Hyrna Finished (A Quick Knit)

Well, Hyrna is done and blocked and it ended up being a very quick knit once all was said and done. You have pictures of my friend, Louise who is wearing it for me, a picture of it unblocked and then a few of it blocked. The color ended up rather nice but it made me really want to knit something bright and colorful. I've been working on the Salmon Queen Doily and knocked off a few rows on the International Shawl, but not enough for me to show you. I have, however, decided to knit a shawl from the Spring '08 Knitty. It's called Laminaria and I wanted to knit it because it has Estonian Lace stitches in it and will be good practice for my International Shawl which will have some Estonian lace in it as well. It also might be a nice quick knit to lighten up my knitting in general. The yarn I'm going to use is another handspun project from Black Bunny Fibers in colorway "Carnival" It's 4 ounces of 50/50 Border Leicester/Mohair Top with a little cream colored Suri Alpaca Top mixed into one of the ply to lighten up the intense color and add a little more softness. I know the lace pattern is not likely to show well with such a colorful yarn, but I just couldn't help myself. I hope you can all bear with me as I go off on a color trip :-) Can you tell I wish it were Summer already? Hope you are all knitting fun things and enjoying yourselves!

Admit Your Mistake And Move On! (Hyrna 2.0)

Just a short post to say that I've cast-on Hyrna a second time using the heavy lace weight yarn I spun from the roving purchased at Stitches West from "Chasing Rainbows" in colorway "Lagoon". I'm knitting on US 4 at the start then went to US 5. It's knitting up much nicer this time and I even understand the instructions for the darned shawl better the second time around now that I've read the notes compiled by Jackie. Anyone considering knitting this shawl should check out her very helpful notes. I know it helped me a lot! I was really not enjoying the previous attempt at Hyrna so maybe it was fate that I dropped that stitch . I'm using my very nice glass needles from Michael and Sheila Ernst so it's now turned from knitting torture to knitting pleasure :-) I have put away the Polworth for awhile and will reconsider what to do with it later. I also have been busy spinning up the Black Bunny fiber in my stash. It's too rough for a scarf but may still make an interesting/sturdy type of a shawl. The socks are more Black Bunny yarn that my sister has knit up into socks for me so I can finally get rid of the socks I've worn holes into :-). Lastly, I'm still spinning very thin singles from my Blue Moon Fiber Arts roving that I got at Stitches West 2007 (takes me a long time to get to it all). I'm on a "reading" and a "spinning" jag so not as much knitting as usual but I can only do those two things for so long before my hands itch to get back to the lace. Now if I could only get that hour back from daylight savings time.....

Itching to Start (Did I finish some things recently?)

Maybe it's the recent spate of sunny days we have had out here but I suddenly realized that I've finished a few things and can now start a few new ones. Yeah, I know. There are still projects that are old that are not yet done, but I have to admit I'm not feeling the love from those hibernating projects (WRS, Spider Mutant & Shetland Tea Shawl). I'm making some headway on Princess, on the International Shawl and Salmon Queen, but I wanted to have more projects for variety that will be active knitting. See above the center for a Niebling Tablecloth pattern I bought. It has no name in the magazine but i've heard that it might be called "Peony". If anyone knows for sure, let me know. Since I don't want to run around calling it "Tablecloth", I'm going to call it Peony for laughs. I'm knitting it on 2.5 mm needles using 2/28 NM silk from ColourMart in "Candy". I may go up another half size in needle diameter now that I'm past the first round of petals. Under that you can see that the start of Hyrna from the book "Three-Cornered and Long Shawls" using US 4 needles and the Polworth laceweight that I spun from the roving from Deep Color Studios. None of these new projects is too difficult or too long to knit so they will give me a nice feeling of accomplishment as I slog along on more long term projects like the Princess. Lastly,what is that stuff on the bottom? Well, it's not yarn. I guess you would have to call it proto-yarn. I could not resist getting some fiber from Black Bunny in spite of the fact that Stitches West is just around the corner. Curiosity about spinning something with a little mohair in it got the better of me. Besides, these colors might be nice to knit in the Summer :-) So much lace, so little time!