How to knit a Haapsalu Sall

A Haapsalu Sall is a title for a lace shawl or scarf in Estonia. Made with openwork lace patterns.  If there is a lacy edge it is always knitted separately and sewn to the completed center section by hand.  A newer style of construction is to pick up and knit the lace edge onto the completed shawl center.  I'm planning to knit the nontraditional style by picking up and knitting the lace edge.  The pattern is called Queen Silvia Shawl and was named for Queen Silvia of Sweden.  It is a variation of the lily of the Valley motif.
I purchased 1/2 pound if white merino top that is 19.5 micron from Rose Haven Farm in Picton and have spun and plyed about 1000 yards semi worsted.  24 wpi. The pattern calls for 1300 yards so I plan to spin as needed because with the first ball of 350 yards, I've completed 9 repeats of the pattern so I am wondering if I will need as much as the pattern calls for. 
 I used cotton waste yarn and a crochet hook to cast on 117 stitches and began knitting the center portion of the shawl.  That was three weeks ago and thus far I have only knit 9 repeats of this 20 repeat center section.  Although I  have to add here, that I have really knit about 14 repeats because I've had to rip back to my safety lines a couple of times.
It's not that the nupps are hard to knit, this video:  is an excellent how to, but I seem to be dropping stitches somehow and I can't figure out how I am doing that.  It is very difficult to fix mistakes, without making more mistakes, that's why safety lines are a must.  I found this video to help explain safety lines.
Guess I'll keep plugging along/muddling thru, and longing for the end result.  That's what knitting is all about.  Soldier on!!!

Ta-dah!

   Another lace project, what a surprise!!  I just can't get enough of this lace, it is so addicting!  This one's not a shawl, it's a sun hat for my niece's upcoming summer, cottage  wedding!  She plans to marry in the sunshine and I thought I would carry my shade around with me.
The hat's from the book "A gathering of lace" gathered by Meg Swansen.  Another reason for the hat, my niece's fiance is from UK and his family is from England so I was thinking I would wear this hat in their honour.  Crazy eh?
The pattern knit up fairly easy and quickly.  My handspun is 23 wpi.  Pattern called for crochet cotton or fine linen so my yarn was a bit thicker than called for so I used size 2.5 mm needles.  Pattern wanted size 3.25.  I found using this tighter knitting gauge kept the hat together more when blocking, and wow did I block!

Progress so far!!

 I was worried while I was knitting, wondering what sort of hat block I would use.  But, I found  a plastic pretzel container that I had saved for some reason, I guess this is the reason.  My dh used a dremel tool and cut the top off the container @ 3" in height and the circumfrence of the container was 22", just my headsize.

I used other ravelry's advice and mixed a concoction of distilled water, cornstarch and fabric stiffener.  Plunked the wet knitted hat into the container, squeezed out the excess, saved the excess for spraying on later after blocking, took the whole thing to the blocking board and blocked it out to circumfrence of 36".
It took a few days to dry completely but to my surprise it was stiff, really stiff.  I added a white bow, later I may change this to black as my wedding outfit is black and white.  And ta-dah here is my finished hat......

Cardi for Chloe? Nope! Cable Duffle Coat for Alexis!

A couple years ago my daughter Michelle and her Aunt paid a visit to our local yarn store! I think knitting fever hit Michelle because she had purchased enough yarn to make herself a scarf and a pattern for me to make her daughters a cardigan -Coat by Sirdar. Woo Hoo! I was thrilled!

But I never got around to making the sweaters, until now.

Michelle had given up on the sweaters or forgot about them and bought Chloe a natural coloured sweater for christmas. So I couldn't make her another natural colored one.

I started out using some homespun yarn that I had hand dyed myself (green) Not exactly a little girls color and of course Michelle didn't like it. So that was frogged!!

Then I began spinning some natural coloured Canadian Arcott for a Cable Duffle coat for Alexis instead. This is the process.

I spun up about 1400 yards, washed and set the twist and began knitting and knitting and knitting. Decided to knit a size 5-6 hoping that the info from Ravely was correct that the sizes were big and they were correct, I would guess the size is about an 8-10.

I got the back done and left the stitches active so that I could neatly join the shoulder seems by using a three needle bind off. Then I knit the left and right fronts. When it came time to join the shoulder seems I had knit the back about three or four rows too long to make a cable join so had to unwravel it a bit. That wasn't too hard. Then I knit one sleeve, then the front borders, then the hood, then the hood border and finally the second sleeve. I joined the coat with a mattress stitch. Michelle wanted a certain brown button for this coat so I went to my local button store aka fabricland and found the exact button she had suggested. Sewed them on and voila!!! a new Cable Duffle coat for Alexis. Now the test , will Michelle like (wear) the coat on Alexis or will it just sit in the closet ready for Good Will next year. We will see.

Just sittin'and knittin'...

and listening to my ipod. I had only a few hours today to do my favourite thing to do, sittin and knitting and listening to J.V Mcgee on my ipod. but I got quite a few lessons done . As for my knittin I managed to start Alexis' cardi this weekend. And when I measured the back of the sweater (Coat Sirdar #1733) I was surprised to see that it was about 5 inches. I'm knitting this one for Alexis because Michelle didn't like the color of the dyed by me one that I was knitting for Chloe. So I have frogged that one (I can use this wool for a cowl maybe??) and started on the natural color for Alexis. This is the color that Michelle had in mind when she bought me the pattern (oh about 2 years ago) and asked me to knit it for her daughters. Chloe and Alexis.
Managed to sneak in a bit of carding this weekend, better get at it because I'm running out of fleece for the above mentioned cardigan. Please don't ask me what type of fleece I have yet because frankly I just don't know.
I learned that if you don't want the nubbies in your yarn, card your fleece really slowly. Painfully slowly. Probably a more experienced spinner would know how to get them out when spinning but I have a goal in mind (make the yarn as fine as possible so that my sister will be able to use some of my handspun when she makes her doll clothes and sells them on ebay) don't think I'm quite at that point yet but I really am enjoying this journey of carding and dyeing and even using the yarn winder. I guess it's about the journey, making (many) mistakes and picking up the pieces aka using the (frogged) yarn for something else, right?
I've learned that dyeing the yarn can come at any stage, before you card the fleece, when the fleece is roving and even after the yarn is spun. You can nuke it in the microwave, (my favourite) or boil it ( I mean simmer) it on the stove in a big pot or bake it in the oven or even crock it in the crockpot. There are so many books at the library to help you along the way but my favourite way to learn has become youtube, you can find anything on there that you are interested in learning, everyone has an opinion or a great way to do it. But nuking it in the microwave seems to be the fastest most economical way for me, oh and I'm using wiltons icing dyes and koolade. but one thing that is nagging at me, I can't seem to make it colorfast yet. I've been searching all over the net for a way to keep the dye from fading. I knit Alexis a beautiful pair of gauntlets only to find one of them outside (Monty the retreiver loves to pick up something and take it with her on her bathroom run) the sun had faded the bright pink to a faded pink. I just took that mitten home with me with my tail between my legs. So the hunt is on to find a way to make the wool keep its color. Using salt and vinegar don't seem to be working and setting the dye just doesn't cut it either. Too bad I couldn't find out what the yarn companies do. But one good thing I don't think the natural yarn I am spinning now will fade.
I bought a yarn winder on ebay a while back and wouldn't you know it Rick found me one at a yard sale for $.50 that's fifty cents, they sell for $70 here in Canada plus tax. Now if he could just find me an umbrella yarn swift.