Looking East

The Big Push on that UFO shawl project has been going very well. From picking it up on Tuesday at 18% done, it is now 75% completed. Maybe. That is if I do not elect to add a few extra repeats. I think this shawl is destined for the bedroom, to pop round my shoulders when reading in bed, it doesn’t actually need to be sizeable -  so I may stick to the pattern repeats. All the same, it really does look very small indeed at this stage.

Quite bored with it now, but certainly not enjoying the Herringbone Rib socks very much, nor in the mood to concentrate on the Laminaria. Wondering what to pick up this evening and desperately resisting the desire to cast on something new – especially with the knowledge that we need sale-able items for  the Farmers’ Market in May.

It was in this bitty frame of mind that I turned my focus to the next phase of Project Spectrum. I thought I might depart from the habit of a lifetime and actually plan for May and June! Yellow is not a favourite colour of mine and really does not inspire me at all – so I thought I’d concentrate on The East. That being so, I’m aiming to make a Red Emperor Scarf. Ideally, I would make this in a lustrous and supple yarn with lots of drape, and it would be very much a perverted yellow. Something warm and spicy, maybe cinnamon or ginger… but I really should be looking to my stash and observing a yarn diet. The pattern is written for 4ply, but I am considering raiding my Colourmart laceweight silks and knitting to a much finer gauge – and making this not only the single time-consuming project  for the two months but also a stash-consuming one. Discipline!

I do have two rovings to spin for East. Broadly similar sunrise/sunset shades; they are both Merino and too variegated for a lace scarf – so spinning them up and knitting them into this pattern will not work.  I am thinking very hard about the shawl that The Yarn Harlot is currently knitting, Shawl That Jazz and wondering if there is a way that I can blend two pencil rovings into one yarn when I have 200g of one and 100g of t’other…

Really, I think that will be enough to fill the time frame, but if Ido have time on my hands there is, I think, one sock skein in the stash that might be jemmied in to the East colour scheme. Just.

UFO completion will continue over the long weekend, I think/hope/trust. Ideally I would like to polish off both the Cascading Leaves and pink Swallowtail shawls. I have reached the conclusion that those are the two projects that would give me the most psychological lift for being rid of them. On the 2-for-1 basis, I would then be ready to start Bloke Sweater #2 when the pattern book arrives next week.

One Comment

  1. April 9, 2009

    Well it’s knitted at DK weight so you could do a 3ply. Bad news is the yardage you need (1140 yards), I know I’m not a very experienced spinner but I can’t see 300g fluff= 1140 yards of DK….. It’s in my favourites to. If I ever finish my Aeolian it might be next, I need something simple!

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