Monday, March 09, 2009

A little lace

Remember this?




Well, I finally finished spinning it (squishing the last yards on it).



As I tried to unwind it I got a tangled mess for a while and had to just keep winding it onto the niddy-noddy. Luckily my girls were playing quietly and my boy was napping. I finally finished and gave it a rough washing. Hot water, cold water, flinging it around, whacking it against the tub. I'm sure I 'lost' several yards this way, but I am not so worried about it falling apart. This is the first time I've planned to work and knit with singles. Then I set it aside on a door knob (with tile floor) to dry.




As I wound the yarn into a ball (and then used the ball winder to make it easier to use) I could feel the felted yarn strands being pulled apart. I couldn't wait and as soon as I knew I had enough (just over 2 oz, 483 yards - at least I hope that's enough!) I cast on for the swallowtail shawl.


This first picture is blurry, but shows the color so well....


...and this second picture is washed out, but you can really see the pattern forming.


It's coming along slowly, as I do still have two tall socks and a small sweater I'm working on... and my husband added a project to the current pile for me to do as quick as I can.... but I did bring it to my daughter's birthday day-out (she turned 7 and brought a friend roller-skating and out to dinner instead of having a birthday party) and I went from row 30 to row 48 (out of 84 for the first chart) while listening to really loud music at the skating rink. It will be slow but steady hopefully. It is so much fun to knit with yarn I spun myself... I think I've done it over a handful of times now and it is still a blast!

(My husband is finishing my slippers right now... post on that soon!!)