Ignoring the fact that I have a bazillion other UFOs that I haven't posted (or finished) yet....



I started something new. But, I swear, I had no choice. Seriously!

This is my final project for English. Well, not just this, I also have to give a presentation. It's the Alpine Lace Scarf from Victorian Lace Today and my project is on the history of knitting.
You see, for my English final this year, we had a choice of two things we could do. We could either write a research paper and give a 5-10 minute presentation on it or we could make a 'product' like a model of an old building or a replica of a famous painting and give a 10-15 presentation on the architecture or the artist's contributions to society. Since I can't paint, sculpt, build, and hate writing papers, I asked if I could do my project on knitting. After persuading my teacher that I would be able to find the minimum three sources, she agreed to let me. So, now I'm knitting this shawl out of the bamboo that I spun. I started knitting on Thursday but I still haven't finished spinning the yarn yet. I started knitting it before I had all the yarn because I realized that I was wasting all this time I had at school. So, I wound up all the bamboo I had plied already on Wednesday night and cast on during Physics class the next morning.
At first, it was going really slow, but after the first chart repeat, I started to be able to see where the stitches should fall in the next row. The picture that I have up top is from last night. I'm actually a few rows farther than that, about to start the main center pattern.

Spinning Break

All right, so I haven't posted in a while. But I've been doing things like hanging out with the Zombie Prom Date Knitters, spinning, and buying yarn.

When I came home from school on Wednesday, Mom told me about this cute wheel she saw on Craigslist. So, we went to see it to see if it was a working wheel. We were able to get it spinning, so it followed us home.



Mom thinks that it was probably built for decoration only so she calls it the toy wheel. After she did a little work with her dremel, I started spinning up a braid I bought from the Yarn Hollow when we were at the Fiber Expo in Ann Arbor last fall.



It's an 80/20 blend of merino/silk in Rita's zen colorway.



Then, we took the Toy wheel with us to Threadbear's spinning night on Friday. They were having their spring sale and I bought silk!

First, I bought Artyarns Regal Silk



In the store, they have the Ruffle Scarf from Scarf Style knit up in silk and I really like it, so I think I'm going to make one with this. Then, we stopped there again, and I bought more silk.



This is Jade Sapphire Maju, I bought two skeins in that color. On Friday, I was having an argument with myself. I couldn't decide if I should get the blue and brown one, which would go with a lot of stuff I already own, or if I should buy the really bright and colorful pink stuff that would only match my socks. I finally bought the blue and brown one. But when we stopped by the store again on Saturday, I ended up walking out with the really bright stuff.

Then, on Saturday, we went to the Spinning Loft in Howell partly to see if we could fit the little wheel with a new flyer or bobbins. I also wanted to see what lace yarns they carry because I'm knitting a shawl for my school project and didn't have anything in my stash that fit well and when we were at Threadbear, all of the yarns they had weren't quite what I was looking for. When I didn't find what I was looking for at the Spinning Loft, Beth, the owner, suggested I spin for my project. Then, she suggested different rovings/threw stuff at me. It took me forever to decide because all of her suggestions were really good. I finally picked out three colors of bamboo.



And Carina was very nice and let me borrow her Majacraft Rose for spring break. I started spinning on it right after she brought it over.



It treadles really nicely and makes a nice lace weight, especially with the lace whorl. I've been just randomly grabbing different colors, so there won't be any striping or order to the colors.

Another one of Beth's suggestions followed me home, but not for this project.



It's Karaoke, a soysilk/merino blend. The color is called Rainbow and I'm thinking it would make some great socks.