I loved the fiber as soon as I saw it. The softest, finest Wensleydale I had ever seen, and the subtle colorway appealed to my inner aesthetic. (from A Verb for Keeping Warm) I determined that I would spin a heavy laceweight single to preserve both the softness and the colorway as much as possible. I used my Golding spindle, and span as I knitted.
The project was fraught with difficulty in the spinning and the knitting. Mistakes that could not be ripped out because of the fuzzy singles nature of the yarn, spinning irregularities that bugged me. But I kept on to the end, and when I blocked out my shawl, I was pleased that the problems with the shawl seemed to fade to the background, and the beauty of the Old Shale Lace Triangle and the fiber came to the forefront.
5 comments:
It's breathtaking and even more so because it's spindle spun!
Amazing and beautiful!
Did you knit S or Z since you knit with singles? Did you have any problems with unraveling or additional twist?
Creative use of the tree. :)
It looks lovely! And don't you just love the way knitting hides such a multitude of spinning "sins"? :-) I'm developing a new mantra these days: spinning flaws or irregularities aren't "bugs." They're "features." Seriously. Repeat after me: They're *features*. ;-)
It turned out beautifully! Handspun has a way of evening out when knit.
Did you know that, for the upper class, flaws (the sign that items are handmade)are a status symbol?
As frustrating as they may seem to you, the "flaws" in your handiwork set them apart from the humdrum of machine-made products.
BTW, it really is beautiful.
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