To Bead or not to Bead....

I have been futzing a lot with the circular shawl, trying to work out how to fit the heptagram design into a lace pattern that still looks like a lace shawl and not just some random mess of lines but that's still obviously a heptagram. I've been trying beading on the outline of the main design elements:

I'm working again with the red Arucania Lonco. I'm still not sure that this is the best yarn choice but it has the advantage of frogging well and being fairly WYSIWYG while I sort out the layout of the interior motif. I'm pretty happy with the pattern of the star and the inner heptagram but still on the fence with the beads. I'm concerned about the weight they add (I've used about half a 20g tube just on the inner design and the outer is likely to take something like 10x that) and also the way they shift the weight due to only using them on certain design elements.

I think it would actually be OK if I stuck with the fingering weight yarn, but if I redo the design in laceweight I'm just not seeing it hold up. I might see if I can try smaller beads (these are size 8 cubes - rounds would be lighter and if I can get a hook into a 10 that would make a world of difference but I just don't have the beading experience to know if that's workable.

I'm also not 100% sure it really needs it.

Still, I am persisting.

I am also spinning:

522yds / 4.3 oz of softspun Falkland singles. Its an average of a sport weight, with some thick and thin sections. I haven't the foggiest what I might do with it, but I feel pleased that I managed it since singles aren't really my favorite to spin and also I didn't really love the falkland. It was pretty sticky and required a lot of predrafting. The upside is it held together with very little twist, but it was still a lot more prep time then I like to put into commercial top.

I did some moderate fulling on finishing (hot/cold rinses and moderate agitation) but wasn't super agressive since I was worried about felting it to itself.

End result is light and lofty. Will have to try again with some merino.

Onward and well... onward

I have been hunting like mad for the perfect shawl to make from my Black Magic yarn. I want to do something like Panache because IMO the long repeats look their best with something that has a strong repeating wave or chevron. I've done Revontuli before and while I loved it, I'm not in a hurry to be repeating patterns right now. Unfortunately I'm short on yardage for the smaller Panache and its not looking like a particularly easy pattern to resize.

So rather than cast on OMG RIGHT NOW with the Black Magic (which I really want to do) I went stash diving to see what I had that could work for another shawl in my freakishly long queue.

I have a lot of yarn.

Unfortunately, a lot of the lace yarn I have is single hanks that all total about 450yds - which is just shy of what I need for pretty much everything I want to knit right now. Also unfortunately, after having finished the Haruni Shawl I only want to knit lace with handspun. Because its extra awesome that way.

I think this probably makes me some kind of uber-yarn-snob.

Like worse of one than I was before.

Anyway, I pulled out some of the yarn I have set aside for a Swallowtail (soysilk) but I don't really want to knit that right now and I keep looking at it and thinking - this would weave so much nicer than it would knit - so I put it back and then I pulled out the Zephyr and the beads I got for the Aeolian shawl back in... er... October? November? (The Zephyr's from the yarn crawl so awhile ago) but I'm just not feeling the navy lace right now and then I pulled out all my handspun (of which there is not actually that much because I seem to always either give it away or use it fairly quickly) and remembered I had this gray-blue BFL/Seacell/Silk blend and even though there's not enough of it for the Aeolian NOW I have 2oz left that can be spun up with relatively little angst and also it looks decent with the beads I already have.

So yay, I have a new shawl cast on!

I don't actually anticipate this with be a fast knit (because of the beads) or a particularly portable knit (also because of the beads) but hopefully it will hold me until I can either a) find the perfect project for the black magic or b) spin something else or c) get off my shawl kick.

Also I may have cast on some socks tonight. I'm not sure. It was a weird night.