Finished Aeolian shawl!

It is finished! I finished it, in fact, the very night before meeting up with my knitting buddies, for the first time in three months. My timing is impeccable.

Here's the full progression of the shawl:

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Finished: Mark's Scarf from RENT

I now have a modeled photo of my finished scarf, based on Anthony Rapp's scarf from the musical RENT. My sister gave it to her boyfriend for his birthday along with a copy of Anthony Rapp's memoir, Without You.

It's a simple striped stockinette scarf with fringe, but for the complete pattern how I knit it, see the Rent Scarf Formula here.

I used two balls each of Knit Picks Main Line in Blueberry and Ivory. I had some Ivory left over, but I used up every bit of the blue yarn because of the fringe. The recipient apparently loved the scarf. :)

~Joyuna

Last leg of the Aeolian Shawl

I can see the finish line... I've been running a marathon and I'm almost through it.

I started my Aeolian shawl exactly two months ago and now I'm on the final rows. It's taken more yarn and more time than I expected, but it's also going to be way bigger than I expected. I'm so excited.

I had about 600 yards of handspun silk already spun for the shawl, and I thought that was going to be plenty. However, I modified the shawl to be a little bit bigger than the shawlette as written, and consequentially the shawl turned out much bigger than the shawlette.

I ended up dyeing a little bit of tussah silk roving I had, to use at the end of the shawl.


The color doesn't match the rest of the shawl, but it goes with it. It's interesting because the tussah is a lot 'hairier' than the bombyx silk I used for the rest of the shawl. I've just started knitting with the tussah, and it's already starting to fuzz up. I don't mind, it's just interesting to see the difference between the two types of silk. It may also be that in the past year I've been learning to not put so much twist into my handspun yarn.



I've also added a few beads to the shawl - not nearly as many are as in the pattern, but a few here and there. It looks nice, but I think if I beaded the whole shawl I might have to strangle myself with the yarn or stab myself with the crochet hook.

I just have a few rows to go, and I'm aiming to finish it ASAP. I am marathonning this sucker. Wish me luck.

~Joyuna

Some gratuitous photos of freshly-dyed yarn

I recently got a large order, which was oodles of fun to fill. 20 skeins of sock yarn, 5 skeins each of 4 yummy semisolid colors, including two all-new colorways.

The colorways are:
-Canary's Song, bright yellow and orange (as seen here in my socks)
-The Grass is Greener, a darker variation of Grass Stains
-Blue Marlin, a nice bluish teal
-Mass Wisteria, a purple with pinkish spots



I love dyeing! I had a lot of fun with these. Those skeins specifically are shipped off already but I still have some skeins to dye up for the shop. I ordered enough yarn for 35 100g skeins, but I ended up winding 31 skeins of yarn... so these skeins have a little extra yarn bonus in them ;)



~Joyuna

My July Comment Challenge results...

Last month I participated in the July Comment Challenge, courtesy of I am Harriet. I'm not normally a big commenter, so this was a chance for me to get out there and explore and interact with new bloggers. I had a lot of fun! The 'official' goal was 1000 comments, but I set a personal goal of 300 for myself - 10 comments a day.

Things were going well in the first half of July. I left 149 comments between July 1 and July 15 - right on schedule. However, due to busyness in the second half of July, both planned and unplanned (dyeing, preparing for the boy's visit, various part-time work), I only ended up commenting 46 times for the rest of the month (many days I didn't have time to visit blogs at all, much less comment. My dropping patterns for the month are similar).

Anyway, my grand total is 195 comments this month! Which isn't quite my goal, but it's about 190 more comments than I would have left otherwise, so I'm very pleased! Thanks Harriet!

~Joyuna