Clue 4 Complete

I have 60% of the shawl done ---



--- and a quick calculation tells me I have approximately 38.5% of my yarn left.



Normally when I'm afraid I'll run out of yarn I knit quickly and non-stop in hopes that I'll finish the project before I run out of yarn. I know, it makes no sense, but I'm not the only knitter that admits to this. Unfortunately the clues for the Mystery Stole 3 are being doled out piecemeal, one week at a time. I have no choice but to stop and wait for the next set of directions which won't be out until August 3rd.

On a good note, I can probably spin more if I have to. It's from commercially made top from Aurelia and the colourway is still available. On the other hand, I'd rather not as it comes in rather large bags and buying another will double my cost to make this stole.



Monica was admiring my blocking wires earlier, so I thought I'd mention them here. Not wanting to send away for expensive blocking wires I took the advice of a knitter on a Yahoo-groups forum I belonged to and bought myself a handful of 3/16" x 36" tig welding rods. You just need to check the ends and use sandpaper or a grinder to smooth out anything that might snag. Blocking wires work really well for blocking items with straight edges or even for blocking shawls that have pointed edging (in that case you run the wire through each point). It reduces the number of pins you need and makes for perfectly straight lines.

My thoughtful husband made the holder for me out of PVC pipe and threaded end caps. He even painted them for me so that the ugly black lettering is no longer visible.

The other innovation visible here is the "blocking board" made of interlocking foam play mats. I have a case of 4 and would like another set so that I can block my largest shawls, but set up in a straight line these will work fine for blocking the finished stole.

MS3 Clue One Complete

Clue One of the Mystery Stole Knit-a-Long was released last week, and the second clue was released yesterday, Friday the 7th. I only joined late Thursday night when I started to see pictures of the completed "clue one" around blogland. Yesterday I managed to knit up all of the first "clue", which consisted of the first two charts, a total of 100, ever increasing rows. Curious as to how well my handspun was working with this pattern I did a rudimentary blocking overnight.



I'm pleased with the results. The needle size I have chosen seems appropriate. The resulting lace is neither too dense to drape nor too airy for the design to show.



I'm happy with my bead selection too. I've tried to show a close up of some of the "oil slick" beads and capture a bit of the beautiful rainbow angelina in the spun wool. Both the black yarn and the beads are really hard to capture in a photograph though. In "real life" they show up more. In the sunshine the shawl sparkles breathtakingly!

Plyed and Busted

I don't think I've ever had one of these large, Majacraft bobbins so full! I plyed and plyed and in the end I got nearly 250g of 2 ply laceweight (22 WPI) on there. I'd love to tell you how many yards that made but ----



--- when I had counted off well over 300 wraps (on a 2 yard niddy noddy) the piece of junk broke under the strain. I knew it was cracked, and I've ordered a new one, but I was hoping the loosely jointed, weak, poorly designed, piece of good for nuthin' kindling would hold together long enough to finish this job. As it was I had to yelp for help before hundreds of yards of handspun became hopelessly tangled.



I quickly finished winding the skein while my husband held it on his outstretched arms. *whew*



It's had it's bath and is hanging (perfectly balanced, *woo hoo*!) to dry. Hopefully I'll be able to borrow a yardage counter to get an accurate length before choosing a shawl design.