Trip to Cambridge

Earlier this week we drove down to Cambridge with daughter to check out her preferred university course. If she gets in she will need a push bike like the one in the picture with a big enough basket to carry all her library books.  How do you like that courtyard building for the just the English department?  I loved their library and I could see me spending hours working in there but I think she liked the other libraries this campus had just as much as well so is likely to be spoiled for choice.

It is day two of the tour de fleece here and so far I have done another four bobbins of the Mocha Blue Face Leicester. So I currently have plied yarn which has been twacked outside in the sun do some finishing off drying with weights.

The lovely weather yesterday also allowed me to get a shawl that I made in January blocked.  I know, I know but we have a shortage of space and waiting for days and days to dry is just not a feasible option for me. Between the cat, the dog, children and the husband something would happen.  So here we are with my Zertzerta shawl project.

Zertzerta

This shawl is made out of first attempt to spin a lace or lighter weight yarn. It goes from cobweb to light fingering in places but I am getting better at doing finer weight yarns. I just need more practice aka the tour de fleece for a period of consistent practice.  The pattern is Hauni and I can not believe how quick it was to knit the second time around.  The first time took me something like a month to six weeks of grief.  This time I did it in 2 days.  If I had more yarn I would have made a larger shawl and I really like how I got the graduated colour on the bottom leaves. It was really worth doing all the individual pins for the crochet bottom edge.  A pain on the fingers but I like the edge effect.

Daughter again modelled this shawl for me and she is doing the typical behaviour when she likes my project of I WANT.  I want it. Repeat, wash and rinse and you now know what is like to live with a teenager it is a bit like a broken record.

Yes the garden is getting rampant again but I hopefully will have some kids to help wack it back into submission soon. Daughter has 3 more days of school next week and then her brother gets off two weeks later.

Since this is not the only shawl in the cupboard that need blocking I am off to block another one or two. I do have to do a few more shawls in the next couple of weeks for graduation pressies so I am between a rock and hard place with time commitments so I can see some midnight oil being burnt knitting or spinning like the clappers.  Now I just have to make a choice about shawl patterns.  I think repeats of patterns I have done before is the way to go but it is a case of which ones.