Pictures of Progress (Pi - and Log Cabins)

I promised pictures of the No Sleeves in Your Pi in my last post.

To recap - this is a project I started, well over 5 years ago when I still lived in England, and was just starting to feel like I could do this spinning stuff. I spindle spun the body of the whole thing - on lollypop spindles no less, (though the outside border is wheel-spun BFL). All done very early on in my spinning career. Using everything that I could get my hands on - the only criteria being that it was all done in naturally colored fibers. I was in that stage of ordering little bits and bobs of just about everything I could get my hands on. I was also just spinning those bits as they came, and as my mood dictated - very whimsical and fun spinning - start a spindle with angora and silk, go through camel down, and end up with mohair or BFL, or shetland or something else altogether. Ply it together with another spindle of mixed together willy-nilly fibers and end up with a true work of art.

It was great fun - why don't I spin more like this anymore??? I should do. This was a great project for me at the time.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I worked on it for about 2 months straight. I remember thinking that the spinning took a lot longer than the knitting. Spin up two bitty spindlefuls - ply it together, set the twist and wait for it to dry so I could knit it into the shawl. I picked out stitch patterns, and then came to California on vacation - I hadn't been home in nearly 3 years at that point - and brought it with me to work on, especially as a momento - I was really hoping to have it done before I came out. Well - that trip ended up in me deciding that I just couldn't live in the UK anymore - my whole soul was screaming at me as the plane landed back at Heathrow... So I made the very difficult decision of asking for a divorce, and moved back to California the following May. Jumped without a parachute. Big time. But I'm glad I did, though I can't say there are no regrets. It's so hard to move country! I miss a lot of the friends I made - and I especially miss my oldest son who decided to stay there, but it's good to be home.

Right - well, the Sleeves part of the Sleeves in Your Pi just wasn't panning out, so I ripped those out, and just kitchenered the stitches backtogether. I'm so happy to have it done and dusted off - though it still needs to be blocked - I wanted to show you how pretty it is.

Also up in this post - more promised pictures - I've been working on my Off Centre Log Cabin as well - there's still a long way to go... but I'm a third of the way done. There's a full kilo of yarn in the 12 blocks that are finished.

It's being knit on size stupid needles (3.25mm) so I really have no idea when I'll be done, but I can say there's still plenty of yarn in my DK weight cotton stash to finish it off, so no worries there. There's a lot of Patons Cotton DK - some Elann Luna - Rowan Cotton Glace and Handknit Cotton DK - Jaeger Aqua - Wendy Cotton DK - basically a bunch of cotton DK that I picked up when I lived in the UK - most of my stash is pretty basic wools and cottons that I bought while living over there, I had it all shipped back to me as packing material.... And I have to say that out of everything that I did bring home with me - the stash took up the bulk of what I had shipped. I'd have a whole big box full of yarn, and a pottery salad bowl.

Anyway - Don't have time to post more right now - as always so much I want to talk about - so little time. I am kinda pleased with myself for keeping up with a couple of the goals that I set for myself at the beginning of the year (posting more - and finishing off some of these darn UFO's!)