Month: June 2011 Page 1 of 2

Circle of Life

I’m now part way through Chart 4. It is about 16″ in diameter, unblocked. this may be the last time I can photograph the full circle, since these are my two longest US #1 bamboo needles. I have longer metal ones, but I’m sticking with bamboo for travel reasons. According to my scale, I’ve only used up about 0.75 oz of the 9.5 oz of yarn. There is still quite a bit of white left before I get to the first color change.

Part way through Chart 2

I casted on for the Circle of Life Shawl last night. I forgot how frustrating it is to work with 8 stitches on 4 double pointed needles. I think it took me longer to get the 4 needles to lay down in the correct order in a manner that I can knit the first row than it did for me to knit the next 10 rows.

Pattern: Circle of Life Shawl by Eugen Beugler, published by Fiber Trends
Needles: 2.25mm
Yarn: Hand spun Polwarth/Silk. Details on the yarn can be found here, here, and here.

Posing with the yarn cake

I started this for my vacation knitting. I wanted it off of the dpns and onto circular needles before I get on the plane. But I have to say, this is really addictive. I just want to keep working on it, instead of finishing my featherweight cardigan, which I want to take on my trip with me — as a finished garment. Better put this down and walk away while I still can.

The Polwarth/silk lace yarn is lovely to work with. I can’t believe how soft it is. And the silk really shines through. I can’t wait to see how the color progression works out in the knitted fabric. And how it compares with my imagination.

By the way, while looking up knitting needles on the Turkish Airlines website, I came across this short history of Anatolian socks and mittens. Not much content, but nice eye candy!