Ravelympics project (and part of my Fibre-East haul)

The Ravelympics is a knitting and spinning challenge event and start in exactly one week's time. (I believe that there's a sporting event happening at the same time.)

It's officially now had to change its name to Ravellenics for bureaucratic reasons but it'll be Ravelympics to me.

If you've seen this month's Hand Spinning News you will have read me raving about josiekitten's Citron shawl. I was pleased to see the very shawl on show at Fibre East by Marianne of PicPerfic who dyed and supplied the fibre.

I love the pattern and I love the colour graduations (spiral dyed fibre) but I was particularly interested in the fact that she'd knitted with spun singles. This makes the most of the colour changes (although navajo would have achieved this too), it's finer than plied yarn and it gives the finished item a different look and feel. But any inconsistencies in the spinning will be more obvious than with plied yarn.


Much inspired by all of this I decided to make the same for my Ravelympics project.

I arrived early at Fibre East to have the pick of Marianne's fibre. This is the one I chose, called Sliced Denim. It graduates from strong blue to almost white.

I've changed my mind on the pattern because I like the idea of the white going into a lace border. I've chosen Oaklet.


This is it. It has the same stocking stitch body as the citron. I can repeat the lace pattern until the yarn is used up. If I happen to finish the yarn before the end of the repeat, I believe that some pure white will blend in perfectly to finish off with. I love the pointy effect you can achieve at the edge in the blocking.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

lovely blog post Shiela...looking forward to seeing this on knitted up! I really like the new shawl pattern you've found :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Shiela- interested to know how the singles are spun and the twist set? It looks lovely :)

peahen said...

I usually spin using a medium draw which produces a smooth but quite firmly-packed yarn. Picperfic has suggested spinning this one from the fold which I'm going to do because It should make a softer yarn.

Previously I've just soaked and weighted singles which has been very effective. If you follow my link to josiekitten's post, she describes how she fulled her singles by using hot & cold water and thwacking. I'm going to try this too because it worked well for her.

I'll let you know on the blog how I get on :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that:) Sounds like another to add to my 'must have a go at' list!

josiekitten said...

You chose a lovely colourway Shiela, I look forward to seeing your shawl finished. Good luck with the spinning tonight!