April 18, 2011

Calling the perfect shawl

I'm crazy with anticipation. Since I last wrote about my Jacob fleece, I've been regularly spreading it out on the kitchen floor, and then picking and choosing the locks and colours that I'll wash.  

(This, by the way, seems to drive my regularly odd cat to new heights of weirdom.  She can't handle it. She lies down, grabs chunks of raw fleece and rubs them all over her face. I've taken to locking her in my bedroom because I can't stand to watch it.)  I have enough now that I've  I've promised myself that tomorrow I take this bag of washed jacob locks, and start carding and spinning it into yarn for... Well. That's the question, isn't it? 

I'm looking for a shawl that isn't too big - but not too small.  Definitely not a triangular scarf pretending to be a shawl, because that's just annoying. (I mean, if you're a scarf, say so. Have a little pride.) Not too big, because that's more spinning than I want to do, and really, this jacob fleece is little. I haven't started spinning yet, so really, the yarn can be any weight, though I'd like to do something like a light fingering.  (By the way, you shouldn't ever google "light fingering."  It's as entirely shocking as pondering fleece washing techniques and deciding to google "dirty sheep." I shall perhaps never get over that one. Some people are just not right.)

I'm going to spin the colours of the Jacob all separately, so when I'm done I should have a black, several shades of grey and a white.  There's very little true black on the fleece, so that yield the smallest amount of yarn - if I run out of grey I can spin more, if I run out of white I can spin more.. but that black is finite, so I'd like to start with black on the long edge of the shawl, and decrease up to the nape of the neck. All that in mind - any suggestions for a small triangular shawl constructed that way that would look great in a graduated colour scheme?

Posted by Stephanie at April 18, 2011 2:05 PM