Icarus Shawl

Mine!

latest

Asheville purchases

Handcarved wooden US8 knitting needles by Chris Behre; Woolworth Walk

100% wool roving (chocolate brown) from Other Place Farm; 100% llama roving (heather brown) from Wellspring Farm; Asheville NC Home Crafts

Drop spindle & domestic wool roving; Earth Guild

100% angora; handspun; Asheville NC Home Crafts

"You're Putting Me On" Socks

Yarn stash enhancement - June 2nd 2006

The latest (beautiful) addition to my yarn stash:

Mountain Colors Bearfoot in Juniper.
60% superwash wool, 25% mohair, 15% nylon.
350 yards per 100 gram skein.
6-7 st/in (single strand) / 4-5 st/in (double strand) on US 1-2 or 4-6.
Machine wash cool, dry flat.



Below: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran
Below: K1C2 Melange (left) and Alchemy Synchronicity (right).

Below: Handpainted wool spun & produced by women's co-op in Peru.

Inventory

My inventory, as of Thursday May 25th 2006...

1. my stash:
2. beginner teddy


3. tempting

4. honeymoon take 2

5. ruffles
6. capelet
7. baby kimonos

Honeymoon... Take 2

I was in Bethesda today, meeting with a photographer to discuss our upcoming photo shoot. Nice guy, I think I'll enjoy working with him. Apparently, I have "great cheek bone structure" that he would like to "emphasize with proper lighting." Who knew :oP

Anyway, after our very successful conversation ended, I marched right around the corner and up the stairs to one of my local yarn stores. (I have five LYS, but only if you count individually the three branches of the DC store.) I freely admit that the primary reason I selected this location for the initial meeting with the photographer is its proximity to one of my LYS.

I tried my hardest to stay away, but you know me, I can resist everything but temptation. So I went. And I browsed. And I browsed some more. Since I hadn't given any serious thought (or any thought at all, really) to my next project, I was hoping to leave with my wallet full and my bag light. Sadly or gladly, depending on the point of view, that was not meant to be.

The shelves filled with yarn seduced me into deciding to tackle once again the Honeymoon Cami, a project I had previously attempted, semi-successfully. Okay, so it wasn't exactly a success, because I didn't finish it. But it wasn't a failure, either, because I finished all but the straps.

One of the original problems was my yarn selection. I chose a beautiful azure mercerized cotton yarn (see below). Mercerized cotton is cotton treated so that it has a natural sheen - very smooth, very pretty. Unfortunately, 100% cotton yarns lack sufficient elasticity and knit up to a very dense fabric that, over time, loses its proper shape.


But this time around, I corrected that little error. I chose Rowan's Calmer, a 75% cotton, 25% acrylic/microfibre blend yarn that will not only hold its shape, but also is more elastic (and thus easier to work with) and softer than its predecessor. This time, I decided to go with a classic ivory color.

Above: My three skeins (I love it when they're sold as center-pull skeins, saves me the time & effort of winding hanks of yarn into center-pull skeins) of ivory Rowan Calmer, resting on top of my precious Denise Interchangeable Needles set and next to a marked-up copy of the Honeymoon Cami pattern.

new (tempting) project

Me, knitting away

Okay, more on the progress itself later, but here's a photo of the work-in-progress.

What it looks like now:


What it will (I hope) look like eventually:


Except it will be a dark blue with ivory ribbon trim.

I just hope it will fit properly. I tried on the torso portion of the sweater, tube top style, and it seemed a little bit large - not snug, as in the photo.

Perhaps I should have done a test swatch for gauge, but I was too impatient to get started.... Oops.