Wednesday 24 March 2010

Long weekend

Despite having to work on Saturday, I still ended up having a long weekend thanks to Monday off and a half-day of classes on Tuesday. Although much of that time was taken up with a total time-suck of a wordgame, I spent a great deal of time knitting.

Ergo, new shawl:

It's made from the handspun I finished recently. I have about a yard of the stuff leftover, thanks to the joys of the modular pattern. It's the first heavy shawl I've made for myself, and came in handy today. It's getting warmer in London, but still jacket weather. It's also heavy shawl weather!

A few thoughts:

  • Ruffles look great but are a total pain to knit and cast off. It took me four hours to finish the cast-off.
  • Garter stitch doesn't need blocking if the yarn is squidgy enough.
  • Garter stitch really doesn't need blocking if the ruffle contains half the total yarn. I predict that two weeks of wear will stretch it to double the current size, which is already bigger than any of my other shawls.
  • Worsted weight shawls don't work as scarf alternatives unless I want to look like a linebacker under my jacket.
  • There's a lot of room for variegation in a semi-solid fiber/yarn.
  • Knitting with handspun is much more exciting than knitting with commercial yarn.
  • I need to spin more.

1 comment:

Tamara Samuilova said...

Wow!! It looks great! Well done.