Weighing the Possibilities

It's only been a few days since my last post, but I've got a lot of things to catch up on, and I said I'd post pictures of my two WIP shawls.

1/2 done Freya

In Progress: I started the Freya shawl a few days before I got the yarn for the Olive Branch. I've made some progress since these photos were taken, both projects now have only a small bit of yarn left from the first balls.

Olive Branch

The Freya shawl pattern was adapted from a circular doily pattern, and has a new element to shawl knitting for me: working the pattern on the wrong side as well as the right side. About half of the purl rows involve making a center double decrease or purl yo's (I had to youtube it).
For the Olive Branch shawl, I've finished the 4th repeat of chart one, and I'm halfway done the first repeat of chart two. I hope that there's enough yarn for 2 repeats of chart two... weighing the yarn will be required.

Stash: Since I've already mentioned these two shawls, I'm going to talk about the yarns that they're made from. Olive Branch is made of Malabrigo Arroyo in the aguas colourway. I hadn't worked with Malabrigo before, but so far I've enjoyed this yarn. There've been no problems with the yarn (joins, breaks, knots), and the slight variegation in the colour is fun, I especially enjoy the darkest green parts. Arroyo is 100% superwash merino in a sport weight, so it's not the smoothest thing running over my finger, but it's not nearly as bad as some cheap acrylics I've used. My only complaint is that I should have 200 g in two balls, and only ended up with 195 g, but at least it's only 5 g.
Freya is made with Patons Lace in the sachet colourway. I bought this yarn last year when I came across it at Michael's, since it was the first lace yarn I'd seed there. The yarn is 80% acrylic, 10% wool and 10% mohair, hence the somewhat fuzzy appearance (it's much fuzzier in person). Ravelry classifies it as a light fingering weight. I mentioned in my last post that I was shorted 23 g of yarn in one of these balls, which alone would be enough to stop me from buying more. However, I have another bone to pick with this yarn. As I was getting near the end of the first ball, I came to a knot in the yarn, where the colour switched from white to dark purple! I had to cut the yarn, and then wind it myself into a ball, because the outside of the ball would match okay with the white (it was white, starting the transition to light green), but the mohair made the strand on the outside get tangled on the ball when I tried to use it. While winding it, I got to a weak part that snapped, so add two more ends to weave in there. I wonder if maybe the other ball is so light because there isn't an extra bit tied on to it. At least the yarn feels okay, and it should block out well because of the 20% animal fiber content. 

Catch Up: Between finishing the my crocheted star baby blanket and finishing my summer flies shawl, I started and finished two small projects. The first was improvised to be functional. The light pulley in our office is pretty short, so I took some white cotton yarn and learned how to make an I-cord from youtube. When I got to the end, I decided to take some multicoloured Handicrafter yarn and crochet a little flower onto the bottom. The I-cord stretches a little when you use it, but it makes turning the light on and off with the pulley much easier. 
Around this time, I was contemplating making a pair of socks. I'd found a 100 g ball of Bernat Sox on sale at Zellers, had the dpns (only 4, I now prefer 5), and there were some good instructional videos on the Bernat Forums for a Sox knit along. But before I jumped in with that whole new concept, I wanted to try knitting in the round first. I'd had the hamsterbean pattern in my favourites for a little while, and remembered the description said that it'd be good for learning/practicing knitting in the round... so I grabbed some leftover lagoon Bernat Satin from my afghan and got started. On the first go I didn't join the round properly, and I think I got the yarn a little messed up with the multiple needles, however I got it okay on the second attempt. I didn't have any safety eyes, so I embroidered them on with some leftover black yarn from my summerflies shawl. While doing the second eye, a stray piece of the yarn fell over it's head, and I thought 'gee, that looks like the strap of an eyepatch...' and thus the Dread Pirate Hamsterbean was born! He was pretty fun to make, and a good introduction to knitting in the round.

Other: I mentioned earlier that I'd be weighing my yarn often for the Olive Branch shawl. Let me say, I love being able to weigh my yarn! I found a small Starfrit scale on sale for $10 at Canadian Tire and bought it. Once I had it, I went through my whole stash, adding amounts used to completed projects, etc. I found out that some of my estimates had been very close, and others not so much. Now I've come to realize that I'm quite the data nerd. I've got all of my yarn photographed and on Ravelry with colourway, dye lot, where it was bought and when it was bought. I've got all of my projects with when they were started and finished. Not only did I weigh all of my yarn, but I made a yarn excel sheet where I keep track of all of my yarn and the current weight of each (since Ravelry sometimes isn't precise). However, even if you aren't a data nerd like me, it can be very useful to weigh your yarn to know, say, how much you have left for choosing what to make with the leftovers, or knowing when to finish a toe-up sock, or for tracking how much yarn is being used towards the end of a shawl to decide how many more rows to go. Also, for some things on Ravelry, it's good to know how much you've used, like test knitting, or some contests; for the 12 shawls forever, there's a certain minimum yardage amount. I know that there are some other ways of doing that, but a scale can certainly be a cheap option, and very convenient for measuring while you're in the middle of a project.

Well, I'm going to go work on that Olive Branch shawl,
Happy Crafting!