Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Help! Oh Please Help!
.
I bought 3 1/2 lbs of wool on ebay. It was supposed to be sport weight, but it's not. It's semi-stiff, semi-hairy, one ply wool; and it's ultra thin. In places, it's as thin as one of my hairs. The thickest sections (where the sheep fleece is spliced together) are less than half the thickness of lace-weight. On average, the "yarn" is the thickness of two human hairs.

I've found numerous patterns for cobweb-weight shetland shawls, but the recommended needle sizes seem HUGE for this super fine wool. I've knitted up a few swatches on 2.5mm or 3mm needles, and it doesn't look right.

So, if any of my readers are knitters... or know knitters... please...
Do I invest 6 months in a shetland shawl on these needles? Or do I buy 1.5mm needles and invest 6 months with them?
I've never completed a lace project in wool. I don't know squat about how blocking makes it all work out. Every one says "trust the pattern", but it's hard, you know?
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4 comments:

achromic said...

hey sharon, my mom is a big time knitter I will tell her that she needs to come over and help you out

7/19/2005 9:27 PM
She Dances in Dragon said...

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I really don't want to get halfway through this project, only to discover that I've been using too-big needles!
(especially because the shawl is destined for a charity auction)

7/19/2005 11:15 PM
Anonymous said...

Contrary to my daughter's comment (but isn't it nice she thinks I know something), I really am a newbie to knitting since i do a lot of baby blankets, but not much else. However, while trying to find natural yarns for chasmyn's baby, I ran across a great site that has information on lace shawls - tips on knitting them, blocking them, etc, and they will also answer questions. This is the link. http://www.morehousefarm.com/Knitting/Tips/LaceYarn/
Hope they can help you. There was also a site somewhere in the UK that had information, and if I can stumble across it again, I'll send that link to you also. Good luck!

7/20/2005 2:50 PM
She Dances in Dragon said...

Jeanette, thank you for coming by. Chasmyn has raved about the blanket.
I've been lusting after this yarn:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8171542921&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

for a while now. Very good prices, for minimally processed wool. Kintpicks has great prices, too. I've decided to use size 0 needles to knit a long strip of lace and see what it looks like after blocking.
Again, thank you for coming by, and thank you for the links!

7/22/2005 3:42 PM

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