear.  But with it as it is, it should be much heartier and keep its lacy integrity better.  I started using the heavier end of the skein and the yarn got slightly thinner as I got to the outside edge.  Funnily enough it also helped to transition into the lighter yarn for the border.  The yarn always knows.  

I did have another problem to solve here.  The color of the yarn is pretty but pretty bland, too.  I didn't want to just make the whole thing in this one color.  It probably could have taken it had it been lace weight but I just didn't think the color could carry the chunkier texture alone.  As you can see in one of my catch-up posts, I recently experimented with doing a macramé fringe on a piece of linen fabric, the way they do in Italy.  The linen was a similar color to this yarn and I loved the effect of some black tatted lace to pull that design together (also precipitated by a "mistake"  LOL). So I wondered if I could make a similar design element work on this shawl.

I decided to use a black lace section around each of the increase rounds as a sort of transitional element.  I knew that I couldn't just use a lace-weight yarn because it wouldn't hold up to the weight of the main yarn.   On the first section, I used 2 strands of black lace-weight yarn, both for strength and to make the yarn just a little bit thicker.  But one of the skeins of yarn was extremely weak and kept breaking on me.  Not a good sign.  What to do... Aha!  I said to myself, I said, Self.  Why don't you use the ball of black tatting cotton you made the tatted lace border with?  Yep, that would work great.  Much more strength and the weight fitted in. 

But it didn't go very far.  So for the 3rd black lace section and following, I used 1 strand of lace-weight wool and 1 strand of black bedspread-weight crochet cotton (10/2).  Perfect.  I've progressed to the lace edging, which is knitted 2 rows to each stitch of the shawl.  Since there are about 600 stitches, I will be here for a while.  When you add to that how difficult it is to knit this 2 stranded yarn with the Addi turbos needles I'm using, I think I'm going to be here for a very long time indeed.  But it will all be worth it in the end.

Surprise!

I’ve been wanting to do the Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise sweater for the longest time. I even started it once a while back but didn’t concentrate enough to get the hang of it. If you’ve never heard of this baby sweater, it’s a little origami with knitting. Here’s a picture of the finished piece before it’s folded. Looks like a lot of nothing, doesn’t it?

Then, with just a flick and a fold, it becomes this:

I tell you the woman was a bloomin’ genius. What sort of mind comes up with this? Genius.

I got my new fiber from Halcyon. The same UPS guy delivers to my office that delivers to my home so when he came to the office Friday, I asked him if he’d delivered back here yet. He hadn’t but he was able to go ahead and give me my box so I wouldn’t have to try to get to the office before they close.

It is the darker color like what I’m working with now but it has more lighter color blended in so I think it will look really nice plied with the current color.

Happy Pi Day

Pi Day (3/14 – and 1:59 if you’re really into it) would be a day celebrated only by mathematicians the world over if it hadn’t been for the wonderful creativity of the inimitable Elizabeth Zimmerman.

Never one to ignore a good idea, no matter where she found it, it only took Elizabeth grasping the basics of the Pi theory to work out that it would be a fantastic basis for making a round shawl. From the time she made that discovery all those many years ago to now, countless knitters have used the Pi Shawl as a first lace pattern or as a basis for wild and wonderful creativity. The beauty is in its simplicity and its simplicity lies in the fact that increases are made on a single row at set distances, leaving room to throw whatever lace pattern takes your fancy in between those increase rows.

I’ve made 2 pi shawls and am getting ready (if I ever get this Skrå-trøyer sweater finished – body done and one sleeve almost finished – yea!) to start a Pi Afghan – working the whole Pi Shawl thing but using a worsted weight yarn. Not my idea – cadged from some ideas shared on the internet.

My first Pi Shawl was made strictly according to EZ’s pattern with the knitted off edging and all (the edging took longer than the shawl). The second one was made with lace weight alpaca in different colors for each section with an added section on the outside. I ended up with something like 1400 stitches – way too many for the knitted of edging. I crocheted off the edging which was quick, easy and, if I do say so myself, very attractive!

So, cheers to all things round and all things Pi (or pie should you so choose!).