Hillcrescent Farm Jacob Fleece No.2, Part II

I am nearly there, only one more fleece to work through from Hillcrescent Farm after this one.

This is the black part of Fleece No.2, starting out with 800g of black fleece and being left with 366g after combing.  A yield of approximately 46%.

I didn't take photos of the preparation of this.  Its black and fluffy, you know what it looks like, you don't need photos of this, again and again.

I made 3 Sport weight skeins of yarn.

This one is 99g/435m

This one is 101g/407m

and lastly, this one is 149g/609m

In waves of green - Design A193

After a very beautiful but intense knit of the beaded lilac shawl I wanted to make something a bit simpler and a bit thicker as we are heading into Winter and its getting cold outside.  I have some really nice Rowan Summer Tweed in various shades of green..  The yarn is aran weight and 70% Silk, 30% Cotton and is no longer manufactured so I have to be very careful and precise with my maths to ensure that I don't run out of yarn.  Maybe a motif design or something in stripes, or at least something that could be worked in stripes to produce an interesting effect.

I got out the skeins that I have of this yarn in five various shades of green and sorted them from dark to light.  There is obviously a cuckoo in the nest that was a completely different tone and just didn't fit in with the others and this was put back into my yarn stash and I proceeded with the four remaining shades.

Using a 6.5mm crochet hook I started this on 9th November with a row of foundation single crochet.  This is much easier than working a long chain of stitches first and then crocheting into them as you make the foundation chain and the stitch at the same time.  Here is a very good YouTube video on how to work a foundation single crochet.

The photos below show it laid out on my blocking boards before a soak and after a soak and pinned out.  I knew that the wrap would not grow width ways but I did expect it to grow length ways as the lace pattern was opened up.

Its a lovely soft shawl that is versatile and can be used as a wedding shawl or equally would look good casual with shirt and jeans or a summer dress.

Lilac Beaded Lace Shawl - Design L7

I wanted to make another spectacular shawl as I've not done any fine lace knitting for a while.  I chose a lovely lilac lace weight yarn that I got from Solstice Yarns, which is 50% Baby Suri Alpaca, 30% Merino and 20% Silk.  Suri alpaca is the rarer breed of alpacas, the one with the incredibly long hair, as opposed to the normal, fluffy, Huacaya alpaca that you are probably more familiar with.

I loved making the heavily beaded scalloped shawl that I made with my own hand-spun Shetland wool so much that I am going to make it again using this yarn and Size 8 Toho round seed beads in shade 928 Rainbow Rosaline Opaque.  I started knitting on 7th September.

I took lots of work-in-progress photos so you can see the shawl growing.

I finished this on 4th November 2015.  The pictured below show before soaking and blocking and during the blocking process.  Blocking really makes a difference to the finished item, especially so with lace shawls.

The alpaca/wool/silk blend is so lightweight and drapes beautifully.  There are 5,083 beads on this shawl and the beads weigh more than the yarn does.  I used 68g of yarn and the shawl weighed 185g, meaning that the beads weighed 117g.