Lace – Page 5 – Fiber Musings

Pi Shawls

On 18 Jan, 2005

There’s been much talk on Spin-List about Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Pi Shawl. Predictably, a knitalong was started. Not quite so predictable, gasp!, I joined. I don’t do KALs in general, because I don’t like to be a crowd. But, I saw this as an opportunity to give myself a kick in the butt to finish the Pi Shawl that I already started. It’s currently waiting for me to brave the storage unit to find the alpaca rovings, and spin up more yarn.

And, predictably, I got sucked in. Big time. All that talk about what yarn to use, what fiber to spin up, how it should be spun, which pattern to use. Which pattern, you ask? Isn’t there just one? Wow. I never realized how many shawl patterns are out that that use EZ’s formula for a pi shawl. Way cool. Way too many choices.

Then, I heard about the half pi. Yes, half pi. I have no idea where to find the pattern, but I’m intrigued. I didn’t have the patience to spin anything up. The only things I have at hand that I would want to use are silk, and I just don’t have the patience to spin up 3,500-4,000 yards of silk singles and then ply it up.

Ah-ha! What about that beautiful lace weight singles I got as an exchange from Amy? So, I casted on 5 stitches on US Size 6 needles, and got going. I made it to the 5th increase round, and saw how much the edges are curling. It wasn’t noticeable at the beginning because of the increase rows. Once the increase rows started to spread out, all those st st rows started to curl under.

Some sort of edging is required. What it needs is a garter stitch edge. I didn’t want to pick up the stitches along the top edges (diameter) at the end to knit an edging. An edge that is knitted along with the body of the shawl.

So, I picked up some scrap yarn, and tested out my theory.

Magical Knitting

By Ann

On 1 Jul, 2004

In FO, Knit

I see that Cat Bordhi has put previews to her new book, A Treasury of Magical Knitting, up on the web. So, in celebration, I’m going to show off some of the stuff I made during/after my workshop with her.

Click!

Clockwise from top left:
mobius basket: made during Cat’s workshop;
arrow lace: shown on page 15 of her PDF;
pencil basket: my own design based on her techniques.

Sorry, please don’t ask for patterns. It’s in her book. I haven’t seen the book yet, but if the rest of the book is as fun as the few that I’ve worked on, it’ll be well worth the price. I can’t wait to try the cat bed. Cat is such a neat lady and has wonderful insights to share, you’ll love reading through the book. I’m sure of it. And if you ever have the opportunity to take a workshop with her, do it. You won’t regret it.

I tried my hand at dyeing the Lincoln x Corriedale fleece that I bought earlier. I put the alum directly in with the cutch bath, and let it sit in my crockpot on low for 2+ hours (after it came up to temperature). Then I left the wool to sit in the crockpot until it cooled off. I wanted a dark brown, so I used a little more cutch, as per instructions. But it’s not turning out as dark as I wanted it to be.

At first, I thought it was because I didn’t fully remove all the lanolin in the fleece. So I did the full hot water and lots of soap scour on a small handful of fleece that had already gone through the cold scour earlier. Still no joy. It turned into a light brown. As Martin puts it, the sheep is a dishwater blond. I know I can darken it with an iron dip, but I just don’t want to mess with iron right now. (So far, everything has been food grade.) Perhaps after I get back from my vacation.

I was going to comb this with the dark grey fleece to darken it anyway, so it might not matter. Stay tuned.

Pi Shawl

By Ann

On 22 Apr, 2003

In Knit

Here’s how I’ve been spending my time …

This is knitted on US 5 needles with a 2 ply handspun yarn: one strand of alpaca roving (AlpacaPalooza from Cedar Wind Ranch. The blend is called Chocolate Parfait — part chocolate brown and part creamy white, donated by Checkov, Tawnee, and Divinity. I let it sit in the closet of a year because I was afraid that I wouldn’t do it justice (I bought it 2 months after I learned to spin). This month, I sat down and decided that it was now or never.

Then, as a reward for finishing the taxes on time (April 15th at 3 pm. Whew, thank goodness for electronic filing — no trying to find parking and standing in line at the post office), I started the Pi Shawl from Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac. I’ve just started the 3rd, and final, pattern block. With the flight down to California for the interview on Friday, there is a good chance that I will be finished with it by our 15th wedding anniversary next week.

We’ll see. I haven’t decided what to do about the edging yet. And this weekend will be busy with the Natural Dyeing with Norman Kennedy Workshop.

Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

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Pi Shawls

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Pi Shawl