She seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands. --Proverbs 31:13

3/21/2005

I tried to post a blog entry all day yesterday, but it just didn't take. So I am trying again to get these pictures to post. I got home from church yesterday and blocked the shawl. I do the soak and pin out method, I like the results it gives better than steaming with the iron. It has been so dry here in OK that the air just sucked the water right out of the damp shawl, and it was done in no time. You can see our half Dachsund, half yorky or "dorky" as we call him down in the corner there. He followed me all over the yard trying to get in every picture. His name is Ben.

I tried to "pose" the shawl for good pictures, but very few turned out nice. It is still brown here, although you can see a little green in this picture. I learned a lot making this shawl. The first thing I learned was not to use a slipped stitch edging on a shawl that you are later going to attach an edging to. The shawl blocked fine anyway, but I had some scary moments while attaching the edging. The second thing I learned was how to knit and purl back the otherway. I taught myself to knit, and being left handed, backwards. I knit off the righthanded needle onto the left. Now I can also knit the "right" way, off the lefthanded needle on to the right. Yeah!

The only thing you can really see in this picture is how sheer the shawl is. Maybe that is why I like it. It is just so light and airy. My mom emailed me one day a week or so ago and wanted to know the url to my blog. I had to tell her she couldn't see it because there were pictures of her present on there. So when I send her the shawl (it is already in a gift bag, waiting for a box to mail it in) I will also send her the url. So if you are reading this, Mom, Hi!! I love ya! Glub Glub.

A good picture of the edging. I don't know what I am going to do next. I expect it will be like Jodi's shawl, and there will be a week or two where I feel like there is something I am supposed to be doing that I am not. I am still spinning the yarn for Seans mittens, and I got a ton of fiber at the Wild and Wooly spinning guild meeting in Tulsa this past Saturday. Margaret and Vince also sent me home with a rigid heddle loom on Saturday, to use until sometime in the future, and I have to figure out how to warp that. So I will be busy, and hopefully able to post more.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The shawl is fabulous. Awesome job.

Erika

Anonymous said...

Beautiful, beautiful work. What a wonderful gift!

fuzzywool said...

Your knitting and spinning is just beautiful! Great job! I hope I can make something that lovely someday!

Holly said...

Jan, that is nothing short of magnificent. Thanks for sharing. I really want to learn to spin. I'm still afraid. :-)

Liz said...

That is a simply beautiful gift of your talents. Your mom is so lucky.

Jan said...

Just wanted to say thanks for all the kind comments! I hope my mom loves it, LOL. I also kind of wanted to correct something, so that there is no misunderstanding. I went back and checked my letter to Stephanie, and I mis-stated it was my first handspun. What I meant to say was it was my first handspun on my wheel, instead of on the spindle or the borrowed wheel. I should have proof read before I hit send. Don't be afraid to try spinning, Holly. It is so much fun to plan a project from the fiber to the finished project, and you really get a lot of bang for your buck.

Thanks again for the all the comments, and please forgive me for the error in my email to Stephanie.

Jan

Anonymous said...

WOW-beautiful job. It took my breath away!

Teresa

Stephanie said...

Stunning, stunning, stunning.

Anonymous said...

I have looked over your posts over the recent history, admiring all of your lace. I have bbeen wanting to try lace for about a year. I have books and books about it but am a little nervous. How long have you been knitting lace and do you have any good advice for beginners?

Anonymous said...

The shawl is just beautiful, Jodi! Just beautiful. What pattern is it? (I poked around but didn't see it in the posts I was looking at.) Your mom will love it!