The Circular Shetland Shawl from "A Gathering of Lace" has forced me to become a clone of Sisyphus. I have to re-knit the "Madeira Lace" section over again. Sigh! Still, a lot of my other projects have been coming along better. The Peacock Shawl is up to row 127 but is too crunched up on the needles to take a picture of right now. The Mountain Pines is up to row 35 of the boarder pattern and is looking pretty good. Last, but not least, I have finally completed one full repeat of the WRS! Now to do it 5 more times and then end with rows 1-40 for the center. I've been checking out different sites and there are a number of people working with this pattern. Some of this knitters are really going flat out and knitting up a storm while some others are more my speed. Quite a few are using the Silk which I could not manage to knit well with. I'm not giving up on that silk, just not using it for the WRS. I tested my merino singles that I was spinning to see if they would hold up to knitting by themselves. Nix, Nope, Nein. It's not bad, but not strong enough to knit on it's own. I will end up plying it into a nice lace weight yarn. So will I give it up? Hah! I have been checking out sites to buy shetland wool:)
I did take a break in order to catch up on some reading. I'm savoring the latest book by one of my very favorite authors, Lilith Saintcrow. It's the second book in her urban fantasy series with Necromancer, Dante Valentine, "Dead Man Rising". Dante is not just armed on the cover, she has a whip,gun and a sword and she knows how to use them darn it! Don't piss her off! Just love it! I also picked up a nice new edition of selected poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay. It's part of the "American Poets Project". I love her work, always have. I even have a few very lovely first editions of her published poetry. This way I feed both my violent and gentle sides!
Have a wonderful evening!
3 comments:
What yarn did you end up using? I know this sounds completely insane, but I am going to swatch a black sample. I couldn't knit miles of white for any price.
Dear fleegle,
I ended up using Shetland cobweb weight knitting yarn which I purchased from Lacis in Berkeley Ca. in the 1980's. It's a one ply yarn that has alot of twist in it. When you knit with it, you have to watch out for the yarn twisting back onto itself. The reason I specify the year I bought this yarn is because what they now sell at Lacis is a little different. It's not as consistant (I bought some) in composition and not always as finely spun. If you look at my previous posts, you will see small balls of this yarn shrink-wraped. The modern version comes in skeins. I advocate knitting from the outside of the ball rather than center-pull even though that adds even more twist because if you try to center-pull this yarn, it will try to knot up on you. If you do this shawl in black, I suggest you forget the directional decreases in favor of your favorite decrease. I'm using k2tog and it's easier. Knit loose so you can pick back when you need to without having a seizure :-) Good Luck with it! I'd love to see someone else doing it. Sharon Miller sold out of this pattern so at least 350 people are either doing it or hope to in the future!
Dear fleegle,
If you look at the entry "So Waddaya Think?", you will see pictures of those balls of cobweb weight yarn!
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