Youngest niece and I met at the castle today, we took some photos, and then had a picnic in the dappled shade of the oak trees. It was a lovely last summer visit before she leaves to college. The Sol Inca sweaters have been tucked away for over a year waiting for the day both my nieces could model, but today only my youngest was able to make it. I hope to get another duo photo shoot of them over next winter solstice, but these shall have to suffice for now . . . just a hodgepodge . . . Sol Inca, Calidez Vest, and also a sneak peek at a brand new design that is not quite ready for it’s debut, that is coming just around the corner. Ok, now click 1st image in mosaic and go see the slideshow!
She was absolutely spectacular. I think she has really has mastered what is essential in modeling, having developed her character that is genuine and honest . . .
So natural, with a hint of bashful, and a lot of charm.
Hi everyone, its me Abelene. Jen has veiled me in her new lace that she’s been hinting about for weeks in her series of veils & variations.
The lace feels so lovely, so fine, I think I feel like what it must be like to be a bride, or a Shetlander, or an Estonian knitter, modeling as best as I can in the tiny house.
About time she’s finished, because she is so exhausted of drawing and redrawing charts, doing math and wrestling mistakes, so she let me handle posting about the pattern.
Did you know that Jen’s UnSpun is the reason she felt compelled to write this pattern? She had just an overwhelming urge to make some really fine lace yarn after watching this video , and worked like an ox to get a bunch of really fine lace-weight out to some friends before the pattern was ready. The UnSpun yarn is beginning to show up now around the far corners of the world and Jen feels its time to finish up and get the lace knitting going!
Oh but did you notice the diamond motifs showing up in a couple of the videos in her series of veils & variations Goldberg Variations? Jen tells me this was by pure chance and unplanned, yet something makes her think that the diamonds must be a subliminal Bach Thing.
so here are those favorite Goldberg Variations highlights !
The pattern actually is three styles; a stole, a square hap shawl, and a cowl, all and each in four sizes! You can see more information if you go see the pattern which is live now on Ravelry HERE. Jen would really love it if you would join in on her pattern give-away in the spirit of Valentines, so I’m suppose to mention her post on her group over here , which is running just for a very short time, so that folks can get yarn and cast on for Valentines day! I hope everyone is in a lace-knitting mood!
Last but not least, Jen is wildly looking forward to photographing youngest niece Miss Sixteen modeling Aria & Variations this weekend at the castle, which will make the pattern a real hit!
Another great addition to Knit Pick’s colossal array of yarns, Simply Wool is spun from wool grown in a century-old sustainable way in the Highlands of Peru, it comes in six shades undyed natural fleece colors blends, in both worsted and bulky weights. Having worked with Wool Of The Andes, a Peruvian Highland wool from corriedale-merino cross breed of sheep, Simply Wool is noted on the website as ‘eco wool’ but that is not describing how or to what extent the wool itself is different from Wool Of The Andes. I’d say much softer than Wool Of The Andes, what I’d expect from an un-dyed and minimally processed wool, and it comes in 100g skeins.
I am creating a fine lace-weight in this supreme all-natural yarn, which started from a ball of worsted weight in light grey .
With drop spindle I deconstructed the soft wool exactly as in this tutorial post , and after a couple of days unplying here and there, finally this morning I spliced all the single plies end-to-end on the swift and felt it to be a major accomplishment that I am very pleased with!
I am not over-dying this big skein in a simmer dye bath, as I want it to be au natural, the whole point of buying Simply Wool, aside from the ecological consideration, so I just gave the skein of energized single ply off of the swift a warm bath and a hot rinse to carefully but slightly felt the yarn to set the twist as it will remain for the rest of its days a single ply, in a stole of a particular design in mind. So I’ll see how this yarn knits up in a day or so!
Right now I’ve got it speed drying on a baseboard heater, hoping to have it re-skeined by the end of the day so I can cast on for more insane lace knitting!
As I walked this morning on the knitting trail, and as latest storm brewed , I decided to drape the lace-in-progress on a lifeless little maple tree, and take a photo. Then I made a silly old-school schematic of the picture :: laughs :: I have been slowly and steadily making progress on forthcoming lace design, so far have knit 440 yards, but that is only half of the 50g Unspun ball I made. I tell you, this ultra fine yarn really is serious stuff, only a dedicated & determined knitter should ever try knitting with it. Keep watching for breadcrumbs in the woodland, which can be found in veils & variations.
There is something so alluring about a veil. It whispers “come see”, and yet begs not to be lifted, for it seems far more beautiful this way, even with someone or something sacred and perhaps unimaginably beautiful beneath. A veil plays with our imagination, and a veil of fine lace heightens a simmering anticipation even more.
A hand knitted shawl of old is a priceless garment of any wardrobe . . .
I like to think about the old days how knitting a fully covering lace shawl would provide entertainment in an otherwise bleak and isolated life of one of the windswept islands of Shetland. The kind of shawl that veils a woman completely, yet can be passed through a wedding ring, is the mark of excellency. What privilege to be determined enough to knit a thing like this, for then one spun the yarn so fine and endless, what a bittersweet end when it comes off the needles, and one must go back to the sheep to start all over again.
Perhaps the most enjoyment in the steadfast driving rhythm of knitting lace, with hands and eyes bound to every stitch, comes from freeing a mind to ponder elsewhere.
Pacing myself through days strung end to end of insane lace knitting, and my perspective of life has gone into a bit of another dimension. I am at least enjoying discovering unusual variations of “The Variations”, and here posting this true find as another in my secret veils series. I hope you enjoy this sultry evocative performance by Lore Hillenhinrichs and Martina Weber.
It is raining, how heavenly, and my most recent Unspun experiment, posted about here, is snailing along very slowly. Nupps are so cool, but so difficult, taking real skill and concentration , not to speak of excellent light and magnification!
In previous out gathering lace post you may have not caught it, but I am doing the breadcrumbs thing where I begin to hint of something coming. It will be long coming, a ways down the trail (a long, long meandering, as the lace is taking forever), the theme being woods, music, variations, lace, only vaguely related. Its far too abstract at the moment, but do expect some puzzling crumb hunting, as I’m having some fun with this veils theme. I have decided that I love to ‘play’ on my blog this way, as I did with the whole Fishy thing the summer before last. I love discovering side trails, merry chase always on the verge of confusion, but then we arrive at destination eventually.
For now I am immensely enjoying this wet weekend with tea & lace knitting.
What I have here is something I decided afterall to design with the Unspun yarn I posted about earlier. I have been wanting to design something for extraordinarily fine lace weight yarn, for I am really going off the deep end with my Unspun experiments. There’s me, collecting single balls & sampling the post-deconstruction qualities, and forming observations & personal opinions about results. Why on earth? I suppose this stems from frugal & philosophical roots, the concept of using what one has before running off and buying more, to empower the idea reusing/recycling odd single balls left unused in ones stash. I think of them as orphans needing a home. A single ball of worsted weight is not enough to really make much out of, but to deconstruct and get enough fine lace yarn to make a whole beautiful lace scarf or cowl, and well folks, now that is exciting! Quirky, yes, but I am beginning to think it is some kind of an odd calling!
Anyway, for this upcoming design I wanted to be different than all of the other lace designs I’ve thus far written patterns for. First, I want to design a lace thing with finally, straight edges, all sides top and bottom, for super easy blocking, and secondly I want this one to be ultra simple, very minimal in patterning. Let me mention that in this forthcoming design I am experimenting for the first time — nupps! Nupps are crazy difficult for me, especially with such fine yarn, because for a nupp-7 is nearly impossible to pick up all the stitches to purl together without accidentally picking up neighboring stitches, or dropping some of them. I am wearing two pairs of reading glasses for super magnification, but still have been messing up and losing count and having to rip back due to this mistake, many times. So many times in fact, that I have had to devise a method of knitting nupps where I section off each nupp either side with a self-made yarn stitch marker (the metal ones snag this ultra fine yarn, can’t use those), so that I can see the whole nupp cluster so much easier.
Thats me here now, a bit of struggling with the nupps, but more in love with the ethereal feel of really fine lace knitting!
What I have here is something I decided afterall to design with the Unspun yarn 
Jenjoyce Design 