Sunday 2 May 2010

The Shawl of a Gazillion Stitches begins with a Single Repeat

The war on moths continues.  I haven't seen any of the flying devils since last week but I understand from my research that you can't let your guard down.  About 90% of my stash was already in zip lock bags, this scare means now all of it is. Food has been banished from my little freezer - to make room for the yarn.  Each bag is being frozen for 3 days - it'll take a while to get through all of it!

In more positive news I've finished the first repeat of the centre of the Wedding Ring Shawl.


I was quite chuffed until I did the foolish thing of calculating the total number of stitches in the shawl.


My rough math says it's over 313,000 stitches.  So, my first repeat (16,926 stitches) is about 5% of the total shawl.

Phew.



I'm knitting the shawl with a cashmere silk blend gossamer yarn that is thread-like thin from Heirloom Knitting.  It's gorgeously soft and my only (slight) quibble is that it is a bit splitty sometimes.  I was amazed that yarn that thin could split - but it can!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is my understanding that you have to freeze the little fellows [& potential offspring], then let them thaw, and then freeze them again. I learned this from a very old SpinOff Magazine and I always do it...otherwise the eggs survive.
Beautiful shawl work. All your stuff is lovely. Thank you for sharing.

Yarndancer said...

Beautiful lace!! Thanks for the link to the yarn, I was looking for more lace yarn and wondering where to get it :)

Opal said...

eeps! moths! i'm so sorry to hear of the infestation. so glad to hear it's under control.

the beginnings of the shawl is just ethereal. i love how delicate it looks. :)

Fiona Reynolds said...

Moths!! Argh! The horrible things ruined several favourite dresses a few years ago.

Your lace is stunning.

LittleBerry said...

am glad you seem to have the moths under control... and the wedding ring shawl is looking good, although it's fatal to count stitches!

Sue T. said...

So sorry to hear about the moths. I just came from a workshop with Judith Mackenzie - forget the freezer. Freezing will kill moths but will not kill eggs or larvae (which do the real damage). Within two minutes of coming out of freezing temps, the larvae come out of hibernation and start eating. Only two things that will work: (1) dry cleaning, or (2) pest strips from the feed store placed on top of the fiber in airtight storage so that the vapors sink through the fibers.