Peacock change of colors
September 4th, 2006 at 2:02 pm (uncategorized)
I decided to change the yarn I was going to use for Peacock. I love my handspun yarn, but I don’t have enough (yet) and the pressure to spin enough before finishing knitting what I have already spun was too much for me. So here’s the new peacock:
It’s "Alpaca with a Twist, Fino" which is 70% baby alpaca and 30% silk. It’s sooooooooo soft and has a great sheen to it. I dropped two needle sizes from 3.5 mm to 3.0 mm and I’m much happier with how the fabric is coming out. I’m only on about row 15, but it went pretty quick to get that far
I had two skeins of the yarn, wound them into balls from the swift, repaired the swift again*, then rewound the balls so they weren’t under such tight tension. I don’t like how tight the balls get wound when coming directly off the swift. I think it stretches the yarn too much, so I always rewind them. I’m working from the outside of the ball here to avoid that collapsing mess of a ball when I get more than halfway through the ball.
Oh, and that’s my new knitpicks needle set I’ve propped the yarn and shawl up on. I’m using one of their standard circulars for knitting the peacock shawl, because they only go down to the 3.5mm in the interchangable. I love the points on these needles, and the cable is so flexible. My poor addi turbo’s are going to be neglected!
*the original yarn holding together the poles of the swift keeps breaking. Eventually I’ll replace them all, but not yet. It’s much more fun to curse when it comes apart spontaneously. So far I’ve been lucky and it hasn’t caused a big mess, just a minor annoyance.
