World Cup Lace

Overslept this morning and had to listen to the second half of the Australia/Italy game on the radio. Exciting ending, but my big excitement was that my silkworms have started to hatch. Aren't they cute? They won't produce any real amount of silk until they start to spin their cocoons in about a month, but they are already making invisible silk strands. That should inspire me to finish my World Cup lace.

Starting to pick up the pace, realizing that the World Cup is quickly progressing. The randomly done filmy center has given way to a more deliberate, more solid band that is breaking up and may or may not enter into a symmetrical pattern. I'm enjoying this improvisatory knitting although it may not look as neat as if it had all been planned out at the beginning. One slight complication is that my balls of yarn seem to start to felt after they've been in use for a while. This last ball was picked up by a dog, though, so maybe that has something to do with it's mildly matted state.

The raw alpaca fleece: Hunter's fleece is part white, part light brown. I'm using the white part for this project. Lots of vm (veggie matter) but it comes out easily in the spinning.


I'm spinning fine singles on the Indian book charkha...haven't fully gotten the hang of it and my singles definitely vary a bit in diameter and are quite fuzzy, but they are staying together fairly well. So nice and portable...biked the charkha over to spin at Delta of Venus for a breezy afternoon.


And here's the shawl so far. Random and fuzzy. With my homemade brass double pointed knitting needles, sculpey tip covers and stitch markers (two with my lampworked beads)...do-it-yourself madness.