Hot AND Lucky

Do you remember this fiber? My hand-dyed bamboo in 'Hottie'? Yep, it was waaay too Velma to sell, so this one went into my stash. Bamboo Pigtails porn!

3.9 ounces of citrusy-TANGY-goodness in tangerine, clementine, ruby grapefruit, and lemon. OMG, I swoon!

I spun it up -- it was easy-peasy! -- into this Singleton singles that ranged from cobweb to a heavy fingering weight, for a total of 290 yards, ~20WPI.

See? I TOLD you it was gorgeous!

My original plan was to write a lace shawl pattern for it. You know, the hat trick: dyed, spun, designed, & knit by ME (I guess that's more than 3; what do you call that? A hat-and-scarf trick?)

But as it turns out, it's a wee bit arrogant to think that, having NEVER knit lace before, and NEVER made a shawl before, that I could just whip out a lace shawl pattern. Not to worry, though, I found the best pattern!

Bonne Chance, by Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark of Kitchen Sink Dyeworks and Pie Bird Design, is almost exactly the look I had in my head when I was planning my own design. Knit from 1 stitch that gradually gets wider & wider (so I could just knit 'til I ran out of yarn), open & lacy, with diagonal ribs - just the ticket!

Look how nicely it shows off the sheen of my fiber! And drapey! Did I mention how drapey it is? Just divine.

I can't stop showing you closeups of the texture, I love it so much!

Despite the fact that bamboo has no "memory" to speak of, I decided to block it lightly, if nothing else so that I could compare how Bea's blocking wires performed in comparison with my yarn-stretching method from my blocking tutorial. Thanks for the loan, Bea, they worked great! SO much faster than running yarn along the perimeter, & easier to get a straight line. Totally worth the investment; it's on my list.

Ta-da! I knew you were waiting to see the real deal. Knit in just under 3 weeks (VERY fast for me) on US8 needles, I did a couple of mods to the pattern: I knit only 3 rows of garter at the end, rather than 4 (I was running out of yarn), & I did a K2, YO, knit to last 2 sts, YO, K2 pattern on those rows; oh, and I used Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off because I was worried about it being too narrow - LOL! Definitely NOT too narrow; it measures 56" wide and 34" deep. It's in my Rav projects here.

Plenty big, and so wide that I don't absolutely need a shawl pin because I can tie the ends together in front, it is so light I hardly notice it's there! I think I need to bust out my little black dress and my push-up bra and have Cole take me to The Pearl for cocktails.

Or I can just rock the babuschka look. ;)

Tags: handspun, knitting, bamboo