Birthday Shawl Beauty

Birthday Shawl Border
Originally uploaded by sunasak.

Important note! I did not knit this shawl! The lovely and talented Jody (Killerpeach) did it as a birthday gift to me (birthday was in March, but we haven't seen each other much lately). Whoa, what a gift! I have a picture of it spread out, and a close up on my Flickr pages. The yarn is a slightly vareigated silk/wool blend that is light and warm (so I can take it in to work and wear when I get cold--it matches my cubicle decor better than my purple and green mohair one).

The pattern is Sivia Harding's Shetland Garden Faroese shawl. It has some nice shaping that makes it hang very well (when not serving as a headscarf). I want to make one of these shawls, too--maybe someone else wil have to be the lucky recipient!

Today we had a really fun day, Jody and I. Jody met me her LYS (the one in south Austin) and looked and looked. While waiting on Jody, the sales staff there were very helpful and I think among three of us, we finally figured out how to do the corner on the Cherry Leaf shawl (yay). They all agreed they are very unclear directions, though, which made me feel better. It's not that I am slow or anything!

I purchased some yummy yarn. I tried not to. But...well...there was stuff they don't have up in Cedar Park...

First is some pale blue (skydrop) Voile de la Mer yarn from Tilli Tomas, a silk and seacell blend. Face it, I just wanted some seacell. I'll make the little dragon scale wristlets in the knitting pattern a day calendar out of them, probably knitting two strands together, because I got the thinner yarn. It really doesn't smell very ocean-y. But it is shiny and soft.

Next we have some Koigu KPPPM sock yarn. Can you believe it, I never bought any before??? They said they had finally gotten in some new colors, and they were flying out. For some reason I didn't get purple (which was very nice), Instead I got some very dark blues and turquoises.

And last in the yarn dept. is Graceful Lace from Yarn Place. It's a laceweight (duh) with very long color changes, 100% wool. The colors are muted greens to purples, violet...very hard to describe, because the colors are subtle and grayed, not vibrant. It's one of those yarns that if the label didn't say so, you would not believe the skeins are the same colorway. I think it would look really interesting on a round shawl, and I want to make some round ones.

(It won't be the next one, though, because I want to make the snowdrop shawl in Lace Style out of some yarn I hope gets dyed this weekend by Ray).

THEN, Jody talked me into buying some roving. Because she thought I should learn to spin. Well, it was pretty inexpensive, so I got some. And we went to her house (after margaritas), and she set me up with a drop spindle. I was predictably awkward at it, but was getting the hang of it by the time I went home. I came back with a borrowed spindle and an instruction book. We'll see how I do!

Must go play with my toys now...