Charms!

In the House Cup game I play on Ravelry, the OWL for the subject of Charms is one I thought I'd never do. Your choices were: A) Knit something big and lacey, B) Spin laceweight yarn or C) Spin laceweight and use it to knit lace. Impossible to spin laceweight, and too hard to knit so much lace in only 3 months.

So, in spite of the fact that I can't actually imagine wearing this anywhere, I'm pleased to have finished this!

One Elizabeth Shawl, knit in my own laceweight handspun. Phew!

I did find it difficult to get a good photo. It's massive, detailed and see-through! The kids offered to help :)

It's almost 2m across the top, there, so a good length to wrap around your neck. The gradient didn't work out too badly, either. It took a bit of effort to block it out. I ended up folding it in half along the 'spine', because it only takes half the space (and half the pins) that way, and both sides end up looking exactly the same.

The fold is the edge you can see on the top right. The fabric of the shawl is doubled in this photo, so the fact that all the holes line up so well means I didn't make too many mistakes!


I found I got the hang of lace by the end. Almost every row was a repeat of 12 stitches, so, once I memorized that pattern and how it should line up with the rows below, I didn't need to look at the chart much. That's why the knitting went faster at the end, though the rows themselves took over an hour.


Stats
890y/814m of laceweight on 3.5mm needles
140g
52,363 stitches


 Now I'm on holidays; 14 nights off! I'm going to get to work on some other small projects for this month, and then start NEWT 7 in April!

Prism

Done! I used up nearly the whole skein. Just have a few mini skeins of rainbow bits, which I chopped out to keep the heels black.

 I do love Jaywalkers. Must remember to increase to the larger size when I get up to the heel, because it's not a stretchy pattern, and doesn't pull over the heel well. Can you see the oil-like colors faintly in the black, here?

Have also started some more spinning. This is BFL/silk in "Paris" from Southern Cross Fibres. It's mainly white, but has pearly shades of grey, green, blue, purple and brown in it.

And now, to stop procrastinating and get back to that shawl. I'm on the 3rd-last row, so I'll get it finished, if I can just make myself work on it :)

March.

I haven't done very much dyeing yet this term. I'm running low on plain white wool! But I did attempt a gradient of blues by weaving a "sock blank" (holding two strands together so as to have two matching skeins) and then dipping it slowly down into blue. I also dipped it into green half-way, and brown a little, thinking that I'd end up with a yarn that went from brown to green to blue to white. But the end of my weaving unravelled, and the yarn didn't really like being over-dyed so quickly. Still, it should make an interesting knit. Since it's mcn (merino/cashmere/nylon) I'm thinking gloves or arm-warmers. The two strands are still held together here; may as well leave them that way, and knit two at a time.

I did a little weaving project, a cowl that was "seaming the ends together" practice. Not too bad, for a first attempt, but weaving isn't as stretchy as knitting, and so it doesn't keep the cold air off your neck so well.

This hat is a top-down one, with a green/blue yarn (Malabrigo Arroyo in Vaa) that I loved, and it has a

turned up hem, for a change. The hem hides the back of the colorwork (which is, I think, a strand of pale blue Pediboo and a thin strand of very fluffy yarn), for fun :)

This hat was hand-spun. Love the simple pattern (Barley) and I think the colors match Byron's eyes. (He says he has "hazel" eyes, and I've always thought they were the same color as his blonde hair, only 3 shades darker with a hint of green.) But I'm not letting him pinch it. After I blocked it with a balloon, it became a soft and slouchy perfect size for me. Must make more of these.

And then, I finally finished the hand-spun scarf. Annoyingly, even though I used the skein that was longer for the warp, I ran out of warp long before I ran out of weft. So I have about 50 or 60g left, and didn't get right to the light blue end.

I find that you can see the gradient of the warp, but you can't easily see which end is lighter and which is darker. Like the regular pattern of Leno Lace, though. It's easy. Zac took this picture for me, to show the length (2.6m, not including the fringe.)

Last but not least, the dreaded Charms OWL, which is over 400 stitches a row, now. I stopped in the middle of this row to show how you actually knit along two sides of the triangle. At the bottom of the "spine" is where you start. You can see the 90 degree angle at the point of the needles here, and also in the color changes and pattern changes along the spine. The sides of my knitting are actually the hypotenuse of the triangle.

Also, this is the end of Chart 6, and 75%. I have a fair way to go in just 2 weeks, but the longer rows go faster than the short ones, and I'm getting the hang of lace, now, with all this practice. I'm going to knuckle down on these next few days off, and see if I can get it done before my next lot of night shift.

As for socks... I still haven't finished last month's black rainbow socks, though I started some more stripey ones. I might have to pull out the dye pots, too, and I'm itching to do some spinning, but don't seem to have time.

Also, NEWT 7 is in Planning Mode. Hehehe. I'm going to do 7 projects, I think, representing the 7 Weasley kids, since it's my 7th NEWT. It's going to include two "Weasley sweaters" (ie. Byron's and Jasmine's birthday jumpers).