Are those empty needles? How did that happen? Now I am literally down to two projects (one of which we do not speak of because it was cast on well over a year ago and I don't want it to get any hope of seeing the light of day anytime soon). I did, however, just take a drop spindle class yesterday at the LYS. I enjoyed it immensely, purchased my own spindle and have embarked on a new fiber arts trail. I wanted to try drop spindling because it's more portable than a wheel and a significantly smaller investment. I bought my spindle for $16 ($5 was taken off because I was in a class) and now I can see if this spinning thing is really for me. Now onto the good stuff:


The traditional pre and during blocking pictures of:

Pattern: Icarus Shawl by Miriam Felton
Source: Interweave Knits Summer 2006
Yarn: Jagger Spun Zephyr 50/50 Silk/Wool, Daffodil. I used just over 1.5 balls
Needles: Size 3 Addi Turbos
Alterations: I followed the pattern pretty much exactly. I don't know the finished dimensions because I didn't measure. It is around 6 feet across the top, and probably about 3 top to point.





This yarn is delightful to work with, the silk gives it an interesting texture that I enjoyed immensely. The pattern is pretty easy and I would recommend it to anyone. You start at the center of the top (if you notice my pre-blocked picture is more of a parallelogram its because of where you start), then you do all the boring stuff then as you finish in a blaze of glory you get to do all the exciting stuff. Basically you get miles of practice that all makes good sense before you have to do anything tricky.

This was made for my mother to wear to my brother's wedding in June. She was worried I wasn't going to finish on time. I wasn't. I was worried when my mother had a pattern all picked out that was going to use 16 balls of Jamieson cobweb weight, but then she changed her mind.

I don't know if you can tell in picture, but I strung a cotton string across the top before I washed it, stretched the string out and secured it with pins. Then I pinned the point and equal points in between and sort of worked my way around. Using the string meant I got a straighter line at the top and I did't have to use so many pins. I blocked it right on the carpet in my bedroom, after I vacuumed. That worked great, and I really don't think it does any real damage to the carpet, but I could be wrong.