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

Tag: Shrug

Finishing Work

merino-silkThere has been some finishing work around here.

I finally finished spinning and plying the moorit merino/silk roving. There are 1,460 yards of 2-ply yarn here. It’s approximately 18 wpi off of the wheel. I haven’t wet finished this yarn yet. Once I do so, the fiber will bloom quite a bit. Why haven’t I wet finished it yet? I would like to over dye this yarn. I think color on the light brown will be very interesting. And the silk will really pop out. The question now, of course, is what color or colors. Until I do, they yarn will stay as it is. There’s no need to wet/dry the yarn twice. Lazy? Probably, but I prefer to call it efficient. Or better yet, more environmentally responsible.

pinwheelThe edging on the pinwheel shrug is finally done. I stayed up until way past midnight to finish off the last panel. Waldo really wanted to go to bed and was very vocal about it. As a shepherd, he needs to be in the same room as I am in order to keep an eye on me. He can’t go to bed in the bedroom with me still in the living room. He was getting quite cranky when I wouldn’t play along.

Anyway, next step will be to unpick the white waste yarn and pick up for the sleeves.  The edging is approximately 6″ wide.  I’ll work the sleeves to about elbow length in stockinette, then finish it off with the lace edging.  That will make the sleeves just shy of wrist length.

The sleeves will have to wait until I return from Washington.  Besides, I don’t have 16″ 4.00 mm needles.

Spring Cleaning #3

pinwheel-edge

Project #2: Circular Shrug

I started this back in January. I was always cold while sitting in my home office for hours at a time. I was thinking shrugs. Then my mind went to the circular baby blanket I made a while back. I used the dimensions specified in Elann’s Pinwheel Sweater for the sleeve placement. I chose to use the same edging as the baby blanket — Godmother’s Edging.

The yarn is Araucania Nature Wool. The kettle dyed yarn makes really pretty subtle variations, which gives the fabric some depth.

I stopped after working 2 repeats of the edging. I remember thinking that the edging took more mental power than I had remembered. I don’t know why I thought this because it definitely wasn’t hard before.

The other night, I sat down with an Agatha Christie DVD and got to work. Again, I have no idea why I had problems with the edging. It’s going very quickly right now. But quickly is relative. It took about an hour to finish the edging for one panel. There are 8 panels, so 7 to go.

Then there are the sleeves. I knitted in some white waste yarn where the sleeves should be. I need to unpick those stitches and knit the sleeves before adding the lace edging. This will take a bit longer than the last project to finish.

If you can’t beat them…

I still can’t get gauge for the Rowan felted tweed. Instead, I will make the sweater in the next size smaller, and hope for the best. I really like how the sweater looks with the 1″ ease (fitted). Using the next size smaller, and my bigger gauge, I should get about a 0.75″ to 1″ ease.

So, in lieu of actually knitting, I will show you a picture of a shrug I made last month.

Shrug - frontShrug - back

I made up the pattern as I went along, using my favorite shrug-like sweater (old Benetton cotton sweater) as a basis. The yarn is handspun Blue Faced Leicester from Dicentra Designs. I can’t remember the colorway off hand, and I’m too lazy to go looking for the fiber band. The spun yarn is a 2-ply of approximately DK weight.

The picture washed out the colors a bit. The BFL has a wonderful sheen and drape to it. It’s absolutely lovely.

Page 3 of 3

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén