Swallowtail Shawl

Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl - Interweave Knits Fall 2006
Yarn: Handmaiden Sea Silk "rose" - 70% silk, 30% seacell - 1 hank
Needles: US 3 - 24" Addi circulars
Modifications: went down one needle size.

This shawl was a quick knit. I started it last Monday and finished it last night, that's 10 days!

My thoughts on the yarn: Sea Silk is very soft and beautifully handpainted. This shade of pink is just what I wanted for this shawl, it's a gorgeous seashell pink. When I ordered this yarn, I was hoping that the yarn would be a similar weight to Zephyr, but it's barely a laceweight, only slightly thinner than fingering weight. I prefer my lace projects to be light and airy. The yarn is beautiful but I'm not as impressed as I thought I would be. But I'm still happy I made something from it, silk is so wonderful to knit with.

I couldn't stand the stench during blocking. I had read about how you would notice a smell of the yarn after it's been submerged in water. The seacell smell was sickening! It won't linger around the house or anything and it's not extemely unbearable, but it just wasn't pleasant at all.

Some yarn shopping...

Seven hanks of Knit Picks' Alpaca Cloud in "peppermint". It's for the Frost Flowers & Leaves Shawl by Eugen Beugler for A Gathering of Lace. This is one of my favorite lace weight yarns, it's great, so soft and delicate. It's going to be a lot of knitting so this project will really test my perseverance, there'll be at least 3000 yards I believe...

This beautiful square shawl will be a very special gift for one of my best friend for a very special occasion. She's not expecting a hand knitted gift at all, I'm so excited!

So close...

I was so close to finishing. I could've been all done if it wasn't for a mistake. It didn't seem to be a mistake at first because all the stitches added up, but the yo's in the pattern looked off, so I tinked back a few rows. It's so tedious to undo every single stitch. Hopefully there won't be anymore mistakes.

If all goes well, I should be done within this week. And I'll be able to begin and get a head start on a new project that wil become a special gift for one of my best friend. More on that on the next post!

Seven Facts

I've been tagged by Jade this seven facts meme that's been going around. Here's seven random (maybe boring) facts about me...

1. I am a citizen of Venezuela who grew up in Hong Kong and now living in New York City. I can't speak Spanish.

2. I have to keep all my knitting books and magazines in their pristine condition. I love that my collection is very well kept. I would not let any of them be lying around when non-knitting guests come over to the house in case they might carelessly flip through my precious pages clumsily and make creases all over.

3. I like to have a pattern in mind before I go yarn shopping. It's fun for me to shop for a pattern and then look for the yarn to go with it. I like to have just the right amount for a project or have as little leftovers as possible. I feel that if I have the yarn first, I'm afraid I would not have enough or have too much that I'd be reluctant to knit the project and then feel bad about having extras. There are exceptions of course, I don't mind stocking up on lace yarns.

4. I prefer tea over coffee. But I do enjoy cafe mocha occasionally.

5. I absolutely hate thick and thin bulky type yarns. Yes, I hate thick needles, too. I avoid knitting with needles bigger than a US7.

6. Whenever the weather is sunny and warm, I'm always in the mood to go biking or taking long walks with my husband.

7. I like to frame my favorite photos of me and my husband together and also favorite vacation photos to decorate the house with.

For anyone who's interested in this meme, consider yourself tagged!

Habu

Look how pretty!

I was so delighted to see these Habu laceweight wool at my local yarn store. I was attracted to those beautiful neutral tones. I was never a big fan of Habu, but I'm so excited about these. Each cone has 747 yards of super fine merino wool. The cream color one will be perfect for the Orenburg Lace Triangle.

The Swallowtail Shawl is nearly done...

Today's lunch, three cheese bread (toasted with melted butter and oregano) with red pepper aioli...

More lace...

Here's my new lace project, the Peacock Feathers Shawl. I'm having fun with this pattern, I think it'll be very interesting to watch the feather pattern grow. I'm happy with the way it looks being knitted on a size 1 needle. I'm using Merino Oro for the first time, it's so thin! And I thought that Zephyr was quite thin when I used it for my first lace project.

Mmm, Handmaiden Sea Silk!

I can't wait to try out this beautiful and precious silk lace yarn. I love the color! I'm thinking of turning this into the Swallowtail Shawl from IK Fall 2006.

Trellis Scarf - Done!

Pattern: Trellis Scarf - Interweave Knits Spring 2006
Yarn: Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud "sand" - less than 1 hank
Needles: US3 24" Addi's circulars
Modifications: used US3 intead of US5 needles called for.

My aunt's birthday present is complete! And I finished it before my deadline, too. I didn't talk a lot about this project because there wasn't anything important to say about the progress.

This project was very enjoyable for me, the pattern is easy to memorize after working a few repeats and easy to knit with just glancing at the chart periodically. Working the K7tog clusters are almost effortless as long as you purl the row before very loosely.

I can't wait for her to receive this, I hope she'll be surprised.

Some recent yarn shopping:

It was perfect shopping weather that day and I was in a very good mood after having a few days of dreary and cloudy weather. I bought a whole pack of this yarn from one of my favorite yarn store. It's Cashsoft DK in sage, I just can't get enough of the Cashsoft line, fairly reasonably priced for the quality, I love it. I'm using this to start another sweater for my husband. I was working on Jarrett for him but I want to put that on hold because I think I need to redo one of the fronts, and I don't feel like fixing it right now.