Sunday 29 June 2008

Jewel is done


Well, the crochet mojo is back I think. I actually finished Jewel and started another top from the same book, (Everyday Crochet by Doris Chan). I've wavered between knitting and crochet for a lot of years, one or other taking precedence for a while. Crochet wins on speed since the fabric grows so fast, ideal for jumpers that you want quickly. This is really comfortable to wear and I'm glad I persisted with it. Getting the right gauge with this stretchy stitch pattern is a challenge, so trial and error seems to be the way to go. I've had a similar experience with Sweet Tea, the next crochet project, but I think I've cracked it now.

The yarn is Debbie Bliss Cathay, a DK cotton, microfibre and viscose mix. I tried knitting with it, but it is very inelastic, and I wasn't enjoying the experience, so tried crochet which is much better. I still have to do the shoulder straps and then I'll just keep going on the body until I run out of yarn.

Spinning has been happening too. I now have a 100g skein of the dark brown alpaca to add to the other two colours. The white fibre I bought is spinning up even better and I've got 50g of singles already. Once this is done, I really must dye some wool so that I can spin something colourful!

I haven't forgotten knitting either. Mystic Meadows is growing, onto clue 3 now. And gasp, shock horror I cast on another lace project. This one is the Goddess Knits Mystery shawl, a circular pi shawl KAL. I've never done a round one before, so this is going to be interesting. The picture is of the first clue with 4 rounds done of the second. I think this will take a good blocking to look it's best. So far each clue has four pattern options, so everyone has to choose which to use. I went with D for clue 1 and B for clue 2.

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