On the Knitting Front

I finished my challenge shawl Thursday night, and blocked it. Surprise, surprise, when I went to pin it out, I found that although I had been aiming for a triangle, it wasn't quite.

Still, it's pretty, with a soft, lofty, shiny texture, and the angled shape may be better, given that it isn't huge - blocked size is 48" across and 21" deep. When I write up and retest it, I want to make a larger version, and one with a slightly deeper border. Both things were limited by having only 500m of the yarn available, and I cut it so close that the remaining bit of yarn wouldn't be enough for even one row extra. I did the border separately and sewed it on as I didn't want to have to tink back on the shawl body if something went wrong. I seamed it a bit differently than the cria shawl, and I like the way the join looks, like an ornamental braid. I think the shawl will end up being named Swanhilda. Deb said it looks like bat wings, which is true, but I can't call something white and fuzzy by a bat/vampire name.

Now the primary project (and I want to finish this week) is the baby sweater. The two fronts are done and the back is in progress. Being handspun also, and leftovers from my sweater, I am crossing my fingers for there to be enough yarn. I could always make the sleeves in stripes if needed, but it would look better in the blue.

I would like to record here that my first crocuses opened today. In Ottawa. And it's 20 degrees C out. I'm beginning to suspect we must have skipped January, and this is really mid-April instead of March. Mom has snowdrops, and there were roses which lasted until December, so that is 2 months only with no flowers this year. At this rate, the Canadian climate is going to cease being useful to show how tough we are.

Eggs Etcetera

Finished the dozen of eggs for Deb on time to give them to her when I was over there Friday for Fleece Spa. Granted, the last egg got finished and the photos taken there, but the point is they're done. And tiny and cute. The weaving yarn ended up giving me 11 sts instead of 8 sts to the inch, and now my original eggs look coarse in comparison!

It was good to have the second set, though - I found a handful of little things that needed changing, mostly in things like decrease placement. When I get those corrected, I can start hunting testers for these. I don't have a hope of releasing it for Easter, but I'd rather get it done properly. The Bargello tam is done and released, though - and two purchases already, so it's rather exciting.

The Challenge shawl has been ripped and restarted a third time, and I hope for the last time. The bands were not really looking as nice as I wanted. So now the pattern is in wedges, and I'm feeling a lot better about it. Now I need to find a name for the pattern, and eventually for the rectangular version also. I usually find the best way is to let it stew in my brain for a while, and eventually something that fits will suggest itself.

Recalculating Again

I got about 6" into the stole I was planning for the Guild challenge, weighed the yarn to determine how much I had used, and did some calculations to see how long I could make the stole.

Unfortunately, that length turned out to be about 3 feet. Not long enough for anything but a table runner, really.

Mutter, mutter, frog, frog, frog.

Now I had the info, though, on about how many square inches total of knitting I could produce with the yarn I had, so I played with dimensions to see what some of the possibilities were for a shawl or scarf. After considering a longer, narrower rectangle, and a square, I settled on a triangle, which allows a top edge long enough to wrap around for a scarf. Nice simple shaping, with the pattern stitches in bands, and an edging to knit separately and sew on. Knit from the neck down, it will be easy to stop earlier or extend if my calculations were off. I will simply have to try the full-sized shawl recreation another time.

However, this is the third project in a row where I've needed to frog and recalculate. It's getting to be a habit. Even if the next project goes smoothly, I will likely spend the whole time I'm knitting expecting it to go wonky somehow.

Change in the Air

Although February still has a week to run, the weather has been surprisingly mild. Above zero most days in the last week, and the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the ice is retreating. I would be very tempted to think it's an early spring, only I'm sure the minute I voice that, there will be a change back to cold and snow. Julia certainly feels the change in the weather, though. It's like having a kid at Christmas. Three times this morning before the alarm went off at 7 she woke me up. And she's not settling down for a nap, but has been agitating for an extra walk all morning.

Spring is traditionally a season of change, and movement, and it seems to be coming out in other spots as well. On the positive side, I had a job interview this week, and some government tests to write next week, so here's hoping that one or the other leads to a change in my employment status.
On the negative side, however, the yarn store in town I probably spend the most time in is relocating. Knit-Knackers is moving to Smith's Falls, as a result of the building they're now in getting sold. So I will have to plan out what I might need to buy before they move, since getting to Smith's Falls is a rare occasion for me. They're going to deliver here, still, but it's not the same - I usually don't go in to shop with a particular brand in mind, but do a lot of price and color and yardage comparison, and sometimes end up with a different result than expected. Not that there aren't other yarn stores in town, but it was so convenient to stop in after doing my library run and any other errands downtown. Ah, well, I am sure there will be road trips.

The next spinning project has been started - a bag of llama/wool pencil roving I bought at the first Vendors' Night I went to at the Guild, probably 3 years ago. It's a nice cinnamon-y taupe, and I'm spinning it fine and tight. We'll see what the yardage ends up as, but if it's enough, I might earmark it for a longsleeved underlayer shirt.

And I've started knitting the Challenge fiber, and the results are coming pretty close to what I envisioned.  Now I just have to finish doing the math to see if the yardage will allow me to get a decent-sized stole AND put an edging on it.

New Challenge

The last couple of years, I've been a member of the local weaving and spinning guild. This year, they're doing challenges, and I've signed up to do the spinning one. The basic idea is that everyone gets  an identical 150g (or a multiple thereof) package of fibers, and has to turn it into a finished object. It's going to be really neat to see what different final products come from different people, as I've seen happen in similar challenges for quilters.
Part of the challenge, when we were initially discussing this idea, was to have a chance maybe to work with fibers you hadn't before, and experiment with how they behaved. I've tried quite a range of different things, though, and as I've been thinking about this, I'm planning to challenge myself in a couple other ways.
- Fine spinning. The cria is probably the thinnest I've done, so I want to spin laceweight for this also. Plus I only asked for 1 package, so spinning fine will get me more yards of yarn to play with.
- Shaded dyeing. I saw a really neat dye technique where you roll it all the yarn up in a ball and dye it like that so the color will shade from dark at one end to light at the other - or from one shade to another if you redo it starting from the opposite end with a different color.
- Lace design. I haven't done a lot of lace knitting, but I am liking it, and I'm challenging myself to design a lace shawl that will use this shaded yarn. It would end up with the center one color and the edges shading to another, which I think would be really pretty.

So I've started working on the lace design, even though I haven't even gotten the fiber yet. It's tougher than I thought, probably because I can almost picture what I want, but it's the figuring out how to convert from brain to product that's getting me. If all goes well, it will have buds and blossoms on it, shaded light rose to deep cerise/magenta, and I'm going to call it 'Crimson and Clover'. I was listening to the song last week, and it does fit what I want to do. And I want a title, because the finished challenge projects are going to be displayed at the MVTM - the textile museum in Almonte - which will be pretty cool.