Aeolian progress

I sat down one day last week, beads and handspun in hand, and cast on for the Aeolian shawl!



I have to sit down and concentrate on it, or I'll be losing YO's and making a tangled mess really quickly. I'm pretty psyched though- it's not difficult knitting, you just need to be in the mindset to sit and concentrate for a while. Lace frightens me, but once you break it down into bite-sized chunks it seems pretty do-able.

I'm using size 8 seed beads in a pretty purpley-pink. I didn't have a crochet hook small enough to impale the beads on and I was impatent to start, so I strung the beads onto the yarn beforehand just push them down the yarn as I get to them. It's easier for me to string them like this rather than fiddle with them one at a time- I have this heriditary hand tremble that makes doing something like that really difficult. It's not bad at all- some people in my family has a very noticble partkinsons-like tremble. It does make picking up teeny tiny seed beads and threading them a bit of a challenge though. I'm glad I bought extra because most of them ended up on the floor.

I started swatching for the Espresso sweater in handspun as well last night. I didn't mean to start a new project. Wednesday night I try to meet up with the local knitters for some tea and socializing. I went through all my projects on the needles and I had nothing that I felt like I could bring with me- Lace is a big no-no when I could possibly be (and want to be) distracted, I have one Fair Isle sock project going, a complex cabled band for a sweater, and a lace cami that I have to do some soul-searching on as it is a canidate for frogging. So I use my time wisely and bring along whatever needs to be swatched.

Aeolian Shawl SAL/KAL

I started spinning for the Aeolian Shawl. Several of my friends are doing this as a Spin-Along Knit-Along. It's gorgeous, but I'm intimidated by lace patterns. I'm hoping this will help me conquer my fear. I'm only committing myself to the smallest shawl size at this point, and I'm pretty sure I've fallen far behind everyone else at this point.

Here is what I'm using:


It's some oatmeal colored BFL top from my stash, soft and silk and a feathered fawn color. I'm going to spin up about 3 oz laceweight and 2-ply it. I have a couple of packets of seed beads that might work with this- some dusty pink and some bronze.

So far I have a negligible amount spun up on my bobbin. I love spinning BFL- it's soft and silky and it has a nice long staple. It just flies out of your hands as you spin it and I can sit there for hours, mesmerized by it sliding through my fingers. I think that I'm so anxious about the lace pattern that I just can't seem to get myself sitting down to spin it! Oh, that and my work has been crazy as it is the end of the quarter, so I really haven't had the free time that I'd like. I'm hoping to have this all spun up and ready to start knitting by the end of the month.