It took almost three months but I am finally finished with Madli’s Shawl. The shawl is beautiful, the yarn is gorgeous and the pattern is easy to follow and once I memorized the repeat, I was able to knit it at the computer or while I watched TV without making too many mistakes. I did about seventy billion nupps and while they were a pain the butt to knit, they look great and add a touch of texture to all the lace. I love Zephyr. Love, love, love. I would knit all of my shawls with wool and silk if I could afford it. My one complaint about the yarn is that it bled terribly when I washed it yesterday. I let it soak for about two hours, changing out the water every ten or fifteen minutes and even tried adding a bit of vinegar, but it just kept bleeding. I know it’s to be expected with a color this deep and rich but I think this was the worst I’ve ever seen. The color is really lovely, though, and the picture at the top is pretty accurate, more so than the one below.
The edging is my favorite part of the shawl. This is the fifth shawl I’ve knit so far this year and the goal is ten. I’m going to have to work a little faster if I want to make it by the end of the year.
Details:
- Pattern: Madli’s Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush
- Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr, not sure of the exact yardage, probably around 1,000yds
- Needles: US4/3.5mm KnitPicks Options
- Modifications: none
- You can see more on my Ravelry page, and that’s a public link.
Now I’ve got a bad case of startitis and I have no idea what to do. I just keep starting new things and I’m not really thrilled with any of it. I started a Tricorner scarf (from Knitting New Scarves) with the KnitPicks Merino style left over from my Wave and Dimple Kimono. It just isn’t holding my attention, though. A few months ago I bought the punchneedle moon pattern from PlanetJune and so I’ve started it but I can’t work on it while I do something else, it takes two hands and all my attention, or at night since the lighting in my house sucks. And then last night when I couldn’t sleep I started another embroidery project that I’ll talk more about later. I also wound the yarn for my next shawl, I think I’ll knit the Lilac Leaf Shawl that’s also from Knitted Lace of Estonia and I’ll be using some purple handspun, it’s on the top in this picture. Plus I have another KnitPicks project on the way and it’s time for the Tour de Fleece again.
Whew! I think I’ll be pretty busy next month, plus I want to start washing some of my fleeces (it feels so weird to type that, fleeces). I have six pounds of Shetland and three or four pounds of llama that needs washed. I have so much wool that I opened my closet yesterday and a stack of bags of wool fell on my head. It’s overwhelming. I need a drum carder, I just can’t imagine hand carding all of this, it’s like ten pounds of stuff to card. Do you know how much wool that is? It’s so much wool that I can’t even fit my clothes into my closet anymore. Not that I’m complaining, I love having it, I love spinning it and I even like to wash it. I’m very lucky that I’m able to do this and able to buy that much wool (it was pretty cheap, too). It’s just really overwhelming. I think I’ll go take a shower now and not think about it.
