KnitMe

Tangled Up in White

I finished spinning my pound of white merino.

Yeah, I know, I've done an awful lot of white spinning this year. And I like this fiber so much, I went and ordered another 8 ounces so I can maybe have enough for Eris after all.

Of course, watch me spin plenty of yarn and then not solve the Mystery of Gauge...

I have found that I can spin and ply 4 ounces of this in a weekend, taking advantage of the fact that in the morning after breakfast Emily tends to remain quite occupied with her own play for a couple of hours. If we don't have to run off anyplace, we both play with our toys and by Sunday night I can have a skein of yarn.

When I first bought that pound of merino, I split it into one-ounce chunks, planning to use it as a sort of spinning training exercise. But it spun so nicely that I abandoned that idea and just spun it. I found it psychological very encouraging to chew through those one-ounce hunks and will do the same when the next 8 ounces shows up.

Meantime I've almost finished the upper back of Arches.

It's a lovely effect achieved by deceptively simple means - long columns of a simple 1x2 twist, topped with the same horseshoe lace that serves as the border of the Wool Peddler's shawl so many of us have knit. Two more repeats of the 8-row pattern and I can start on the upper front. I'm looking forward to getting to the sleeves, which are knit top-down and have short-row shaping at the shoulder.

Venus is also progressing, although much more slowly due to the gauge. I can tell this is going to turn into one of those slog projects... Here you see about 5 inches complete and maybe you can see the argyle pattern taking shape (this is very hard to photograph).

Bridget got a bath on Saturday and so considered herself clean enough to check out white knitting.

I had a detail photo of the texture also but can't find it right now, I'll post it later in the week if it turns up.

(UPDATE later - this is the detail photo...)

Finally, Emily.

I almost started singing, "How do you solve a problem like Maria..."

Posted by Prudence at August 15, 2005 08:19 AM