The wonders of technology and my inability to make the most of them never cease to amaze me. I finally have some images of
kiri, some lace-weight spinning I'm working on, and sundry other things. However the amount of camera wrangling I went through to obtain these mediocre images is truly mind boggling. I haven't said much about kiri because I am a little shy about showing you my first big lace project. Especially since I need to re-block. But I love Polly's pattern, it's so easy and fun and provides a sophisticated shawl with minimal effort. Especially when you use DK weight and size 6 needles. If you've never tried a shawl before, I highly recommend kiri, as so many other ravelers and bloggers have noted. I am almost done with holiday knitting. Can you hear my wrists breathing a sigh of relief? But the big news, dear reader, the big news is I got my solstice present early. Yes, the gf read my mind and splurged. I am now the proud owner of a Strauch petite drum carder. I managed to card up the entire half-fleece I've been working on for weeks with hand cards in only a couple of hours. I have scratched knuckles, pricked fingers (mostly because I ignore directions printed on machinery with ridiculous abandon) and am deliriously happy. The gf told me she thought the real present would be letting me play with it for 2 weeks before we head home for the family holidays. I love her. She really gets it, even though there's not a single fiber lovin' bone in her body. I guess I should say she gets me.
As you can see from this picture, one of our furry babies decided she would help me card.
She's our little helper girl, this one. Sorry about that image, I took it at night and my best attempts at photoshopping it could not help the humungous glare issue. Kitty cuteness trumps bad glare any day!
So in terms of holiday knitting, I only (HA!) have a sweater, a hat, a
marley's ghost scarf, and a shawl to finish. In two weeks. No problem. Did I mention I'm spinning the yarn for marley's ghost? And I have to give it to the recipient in two days? And I'm only about 1/3 of the way done. Because I ran out of yarn. And I haven't spun up more yet. Can you tell what I'll be doing tonight? Ok, enough angst...more yarn.
I just bought this, probably one of my last yarn purchases for quite some time, mostly because I couldn't stand knowing there was malabrigo laceweight at the LYS and I didn't try to get some of it for my very own. So here, I give you 2 skeins of fabulous turquoise malabrigo lace. I'm doing the large rectangle with leaf pattern from VLT. I'm only two repeats in and I LOVE the pattern (I have since I bought the book, I just didn't feel ready to tackle it until now) and I am head over heels completely infatuated with this yarn. I won't discuss my thoughts about it on this blog, because they're just too racy. I'll leave it to your imagination. Maybe that's more dangerous....hey, yarn!
This is black merino and silver silk spun into a lace-weight single. I'm lovin' this fiber combo. It's prepared rovings from Louet. I bought a whole pound. YUM!
The second image is some cinnamon-colored alpaca I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool this year. More lace-weight, although I think I'll ply this, would put it more at a fingering or DK weight...but since I like heavier shawls, that's not a problem!
ok, enough with the yarn pron, I'm off for now. I need to re-shoot the madiera lace, it keeps arguing with me about its closeups. Finicky thing!
yarn: freshwater fibers bulky, bought in Eugene, OR. Needles: 10.5. The dye job was lovely for color but kept coming off on my hands, needles, etc.
