Wedding Shawl- Made for my youngest daughter, Tina. I waited till the last minute to decide I wanted to make a shawl for her. With no time to sit and chart a pattern, I looked for a pattern with a traditional look, but one that wasn’t too fussy. I settled on the Elegantly Simple Triangle Shawl sold on the Patterns page. I used the Alpaca Lace yarn sold on the Natural Colored Millspun Yarn, a gossamer weight yarn. I was in a hurry so I doubled the yarn, hoping it wouldn’t give me trouble. I was pleased at how quickly the knitting went and how the yarn strands held together. I completed the shawl in approximately 3 weeks , just days before the bridal shower. The shawl turned out very well, the yarn giving the shawl a true Shetland wool look, but with a beautifully soft hand, nice drape. We liked it so much that I entered it in the Finger-Lakes Fiber Arts Festival, I was thrilled to see it earned a Best Garment ribbon. When I make this again, I’ll be using the Alpaca prime yarn, a thicker yarn, but with the same qualities that give a nice hand and beautiful drape.
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Pocket bag – This is a bag that was knit on two circular needles.. a little tricky at first … and then lightly felted, just enough to make it sturdy. In order to insure that it all felted evenly, I wanted to use the same fiber for the main color and contrasting color. I did so by spinning the yarn from a batt dyed in shades of reds, golds, black. I tore the the batt into lengthwise strips and used the lighter colors for one of the yarns, the darker strips for the other yarn. When I used them for the bag, it worked perfectly! I use it to keep my knitting tools along with my current small knitting project. I plan to make a much larger one for larger projects.
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Asymmetrical Jacket – A friend had some yarn she didn’t want. It was a turquoise so bright that it hurt your eyes to look at. I over-dyed it and the result was a yarn in shades of teal and navy. I made the jacket and then realized the super bulky yarn caused the jacket to really sag. Why I didn’t just give it to a friend who was a larger size, I’ll never know. I took it apart to reuse the yarn… a story for another day.
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Diamond Lace scarf. The fiber for this yarn sent to me from Pamela who live across the pond in the UK. It was dyed using natural dyes. I spun the fiber and random plied it. The judges loved how the yarn worked for this simple lace project which I’d made mainly to test a lace pattern for a larger project.
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Autumn Leaves Shawl. This shawl was made with some of my first spindle spun yarn. My spinning at first very inconsistant, varying thicknesses and twist. Using it for a project like this worked out quite well since the different textures made this even more interesting. At the beginning of each row, I left enough for the fringe, then I’d cut the yarn and pick up a new one, leave enough for the fringe, knit across and so on. I entered in in a fiber competition and earned a ribbon for it!
Chiengora Shawl – from handspun yarn donated by owners of Lhasa Apsos. Since the dog hair was a variety of colors, some that didn’t work well together, I blended each with white wool, spun the yarn and wove the shawl using the different colors to create a pattern. The shawl was raffled off and the $800. 00 + raised was donated to the Gompa Lhasa Project.
Alpaca Scarf from handspun yarn – another prize winning project.
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