The pig wot got married - wedding shawl

I was going to post about this at a point when it fitted into the story of our wedding day as told on my other blog, but a couple of people asked and I can't resist showing off. Here is my wedding shawl, in one of my favourite photos from our wedding day, taken on the portico of the Fitzwilliam Museum.



The pattern is Aeolian by Elizabeth Freeman, which seems to be a popular patten for wedding shawls, judging by Ravelry.

The yarn is a 4 ply silk I bought several years ago from Fyberspates. It's gorgeously soft and shiny, blocks beautifully and was the perfect colour to complement my ivory dress, purple shoes and purple and pink flowers. I didn't have quite enough to cast off, as the pattern uses a double strand, so I went stash-diving again and came up with a small quantity of aran silk from HipKnits, left over from this scarf. The weight of the aran is a little heavier than 2 strands of 4ply, but not much. The colours are similar to the body of the shawl, but darker, giving an extra pop of colour to the wavy edge.



In this photo (ignore my windswept hair and veil), you can see the beads better. They're creamy pearly beads, size 6, I think. Looks like I neglected to record where exactly I bought them. This was my first time knitting with beads and it wasn't as hard as I'd feared. I don't think I'd like to tackle the sort of project where you have to start by threading all your beads onto your yarn, but placing each one on the right stitch with a thin crochet hook was not too fiddly and very satisfying.

I'm very very pleased with the result. The shawl actually didn't get much wear on the day. I didn't put it on until after the group photos when we went off on our own for some more pictures and, once we got to the reception, I didn't need it for warmth. But it will always be my wedding shawl and when I wear it again (which I will, unlike the dress) I'll remember our wedding day and smile.

Photos by Dave Routledge.

Christmas knitting - HP's shawl

HP's shawl - wing tips, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Christmas knitting has almost all now reached its recipients, so I can show you what I made.

This is a shawl for my little sister HP. It's actually been in my head for a while. The yarn was a subscription renewal gift from Yarn Forward magazine about a year ago. It's a cobweb weight cashmere/silk blend in lime green. HP likes lime green, so it had to be something for her. Then I found the Laminaria pattern in Knitty's Spring 2008 issue. Perfect marriage of yarn and pattern!

I started knitting at some point in the summer. I can't really remember when. I know it was beyond my powers of concentration for a bit when I was proper ill. I finished it in early December, just before I was going away for the weekend so could use my bed as a blocking surface.

I'm really pleased with the result. It's my first proper lace project (the previous ones have used 4-ply or thicker). There's one big mistake in the star stitch section which I couldn't work out how to fix, but it's not terribly obvious at first glance. I wanted to give it a proper photoshoot, but I forgot, and had to settle for a few snatched snaps, complete with lensflare. More on flickr.

tangle

tangle, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I've got myself into a lovely tangle winding this skein of laceweight silk. It's pretty big, about 2000m and it's taking a long time to wind by hand. I don't have a swift, so I started with the skein round my knees and then moved it onto a chair. I'm winding onto a kitchen roll tube and my first attempt (you can just see it down in the right hand corner) was a bit loose, so now I'm winding from the other end. It's going to take a while, but it's getting there.

acquisitions and beginnings

Look what arrived in the post yesterday! Lovely yarn from the HipKnits sale. The purple stuff is banana yarn. It's a bit like silk, but heavier and scrunchier. I love the shine on it. I think this might end up being a small bag. The pink is laceweight silk. I've never had any proper laceweight to play with before! I think there's 2000m in that skein. I'll have to think what to make. Probably a shawl, something butterfly-ish. Any suggestions?


Hmm, it's pretty obvious today what my favourite colours are. This is the beginning of another Clapotis in Scrumptious from Fyberspates. Love this yarn! It's a wool/silk blend and really lives up to its name. It's squishy and soft with just enough springiness for the sculptural qualities of the pattern to come out. I've just started the straight sections on this, so it'll be a while. But I want to finish it while it's still cold enough to need it, so I'd better get cracking.

belated scarf

My sister Debs (who doesn't knit, but does blog) kindly took some photos of my mum's birthday scarf which missed a spot on the blog. So here's my mum in her scarf.

Started and finished: some time in June/July 2006. I know it was finished before I moved house in early July.

Pattern: Feather and fan lace scarf pattern from HipKnits cashmere club.

Yarn: 150g ish of HipKnits aran silk. I just picked the largest ball I had and knit until the scarf was a good length and I ran out of yarn.

Needles: 5mm bamboo straights

Here's a closeup of the lovely wavy end.