Sunday, March 30, 2008

Spring has sprung!

Well, it's that time again. Where I've held out on posting about my lovely FOs, and instead have been wearing them and demanding whomever sees them to admire them wholly. Today, two hats and a shawl!
First up, we have Tam C of knitty's three tams pattern. Size 8 needle, Patons Classic Merino and my very own handspun! I will be honest, the handspun quality is poor. The yarn is mostly overspun, with a few parts that are severely underplied. I didn't finish or balance it, so it is shown in all its wonky goodness. But, it is my own yarn, and I love it all the same. Roving was purchased from handpaintedyarn.com and spun on my ashford drop spindle. (That's right- this was pre-wheel yarn!)

Again, we have another three tams pattern. This one is tam A, knit with size 8 needles. The brown yarn is again Patons merino, and the pinky yarn is leftover Patons SWS- a yarn that always looks good in colorwork. I think the SWS yarn might be leftover from this hat. Every time I use up SWS leftovers, I always get a great FO. The drape of the soft singles yarn helps make this tam a lot less bulky than the one above. Everything else is about the same, oddly enough- other than this hat used up a LOT more main color than the one above. So make sure the working yarn is a full skein if you make this pattern.

Finally, my newest pride and joy is the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits. Only instead of a shawlette, I made this one HUGE. It easily wraps all the way around me and hangs all the way down my back. Yarn is Louisa Harding Grace. The color is really hard to photograph well- it is a pinky red that changes shades depending on the light source. (The silk makes the pink stand out more in the light). This is a pretty true color above though. Unfortunately, to get the picture above, I had to use flash to offset the windows behind it, and the flash washes the stitch pattern out. There are small, square ruby-red beads instead of nupps again. For an unknown reason, the edging gave me a harder time than the last shawl. It might be because this shawl has 2 more rows than the pattern calls for?
I loved working with this yarn, and would do so again in a heartbeat, were it not so expensive! This is also a singles yarn, so it was important to keep maintaining the twist to get the pattern to stand out and look even. The more I worked with the yarn, the easier it was to keep the twist. I think this would make a wonderful yarn for the Lady Eleanor entrelac stole from Scarf Style. It is warm, but light and lofty; the silk gives a wonderful hand to the touch.

So, that's it for the FO parade for this month. As always, there is more detail on all these projects, and extra pics, in my ravelry profile.



0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home