Princess is finally finished

Can you believe it!!!

So long in the making, and finally off the needles. A big hole in the knitting basket eagerly awaits a new project.



Finished and unwashed





Lightly pinned out on a 6 by 4 mat.




Edging detail




Even on a 4 X 6 mat it has plenty of give.

Clearly my mental math trying to figure out how many blocks I need to block was way off, so I will be buying more today, then maybe get it blocked out properly tonight.

She still needs another good long soak, all the greying hasn't gone yet, it may be a boil that cleans it all up, thank goodness I used cotton.

I still can't quite get my head around her being finished.

And yet, I have so many more things going on I barely stopped.....

Princess, completed, October 27th 2007, will she lie in peace now for a good number of years?

No way, she will be dragged out for everybody to meet.

Past halfway

Princess is coming along slowly. I have managed to get past the half way point, I would be further if I hadn't been sucked into Ravelry. I think I got lost in there all day Sunday.





On Friday I started two new things, The veil of Isis and one of the Fiddlesticks whisper scarves, I have a bad case of startitis I think....
I had a birthday yesterday, largely uneventful, mostly since I was being a bit of a misery.
On Saturday night some arse broke into my car and stole all my CD's, I am mega pissed at this. All the neighbourhood cars were ransacked, but the gits left my doors wide open.

Then to to my misery Lewis did not pull off the greatest championship victory of all of F1 history. I was major bummed about this too, I feel for the guy, I hope it comes good for him next year.

Anyway, I have too many pretty things on the needles to stay annoyed for too long. I bit the bullet and decided to bead the Isis shawl as well. I am doing it in Skacel Merino laceweight on 2.75 mm needles. It's pretty.




This shawl is addictive, I am considerably further on from this photo but can barely tear myself away from it to take a picture.



I have done a bit more than this on the whisper scarf too, its' a quick knit.





I finally blocked the MS3



And pafuglehale

And then ruined all that lovely pinning by throwing it promptly into a pan of bleachy water.



A light bleaching later and the results are pretty stunning, and apart from one issue, there appears to be no damage to the thread. Strange thing was this one thing though, one thread had been cut twice, this was after the bleaching, I have no idea what happened, or how I will fix it, but it doesn't appear to have been a result of the bleaching.
So when Princess is finished she will get a normal handwash, once I see how things stand with her she might get a soapy boil, if that isn't effective then it will be into bleach.
I have discussed this with Sharon Miller, so feel fairly confident about it.

Pafuglehale was always intended to be a trial run for cleaning Princess, but it's too pretty to just treat like junk, so I will try to fix it, but it's going back in the pot, the edging isn't right, I soon discovered this on blocking.

Anyway, spinning classes are going great, and guess what! My spinning instructor is deep into Shetland lace!!! How cool is that!!!!!!!

She has loaned me a book, Knitting by the fireside, and on the hillside by Linda G Fryer.
It's about the Lace knitting Industry in the Shetlands, now I have looked into buying this book, $800 and up on Amazon.ca. Yikes!!!

It looks to be interesting, and will carry on reading it tonight, but I have been so desperately trying to finish my Diana Gabaldon book that I started reading again a few weeks ago.

I have a few books coming to me hopefully today, one is the last book of the Outlander series.
One is a Galina Khmeleva book and I forgot what the other was, so hopefully it gets here and my HK package too, I am busting to get that Melanie pattern.

Gotta go anyway, running late.

K

Can't decide!

Gee there's a surprise.

Knit, spin or weave.

I have spent all night helping the girls to gut their bedroom, and now I want to relax a little, so what do I do, I go to my new toy, Ravelry!

I got my invite yesterday and promptly added some friends and found two more Princess knitters. I haven't added much, or done much, but have had a great deal of fun looking around.

I am slowly approaching the middle of the edging on the Princess, yes, I decided to carry on as I couldn't decide how to safely wash it, mostly because of the bright red (you would think I had never had a red laundry accident) cotton I used for the provisional cast on.

No photo's again today, so much is going on and mid terms are just up ahead so the next week or so is going to be chaotic, mostly because I still have an awful lot or reading to do before I am even to the point the mid terms will cover.

I am approaching brain overload again. I hate this feeling with a passion, nothing gets done, and I feel like crap.

I am taking some spinning classes on friday nights, it's a beginner class, even though I have been spinning for three to four years, I never did take a beginner class, two drop spindle, a linen and a cotton class, but never the basics, so I really need the info being fed into me right now, I just need to find time to do my homework for spinning now.

So if your on Ravelry and want to add me as a friend or whatever, friend is likely the only thing you will do as I haven't added sod all yet,' cept Princess of course, I go by my yahoo name of minihunting, I found Jean, Miss Alice, Jane and Laritza already.

I really did follow the crowd on this one, I wasn't interested until everyone was talking about it, but now I see how valuable a tool this could turn into, and blow wide open the world of knitting!

I think the stats are at 27,000 added now, at 57% of the list. I didn't wait long, and that was 7 or 17 thousand ahead of me, I forget now.

Princess stinks!

Seriously stinky piece of fabric right now, it's not a smell so much as a dusty reek. I have horrific dust allergies, and can sense dust a mile off, but this puppy needs washing, it has been bothering me now for about a month, I am not sure I can carry on with the edging until it is washed.
What a dilemma! Man I had to spell check dilemma, my brain is fried from too much school work!

Lots further forward.

I finished the centre, yay!!! I got so excited that I quickly went onto some of the edging, and got quite far. I meant to post last week about this but everything went kind of crazy as this little girl turned 5 on Thursday.




Anyway, the centre worked out nicely after finishing the last little emblem at the top then the break pattern.




It is so hard to get a great photo conveying the grandness of the shawl that I have taken to using non conventional things as sizing.



At the end of the laurel leaf pattern, Sharon advises that when you break the yarn leave a long tail. I know I did, and I had the sneaking feeling that my tail was shrinking all the way through the centre pick up, only when I got to about 30 rows left did I know that my tail had shrunk, I begin to worry, but then I think I will have enough, but with a few rows left I was going to run out, so attached another piece of cotton just incase.






Once I got to the edging I switched to a circular needle, I may still switch back to the straights as the circular doesn't feel comfortable. These needles have seen a lot of action though, and deserved a break.




So here we have some more edging attached, finally.



Another unconventional shot.



But given that I have large feet you can now see that thing is big.



The edging is actually going pretty quickly, and I managed to get past the laurel leaf onto the centre panel last night, I think I may have done one more last night than is on the picture.



To celebrate the small victories I am having with the Princess now I started another project.
I started it on Saturday night while watching the F1 race from Fuji Japan.
What an numbskull. It was such an exciting race it was all I could do to keep the knitting on the needles.



It's the flower Faroese shawl from Lucy Neatby. This has been on my list of to do's for what seems like forever. I am using 5mm needles and Fiddlesticks country silk.

I thought it was going to be one of those brain killing projects when I first started, it seemed fairly complicated at first, but when you get into it it is fairly straight forward. I think having to figure that out while trying to watch Lewis Hamilton master rain racing just fried my brain.

I almost cast on another project, but couldn't make up my mind, there will be a post about this fight fairly soon I think. The faeroese shawl shouldn't take too long to make and then the battle for the next cast on will commence.

K