Icarus has taken off...

Yeah, I started the shawl yesterday. I also finished that last log of my 10th log cabin. I had pretty much all day to knit, so that's what I did! I've just started the 5th repeat, and am pleased with the amount of progress so far. My BBE thinks it beautiful. I'm very pleased with how the very subtle variations in the indigo dyed yarn are working as well. Not taking away from the pattern in the slightest.

Again, this is being worked with some commerical lace weight that I bought last year, from Inspiration Yarns - it's a lace weight called Espresso that I bought undyed. She does some lovely colourways as well, but - I prefer to pay less money, and go through the fun of dyeing my own yarns. The yarn itself is lovely and soft, No knots - though the yarn did break at one point. It was fine when I balled it up, no breakage... No big deal really.

I've also been spinning a bit. Here's the silk that I was spindle spinning on my lunchtime walks wound off onto one of my UPS label rolls. I'd been thinking that I would go ahead and ply it with some more silk that I'd already spindle spun, but I wasn't too clear on how the purpley colours of the new silk would blend in with the turquoisey colours of one of the spun up singles...

The other morning I was getting ready to head out the door for work when I realised I needed something new to spin at lunch time. I grabbed some 80 wool/20 silk blend to take with me. I still needed to wind off the just spun silk to clear up my Copper Moose spindle, and I realised that the new silk and wool blend would be perfect to ply together with the silk that I just spun. What do you think? This picture has the unspun roving nestled up against the roll of silk that I've just finished. I'm thinking that I have almost 8 ozs of the wool/silk blend, which I am planning on spinning up enough to do 2 plys of wool/silk with one ply of the silk - maybe even cable plying it, which I haven't tried yet. I think it's going to look fantastic!

Anyway - that's all from me for this time. BBE is calling.

Have fun!

Abi