Weekend Knitting and Spinning Update

First I must show you my favorite "quick knit" shawl pattern - and a free one at that. The Easy Triangle Shawl by Lion Brand is the best, fastest, and most treasured shawl pattern I own. So I must share it with you. I made one this weekend for Aunt Eve.

Started it on Thursday night, had very little knitting time and still managed to finish it by Sunday. I've made this shawl in as little as 24 hours. Size 13 needles. Chunky yarn. This particular yarn is my favorite "go to" quick shawl yarn called James G. Brett Marble yarn in the colorway "Berries." Berries yarn has luscious shades of dark red, orange, pink - variegated acryllic yarn that cost $12 for nearly 400 yards. You just can't beat it for price, washability and softness.

My mother-in-law, Sylvia loved reds in all shades and so I made one of these shawls. Last weekend when I was in St. Louis, her sister, Eve, wanted one too, so I made her this one this weekend. Whenever she misses her sister, hopefully she can wear it and remember the closeness they shared.


Another relaxing thing I did - spin on my wheel. Yay! Very therapeutic. I originally intended to make the Oatmeal sweater out of a light Shetland brown yarn that was very soft and nice, but the color was rather bland and I didn't like the way it was coming out. So I went to Yarn Barn and bought some really nice roving in an unusual batt of browns, greens, and even some orangish red. It looked like "carrot cake" which happened to be the name of the roving. So by spinning it in 3 ply - using 2 singles of the Shetland Brown and 1 single of the Carrot Cake, I came out with a very nice brown tweedy yarn that I like much better than the plain old boring brown. So I have finally arrived at the yarn I will use for my cardigan - now I just need to spin up about 1000 yards or so of it before Ravelympics starts on February 12th.