A lesson

I've been weaving along on the Afghans for Afghans shawls. I'm nearly out of green yarn for the weft, and I'm not sure I'm going to have sufficient length for 2 shawls, let alone 3. I may have to substitute another color. I have some brown I think that might work OK.

I'm working with approximately 20/2 wool in the warp. This is the finest warp yarn I've used. For the first 10 inches or so I had a broken warp yarn every few minutes. It was very trying on my patience!

I did some research online and saw someone mentioning that for fine yarn, they beat with an open shed. But more interestingly, they would beat twice--once on the current open shed and once on the next.

It took me a while to get the rhythm of beat-change shed-beat-throw, but after I got it, wow what a difference. From that point on, I only had 2 broken warp threads! It also really evened out my beat, I think.

Yay for new things learned.

Resurrection

I haven't quit knitting, just blogging. I'm going to make an attempt to start this up again, but with a fairly good dose of weaving content. I took a weaving class last summer and have been doing quite a lot of it lately.

I recently finished my first waffle-weave project. These towels were from a kit I got from Halcyon Yarns. The kit was to make 3 towels, but I had enough warp for an additional square dishcloth.

I've only hemmed the dishcloth so far. Even though I used sewing thread for the weft on the hems, the flare is quite pronounced compared to the draw-in of the waffles. I'm going to have to mess with the hem on the others a bit to get it to look nice.

These towels are for us. They should go nicely with the green kitchen walls!


During the WEBS anniversary sale, I picked up a few cones of 6/2 unmercerized cotton. I used almost an entire cone of the "oatmeal" color for some huck lace towels for my cousin's wedding (Coming up this Saturday!). I'll post another picture of the completed towels. I'm going to be cross stitching a monogram on some of them in white embroidery floss.

I got the lace pattern out of an Interweave Press compilation of huck lace articles from Handwoven magazine. I'm really impressed with the book. It gets into detail about the structure and how to create your own patterns. It also has instructions for a form of huck that can be done with pickup sticks on the rigid heddle loom. I'm planning to try that out with panels for an afghan one day.


And finally, the next project on the loom. I'm making some shawls for Afghans for Afghans. Syne at weavecast sent me a pre-wound warp (major time saver!) in these crazy colors. I've gotten started on sleying the reed but a diversion to go hear some jazz at the Missouri Botanical Gardens last night has put the brakes on that project for a bit. I might get some more done today, since I got some Alias dvds from Netflix in the mail yesterday.

I'm planning on doing the shawl in an undulating twill pattern from the Davison book. That'll be my first try at undulating twill and at an EPI of 30. Previously I've only done as high as 25.

A quick update

Just wanted to pop up a quick photo before I dash off to the airport for this week's work. I started these socks ages ago, using some Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn I got (I believe) in Minneapolis at some random yarn store out in the middle of an office park.

I used Charlene Schurch's Sensation Knitted socks for the formula. The Eye of Partridge heel flap looks very nice in this yarn. The slipped stitches form almost a checkerboard. Oh, also--this was my first try at a tubular cast on. I love the results it gives, despite the fact that it's fiddly to work.

Anyway, it was a fun, quick knit!

Firebird Socks

I just finished the June socks from the Rockin Sock club. I worked them top-down according to pattern except for the toe, which I did as normal stockinette instead of short-rowed garter stitch. It should keep them from being too bulky around my toes.

I've photographed them out in the garden as it's quite a lovely sunny day out there:

More of the Shawl Mystery

Clue three was released this week and I spent much of the afternoon working on it. I finished just in time to get a photo in the waning afternoon sunlight.



It's definitely looking like "something" but I can't for the life of me think what the theme might be. Obviously the faggoting is making very clear points. Not sure if that has a meaning or not. Hum. Oh, and to answer Jessica's question from last week since I don't have a great way to respond to comments--The beads are indeed red.

In other knitting news, a couple weeks ago I finished the knee socks I was making with the April yarn from the rockin sock club. This was the "silkie" wool/silk blend and it feels diving. I have to use straps as garters to keep them up though. I might thread in some elastic instead.

My apologies for the poor photo. There wasn't any good light and I haven't persuaded brent to take another photo on a better day.

On the Mystery Stole Bandwagon

So I was browsing around Ravelry the other day when I was struck by all these lovely pictures of a stole in progress. It was the Mystery Stole 3. I saw that signups were closing in a few days so I hurried over and signed up, and immediately started knitting.

The instructions said that it was best worked in black or white, and I had some off-white alpaca/silk blend laceweight that would be just right. I hopped off to the craft store and picked up some beads, and off I went.

Yesterday, clue 2 was released (more of the pattern), and I just finished it today. Here's what it's looking like:


Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what the main motif on this end is supposed to be? Here's a closeup



Also, for posterity's sake, here's the photo I took at the end of clue 1. I didn't want to make a separate post for it too. It was also taken in better light so it looks white instead of blue :)

A bad blogging spell

I've been on a bit of a bad blogging spell, and truly bad knitting too. I haven't knit much, though I've purchased more yarn (who can help it?). I did eventually rip out the grasshopper sock I was working on before, and reknit it. I'm nearly finished with sock number 1:



I'm using the over the knee socks pattern from Handknit Holidays, but made mine just knee socks instead of over-the-knee. The detail on the back is a bit lost in the striping of the yarn, but that's OK--it keeps me interested in the pattern at least.

In addition, I happened to win a contest on the STR Rockin Sock Club blog! I got a prize of a lightweight STR skein of Lunasea: