Yesterday brought our 3rd winter storm in as many weeks. It’s been a mess of snow days in already shorter school weeks that has knocked my craft life for six.
For several reasons Ty & I have needed time-off for more unstructured time together, however. This boon has kept the cabin fever feeling from setting-in but I hope there are no other Colorado lows on the way!
The impact of 24-hour long winter storms hitting mid-week each week aside we are safe & warm through it all, so far.
All-over lace shawl update
The Lacymmetry shawl only saw the inside of a project bag between early November and 3 Saturdays ago.
The shawl transitions once 2/3 knitted to a ‘diamond’ lace motif that shows strongly with its double yarn-overs. I paused at the transition point, and am now 7 repeats into this second, final section.
Starting at the 2nd of these repeats, I decided to add gold duracoated 8/2 Miyuki beads on a single return row in the ‘diamond’ lace motifs.
The designer is Naomi Parkhurst of String Geekery, and I love how she advances the diamond lace 3 times evenly in each ‘diamond’ lace repeat. The beads are highlighting this diagonal advance sequence. It’s fun to knit!
How I place these beads is with a 0.6 mm metal crochet hook. My handspun BFL/silk yarn is gently thin to thick, and it can be slower to fit the beads. They are getting on there with persistence so far… fingers crossed?
Working with this madder orange dyed yarn is also a push back to the dyepots… hopefully soon!
Another kind of lace update – weaving Swedish Lace sampler
Shortly after my last TKK post, I did wet finish the table loom Swedish lace sampler. I am not quite done gasping but can share the results.
This 1st section of the sampler is better than I expected while weaving. That said, it is really much more appealing with white on the white warp. They (every book & my workshop teacher) told me so!
The sampler was not finished schooling my(over-excited)self. Oh no, it was not.
Not for napkins was coming through very clearly by this time. This is the section where I wove turning the weft and warp floats regularly in their A-B blocks as writ.
You may notice that I had a warp-wise (threading) mistake. The napkins were to be in finer unmercerized cotton (16/2). I am considering keeping blue weft on white warp but changing to an 8-shaft crackle structure. Exploring crackle is a definite interest.
For now the loom is closed as I dig-out from storms and continue the Jane Stafford on-line lessons when possible.
These lessons & outings around town allowed me to finish spinning this other 4 oz of Norwegian top dyed by Mandie of Sheepy Time Knits. The 5 singles balls will probably be chain-plied like the 1st set was.
We are also up a kid-sized Honey Cowl/ down a braid of Rambouillet wool from the 2018 Woodstock Fibre Festival. Ty announced that it would go with him to school this morning, “… Because you worked so long on it!”
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Everything looks lovely. (I’m especially fond of the snow on flora.)
Thank you! It just caught my breath on our morning walk, and I ran for the camera!