Trenchwork

Well, so much for updating the blog during the trip! Seriously, I had forgotten how much longer dial-up takes than broadband. Whoof!

In any event, we got back last night, safe and sound, and the house is the usual disastrous “day after” chaotic mix of unpacked, unplaced, and unwashed. I’ve reduced the thousand+ e-mails to 28 which still need answers, but that’s just not going to happen tonight. Tomorrow is another day, with hopefully a little less jet lag.

Before you begin to panic, don’t worry—I’m not about to sit here and try and recap the entire month in a single post. I’ll break it down into installments for both our sakes.

First, though, there’s this (click photos for larger images on Flickr).

This is the front of the Swallowtail shawl. I had to find a white shirt to make it show up properly. Here’s the back:

This shawl was a gift from start to finish, and is the very first project I’ve actually knitted from my own handspun yarn. This was the multicolor green roving I span in Spin 5 (see the Gallery for spinning notes). Both the spinning and the knitting taught me a lot along the way, not the least of which is that I really want a firmly plied yarn, and that knitting hides an impressive number of spinning sins. Since I lose twist in my knitting, I need to be sure that I have enough twist in the ply for the yarn to retain its integrity even during the process of the project. In other words, there needs to be enough twist that the yarn doesn’t separate into its respective singles.

The color in the first two is pretty accurate—especially in the larger photos—but I’m including this one to show how splitting the roving into its respective colors (green with red, green with yellow, and pure green) and then alternating those strands in the spinning creates a striped fabric. I’m actually rather pleased with this one, because the base color is strong enough and the stripes weak enough that the lace isn’t lost in the shifting hues of the color.

I thoroughly enjoyed spinning and knitting this project, and the pattern is one I’ll use again. I didn’t measure the amount of yarn I had left, but there would have been enough for an open-knit, skinny and straight scarf. All told, I’m actually rather pleased with it. I’m crossing my fingers that the recipient enjoys it as much as I did making it for her.

And I leave you with these thoughts. Fiber compresses. A lot. Especially if you pack it in ziplock bags which you then sit on to squeeze out all the air. International travel rules for luggage normally allow you two suitcases of 50 pounds each. It’s amazing how much that can actually turn out to be.

A PS: Er, that’s a full-length three-seater sofa and that’s not 50 pounds. You DO also have to have a few basic necessities—like clothing, for instance. After all, it takes time to spin and make a dress, and most people (including me) would not be keen on gluing balls of fiber to themselves in a woolly imitation of the Garden of Eden illustrations.

Wanna know what it all is? (evil grin)