Pictured above are two hundred and forty hand pieced geese for our quilt. I’ve been working on these since we moved into our apartment almost two years ago and it is very exciting to see them all finished and laid out on the table.

The next step is to sew them into groups of three. I’ll have to pull out the pattern to check what order they are supposed to be put together in - there are three colours of geese: light, medium and dark. This step should go a little faster since there will be only two seams to make for each group of geese.

I think my June guild meeting goal is still achievable but I’ll have to make sure I don’t fall behind.

 

 
I am the proud owner of two beautiful top-whorl spindles. The tags on them are a little difficult to interpret but as far as I can tell one is a 17 gram “lace” weight spindle made of Padauk wood and the other is a 38 gram “Dervish” weight spindle of Pecan wood. Based on some quick google searches for “dervish spindle” I think my spindles are from Houndesign, also in Vancouver. The grey yarn on the little spindle is from my playing around yesterday.



When I ordered my spindles I also ordered some wool roving to spin up with them. Since I was ordering over the phone I pretty much let the girl in the shop surprise me once I’d approved a price. I like the colour I got - “Summer in Alberta”. It’s really a bunch of different colours mixed together so I think it will have a very even appearance when I spin it up and ply it. I haven’t decided what it should be yet. I’m contemplating a lace weight two-ply for another shawl.

 
I also got a book to help me figure out what I’m supposed to be doing with my new toys - Spin to Knit by Shannon Okey. I read through a bunch of it last night and it’s really good. There are plenty of pictures to show what’s supposed to be happening and explanations of different methods of plying and other fun things you can do with your handspun yarn. The second half of the book is a variety of patterns that can be made partially or entirely with handspun yarn in various weights. There are also little biographies of many spinners who have contributed or inspired the patterns.
 
I got some needles too (when I sorted out my vacation shopping I realized I’d gotten yarn for some projects but had nothing to knit them with). They are Crystal Palace needles (my first from them). They feel very nice but don’t have the size marked in millimetres (and according the Crystal Palace a 7mm needles is US size 10¾?).  I think I need to get one of those tools scientists use to measure diameters to keep in my knitting bag. I can’t remember what they are called - something-o-meter I expect - but I remember using them in physics labs at university and they would be very handy when it comes to accurately measuring knitting needles. Anybody know?

Pattern: Easy Mesh Lace Triangle from Fiddlesticks Knitting
Yarn: 1 skein Fiddlesticks Knitting Country Silk Yarn (aprox. 800m/250g)  I’m not sure what the colourway was called - autumn or harvest or something like that.
Needles: 3.75 mm bamboo circular(32”)
Modifications: None
 
I knew I was getting close to the end of this early in February when it reached to about my waist unstretched. I wanted it to be a generous shawl, and I also wanted to use up as much the ball of yarn I was on as possible, so I did a few more pattern repeats before doing the top edge pattern. When I finished knitting the shawl reached to about my hip, after blocking it falls nearly to my knees!

 
The original skein for this shawl was massive and gorgeous.  I got it when we were on vacation in BC almost two years ago - well before my knitting skills were up to the challenge of such a large project - it was too lovely.  I saw the sample in the shop window and bought the pattern and yarn together as a kit.
 
Last October I wound the skein into balls (it made three) and started knitting. The shawl starts as two stitches at the bottom point and grows as you work up to the top edge. This meant that it went really quickly at first and slowed down gradually as my skills increased (very handy). By the time I was nearing the top it took me roughly fifteen minutes to knit across a row.
 
The final bind-off was something different. The pattern uses a “knit 1, knit 2 together” bind off, meaning that every stitch was worked twice, and I had to keep checking to make sure my tension wasn’t too loose or tight (it actually ended up a kind of loose) - it took me an entire hour to bind of the top edge of I-didn’t-bother-to-count-how-many stitches.
 
Blocking was kind of fun.  It was a good thing I didn’t make the shawl any larger or it would not have fit on the bed (my only blocking surface). It took a few tries before I had the edges pined out into a good shape. The top edge was quite loose and I had to stretch the sides a long way to even it out. When I was finished the top edge of the shawl was the entire length of our bed and the bottom tip nearly reached the opposite side.
 
A few statistics:
Pre-blocking measurements: 60” across the top, 41” along the side and 34” from bottom tip to centre top.
Post-blocking measurements: 75” across the top, 59” along the side and 44” from bottom tip to centre top.
 
A few comparison shots:
 
                Pre-Block                                                Post-Block


Texture


Stitch pattern