Glittery Mohair Shawl - Design F29

I bought some pretty Mohair yarn off Ebay.  It came with no ball bands or anything and other than confirming that it is Mohair, I really have no idea about it.  I decided on a design to knit with this yarn, which means working with charts for the first time ever.  I started work on 17th April and completed one pattern plus one pattern repeat and then I messed up.  It got put to one side for a while until I was ready to sort out where I had gone wrong and tackle it again.

It was about 3 months before I picked this up again.  I sorted out where I had gone wrong and finally figured out how to read the charts.  I decided that I wanted to add some beads to the border edge and selected some lovely turquoise blue beads to match the blue metallic thread in the yarn.  The beads are Size 6 Toho, colour 995 gold lined rainbow aqua and I used 475 of them in total, 25 beads per edge section.

You will see in the photos above that I have taken one with a standard sized stapler to show size and there is also one that shows the back of the unblocked shawl and how the pattern "egg boxes".  I finished making this on 15th August 2010 and soaked and blocked it.  It grew a little bit but that is usual as you are stretching and smoothing the lace out to show off the design.  Really pleased with how this turned out in the end.

Folksy Friday 20th August - For the love of Mohair

 I thought I would blog about Mohair this week as I have just finished knitting a lace shawl in Mohair.

  

So, what is Mohair and where does it come from?

Mohair is a silk-like yarn made from the hair of the Angora Goat and is one of the oldest textile fibres in use.  Mohair fabric is known to have been in England in the 8th Century.  It is durable, resilient and notable for its high lustre and sheen.  It is warm and has great insulating properties.  It is considered to be a luxury fibre like Cashmere, Angora and Silk and is usually more expensive than wool that comes from sheep.  It is the hair from younger animals that would be used for making yarns suitable for clothing.  Mohair should not be confused with the fur from the Angora Rabbit which is called Angora Wool.

The shawl took me about 120 hours to make and took a lot of patience and skill.

The yarn I used has 75% Mohair, 13% Wool, 8% Nylon and 4% Metalic Fibres, so a very good quality Mohair indeed!  Many Mohair yarns are made with less than 40% Mohair fibres.

I added 475 tiny glass beads by Toho to the pretty edging.

Blue-green shawl - Design W388

I had 6 skeins of a Super Bulky yarn called Araucania Chacabuco Multy that I had no idea what to make with until I stumbled across a lovely pattern designed for use with the trendy ribbon yarns.  The picture on the pattern does not show what the actual shape of the shawl is but I decided to go with the flow and get on with it, starting work on 9th April.

The yarn is 100% Pima Cotton and crocheted up lovely using a 6.5mm crochet hook.

I finished making this on 15th April 2010 and it is huge, that is a standard 12" rule in the photo above and it will grow bigger when it is soaked and blocked.  I had to block it on my blocking boards and towels on the lounge floor, moving furniture out of the way to create a space big enough to lay it out.  I noticed that the yellow colour was only in the centre of the shawl, despite all the skeins being the same colour, and it reminded me of the moons reflection on water and the finished shawl is very big, very heavy and very dramatic.  The yarn is no longer manufactured.

Crocheted Lace Triangular Wrap - Design DK11

This design is published by Sirdar Spinning Ltd circa 2006 and recommends the use of Sirdar Duet yarn.  I got in touch with Sirdar about selling items that I make using their patterns and they advised me that as long as I don't mass produce then they have no problem with me selling what I make using their designs whatsoever.

I began crocheting this on 21st March using a 5.5mm crochet hook and Sirdar Duet in shade Chamois, a worsted weight yarn which is 56% Cotton/44% Nylon.  Its a lovely yarn to work with even though the shiny sections are very slippy.

The pattern is easy to get into once you understand how the motifs join together.  I love motif shawls but I hate yarn ends.  So many yarn ends.  I am sewing them in at the end of every row of motifs to avoid a big boring job at the end.  It makes it more bearable by breaking it down into smaller chunks.

The pattern says that 6 balls are required to make this shawl but I found that 5 would have been enough.  Rather than have 1 ball left over I decided to add an additional row of motifs, using up all of the yarn as the yarn is no longer manufactured.  I finished making this shawl on 8th April 2010, soaked and blocked it, which made it so much more smooth and uniform.  I have this yarn in blue, black, dark brown and white too.

Peach lace shawl - Design F307

This shawl has been modified from a very old Peacock's Tail doily design.  The yarn that I used came to me with no labels so I don't know exactly what it is but after doing various tests on it I have ascertained that it is a man-made fibre, most probably acrylic.

I began knitting this shawl on 2nd February, messed it up big time after about 26 rows and ripped it out and started again.  Whilst knitting this shawl I learned how to do a "Russian Join", which is a way of joining the ends of two balls of yarn together to form a seamless, almost undetectable strong join with no ends to sew in as it is hard to hide yarn ends in a lace pattern.

This is the first time that I have knit anything so fine and lacy and I've really struggled with the pattern, making no ends of mistakes that have had to be undone and redone many times over.  When I finished knitting it on 18th February 2010 it looked like a bumpy crumply mess and I was wondering how to block the scalloped edge.  I was looking around the house for ideas, anything that could make shaping easier and then I spied a bunch of long cable ties.  Perfect.  Strong, bendy, waterproof and not being used for anything.  There weren't quite enough of the long black ones so I asked hubby if he had anymore and he found me a few shorter white ones, which were just long enough for the job.  The cable ties are now a permanent part of my blocking tools kit.  Two straight metal blocking rods were used for the front edges of the shawl.

The transformation is amazing.

Red/blue shawl - Design B144

When I saw the pattern for this shawl I fell in love with it.  The photographs were beautiful and the shawl looked like it had wonderful drape.  I used the same yarn as recommended in the pattern, Rowan Linen Print in shade Crush.  Rowan Linen Print is a bulky chainette yarn and is 70% Rayon/30% Linen.

I began this knitting project on 26th August and finished it on 27th August 2009.  It was an easy knit, the pattern was simple and the yarn was soft.  I was so happy with it when I finished knitting and got on with the soaking and blocking and that is when disaster struck.  During the soaking process lots of dye leaked out of the yarn, not unheard of especially with blues and reds shades of yarn, but it did change the colour of the yarn quite a bit.  I pinned it out to open up the lace stitches and left it to dry out of direct sunlight or any kind of heat source.  When I unpinned it when it was dry I was so disappointed.  It was very stiff and rough feeling.  Instantly thinking that I had not washed all of the soap out I redone the whole soak and block process again, omitting any soap, it leaked even more dye and it still dried stiff and rough, like a towel that has been washed with no fabric conditioner.  For the high price of the yarn, I was not very happy.  Rowan discontinued production of the yarn shortly afterwards.