Tuesday 15 December 2009

This Week in Knitting and Spinning....

MMMMMMmmmm....Cashmere:

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It's 100 yards of laceweight 2-ply Mongolian Cashmere. I spun the singles on my wheel and then Andean plied it on a spindle for better control. I have a wee bit of roving left over, so I'll end up with more yardage. It's super soft and by far the hardest I had to work on a fiber.

I finished a couple of small projects that I still need to take photographs of: One being the Snapdragon Tam.

Snapdragon Tam

I love the way this knitted up. I hate the way it looks on. I mean, who looks good in a tam? Really now. At least a beret is cute and floppy and fun. I was going to make the matching mitts, but now that I don't like the way the hat looks on, I'm thinking about backing away for this matching set.

I got my skein of Malabrigo in the mail and finished the Damson. It's a simple, gorgeous shawl. Pictures soon, I promise!

I'm chugging along on the Avast sweater. The sleeves are attached and I'm almost done with the yoke. The problem is, it's way too big to take with me on my commute now, which is where the majority of my knitting gets done. To give myself something to do, I cast on yesterday for my Sweater #2- the February Lady. I'm using some Alpaca I got years and years ago when the Suss store in Manhattan closed down. It was an epic sale. It was plain white, but at $1 per skein, I grabbed as much as I could carry home. I dyed it using Madder Root, which gave me a nice peachy pink.

Alpaca

It's so girly, I can't help but making a high-pitched squeak every time I see it.

I'm not a huge 100% alpaca fan. It tends to be too drapey for sweaters and I get worried about the garment growing and stretching into some sort of monstrous frankensweater. Still- I think I can make it work with this particular pattern. I'm knitting it at a slightly tighter gauge then recommended to make up for any stretching that may occur. It's a small enough sweater that it won't be too heavy. Alpaca can be too warm, so the shorter sleeves and open lace work will help with that issue.

Wish me luck.

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