Roswitha (Dry at last)

Dry at last. It really did come out pretty. It will be hanging out over at the Verb For Keeping Warm shop if anyone is in that direction and wants to see it in person. I will wear my Miralda Shawl to Stitches West so that the folks at Verb can display this if they want to. On to the next project and my pile of UFO's :-)

Roswitha Blocking (AKA Surprise)

I just wanted to knit something as a surprise to anyone who looks at this blog. I know it takes a long time for me to finish things and you wait and wait and wait for something good to look at. This time I wanted it to be a treat for me and for you. I also wanted it to be something that has not been knit by tons of other knitters though I am by no means the only one to knit this.

Pattern by Herbert Niebling "Roswitha" is 314 rows long. Knit on US O needles using "Holding" baby alpaca lace weight yarn, colorway "Vermillon" from A Verb For Keeping Warm. The shawl took about 3,500 yards of this yarn.

You can't tell from these pictures, but there are 4 different colors of yarn in this shawl. This is because I picked up a skein here, a skein there, and I kept thinking I had enough when I really didn't. Since this is hand dyed yarn using natural dye, you really have some variations unless you picked up all your skeins from the same dye bath which I didn't. Some people might not like that effect, but I really enjoy the fact that chance played a part in how this turned out. It starts out darker in the center, gets lighter and brighter towards the edges until you end up with a pale border. I really like it :-)

This is a pretty big shawl at about 64 inches across. If I want to knit any of the larger patterns by Niebling I'm going to have to go to gossamer weight yarn in the future. Until then, I am very happy with how this came out. I will post again once it is well and truly dry.