Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Roswitha Blocking (AKA Surprise)









I just wanted to knit something as a surprise to anyone who looks at this blog. I know it takes a long time for me to finish things and you wait and wait and wait for something good to look at. This time I wanted it to be a treat for me and for you. I also wanted it to be something that has not been knit by tons of other knitters though I am by no means the only one to knit this.
Pattern by Herbert Niebling "Roswitha" is 314 rows long. Knit on US O needles using "Holding" baby alpaca lace weight yarn, colorway "Vermillon" from A Verb For Keeping Warm. The shawl took about 3,500 yards of this yarn.
You can't tell from these pictures, but there are 4 different colors of yarn in this shawl. This is because I picked up a skein here, a skein there, and I kept thinking I had enough when I really didn't. Since this is hand dyed yarn using natural dye, you really have some variations unless you picked up all your skeins from the same dye bath which I didn't. Some people might not like that effect, but I really enjoy the fact that chance played a part in how this turned out. It starts out darker in the center, gets lighter and brighter towards the edges until you end up with a pale border. I really like it :-)
This is a pretty big shawl at about 64 inches across. If I want to knit any of the larger patterns by Niebling I'm going to have to go to gossamer weight yarn in the future. Until then, I am very happy with how this came out. I will post again once it is well and truly dry.