Mar Menor

My visit to Wonderwool Wales resulted in meeting the lovely Anniken Allis on her stand, and buying the Mar Menor Shawlette pattern after asking advice on a first beaded shawl to knit. I loved the one she had on display, and on realising it was knitted in Araucania Botany Lace, and that I had recently purchased a skein of said yarn in York, I decided that Mar Menor was the pattern to knit with the wool I had. The beads simply begged to be genuine amethyst and green lace agate, so that's what happened. 

It didn't take long to knit, and the decorative stitches were fun and so pretty. The beads went on easily enough, and I love the whole effect.

Find more Finished Objects here on FO Friday

WIP dangerously close to completion

Nearly there.....

After all that work to make a horizontal cabled border panel, I undid it. It didn't hang right and it was too heavy for the poncho.
So I simply knitted 6 rows of garter stitch and I'm now adding the tassels.
I even cut through the border to try to get it to hang right, and it must have taken 10 or more tries to get the front point right. Oh well, it was all good experience.

I am particularly pleased with the hood and its tassel. But I don't have a pic of that yet.
Maybe it will be a FO this Friday!

Find more WIPs on Wednesday here

Spunday

Here's the bunch of silk fluff I got from Oliver Twists at Wonderwool Wales.

This is what I've spun so  far.

                                                    And I started a new bobbin so I could make 2 ply, producing this in 1 hour. 

I've been looking for a shawl pattern that will suit it, so I need something that's not too fine and lacy because of its handspun uneven nature, so I am thinking that a Multnomah would do the job nicely. 

FFO Friday

(First Finished Object Friday)

From start to finish:
I bought the wool in April from Wildfire Fibres at WonderWoolWales 
Beautifully soft, with a cotton thread running through it, threaded with tiny shiny beads, like dewdrops. I can't remember exactly, but it was less than 300 metres in length.

When I got back home after the festival, this was the first thing I started to knit from the stash that I gathered there. I found this pattern Little Arrowhead Shawl on Ravelry. This was my first shawl, and it took me a while to get used to the concept, but I got there in the end. The yarn was lovely to work with, and I tried to push all the tiny beads through to the front to get the benefit. You can't see them on the photo.
It only took a couple of weeks to knit (which is quick for me, at the moment), but on the cast-off edge, I was about 2 feet short of yarn. I tried to finish it with a plain red cotton thread, but it stood out too much.

So the project was abandoned.

Until today. I thought that today I could have my first Finished Object Friday.

 So I selected some lovely fluffiness and blended it on my drum carder.

And then got out my lovely Ashford Joy spinning wheel which Father Christmas bought me last year. 

 I spun the fluff into a single ply, which I then plied with half of the ply of the original red thread, after I'd undone the offending cast-off edge. (Are you following? :oD )

Here is the finished yarn ready to complete the shawl.

And here is the new cast-off edge.

I finished this recently. It is a Holden Shawlette knitted with Easyknits bamboo/merino sock yarn. Looks like the colourway I used isn't available though.

It's a lovely soft shawl and was a pleasure to knit.