New Toy and New Yarn

I got a new toy over the weekend...


of course, the yarn on there is left over from a pair of socks my husband made for me... we figured that with the amount left, he'll just need to make me some short (summer?) socks with the next skein and he'd be able to maybe squeeze two pair out of each tofutsies skein.

isn't it pretty?


I thanked my husband (he specifically looked for it and asked about it during our trip to webs this weekend... more on that tomorrow perhaps.)


I swatched for the mysterystole3 project. The bottom is on US3, the top is on US4. There's about a 1/2 inch difference in widths.



Someone on the ms3 group had asked about this yarn (Webs 2/14 Alpaca Silk) - it's very loosely plied in general, and so the first bit (that has had a chance to loosen) I found a bit splitty - but within the first row or two that wasn't a problem any more - and I love the way it's working up! I'm trying to decide which I like more... there isn't a way to increase width in the pattern, and I'd prefer to size of the wider one (6 1/2 for the swatch, plan on three times that). I think I like the look of the smaller one a bit more though... I'll have to let that settle in my mind over the next week and a half until the first clue comes out.



...during that time I will be quite busy knitting. The yarn is done:


It comes in at just over 1000 yards, so that means I have lots of choices for the shawl. Every time I think I've made a choice I become wishy-woshy about it, but I do need to make my pattern selection soon and start knitting.


I also reached the half way mark on the shawl for my younger daugther - well, not half way, that doesn't include the edging. ...but I have two skeins of the yarn for the center panel, and I finished knitting one of them.


I probably won't be able to do the number of repeats specified in the melon shawl pattern (VLT), but I'm happy with the length at half-way, so I'll just need to figure out how to fudge the edging ...math... I'll delay that for a while... at least until I'm closer to being done knitting.

Julie, and others, have asked about the spindolyn. I am very happy with mine - and yes, I do have a couple of tips. I recommend watching the video to see it used by someone who knows what they are doing. I usually sit on my chair and hold the spindolyn between my legs about halfway to my knees. I have to make sure the spindolyn is upright while spinning, and then I like it at a slight angle as I spin the yarn on (this might have to do with the chair I'm sitting on). It's a bit tricky at the beginning, and then again as it is full... similar to a drop spindle. It is not as fast as my wheel of course, but is much faster than my spindles. I do a fairly short draw and can spin pretty fine on it... you just need to make sure the yarn has enough twist so it will hold together...

Hopefully that's somewhat helpful, feel free to ask any more specific questions. I'm not an expert by any means, but I did spin all the angora on it.