Snail Spirals

I have some dribs and drabs of fibery work to show today, just to prove that I'm keeping busy. I'm still spinning on the pretty blue merino/silk, but a slightly-more-filled bobbin of tiny singles isn't very interesting, so I'll hold off on more pictures of that project until I have two beautiful full bobbins to show.

Instead, here's a bookmark that I made on Wednesday night. It's the fan pattern I've made before, and this one is mine, all mine. Every one of these that I made before has been sold, and I wanted one for myself. Plus, I left my other bookmark at home in Oregon.



I've also been knitting on two shawls. The first one is made with the blue yarn I spun in May, from the roving I won from Panda Bonzai. I tried a couple variations before I settled on this very plain stockinette triangle.



I tried a tip up triangle first, but didn't like that because the stripes came out horizontal and looked too static, then I tried a rectangular scarf/stole in a simple lace pattern, but that was completely wrong because of both the horizontal stripes and the lace/stripe interaction.

I finally went with what I had originally planned in the first place: a neck-down triangle. My original instinct was the right one. I started with beads on the stockinette, and while they looked nice on the more solid blue section at the center neck, looked too elegant for the marbled, variegated yarn. So I laddered down to each bead, removed them all, and laddered back up. (I must admit to being inordinately fond of laddering down and up stockinette with a crochet hook.) I like the way this is coming out, with the V's that are forming from the variegated yarn. It looks like blue agate.

I've been somewhat stalled on this for a couple days because I want to put an interesting but simple border pattern on, but don't know which one. I'd like it to have a shaped edge, like scallops or zigzags, and be knit in the same direction as the rest of the shawl so I can just keep knitting until I run out of yarn. I was thinking maybe the pattern I used for this afghan would work, but need to try it out, and work out the point detail. I also need to weigh the remaining yarn so I don't start the border too soon.

The second shawl I have going is a Chevron Shawl from my own pattern. I was very concerned when one of the people who bought the pattern said that there was a discrepancy in how much yarn I said the shawl takes, and how much she was using. There was quite a large difference. And of course, I'm in a completely different state from both the original shawl I knit and the leftover yarn- I couldn't check the yardage I had left over or weigh the shawl.

I went to the yarn store here on the island yesterday to get some yarn to knit another one.



I am now quite sure that the yardage I listed in the pattern is wrong. This is very embarrassing, and I don't know how it could have happened. The only thing I can think of is that the label from one of the skeins of yarn went missing before I totaled everything up at the end. Perhaps I misplaced it, perhaps a certain then-two-year-old child absconded with it, perhaps the wind blew it away. I'll be revising the pattern and contacting the people who purchased it. At least there weren't that many.

I thought I was being so careful when I wrote the pattern.

~~~hiding in shame~~~

Anyway. This Chevron Shawl is being knit with Brown Sheep Wildfoote yarn. It's actually sock yarn (75% washable wool, 25% nylon), but is knitting into a nice, fairly soft fabric with US 5 (3.75mm) needles.

This is not the yarn I had in mind when I went into the store, but it was one of the few there that was the right thickness (~15 wpi) and a solid color. And it was the ONLY one of those that didn't cost $16 per skein. I'd rather it was 100% wool, but oh well. I think I'll be overdyeing it when it's done. The gray is OK, but a bit boring for a decorative shawl. If it was natural sheep gray, maybe, but not a flat dyed gray. Emma said it needs to be purple, and I think purple over the gray will work nicely.

Going into yarn stores has been an interesting experience over the past few years. There just isn't anything there that I want to buy, except spinning fiber or hard goods. Even when I went to Weaving Works last month, I completely bypassed the yarn and went straight to browse the fiber, book, and equipment sections. This is a strange feeling, but I'd really rather knit with my own handspun. I am enjoying working with the Zephyr for MS3, but in general, I like my yarn better than commercial yarn. That's a good feeling.