Knitter's Delight

Bad weather equals good knitting, in my opinion.  I was the queen of multi-tasking today and I couldn't be happier.

I'd heard rumors and read online about folks who spin without preparing their fiber in advance.  I've never not prepped fiber before and it takes me hours - partly because I feel compelled to watch TV while doing it.   Anyway, I took some BFL I bought from Desert Peach Farm and Fiber and the only thing I did was split the fiber, then spin it up:

I learned that it's not faster with no prep, BUT for me, it made me pay attention.  Paying more attention meant I did a better job of spinning.  My singles aren't over spun (not one corkscrew), the yarn is more even and if this is the end result, I may never prep fiber again.  With the Tour de Fleece coming up (y'all are going to hate me again with nothing but spinning going on for the month of July!) practice makes perfect.

Yesterday, I finished the Cascata shawl and today it's blocking comfortably on the floor in the living room.  I'm happy that I made it in a solid color, but a tone on tone might have been prettier:

All I can show you are the points which were a pain in the neck!  I had to block the neck first because the collar of the shawl is a semi circle and figuring out where to place the blocking pins was a little problematic.  The shawl will make it's debut in about 2 weeks when I can post it as shawl #5 on the 10 Shawls in 2010 on Ravelry.

I finished Presto Chango today - yay! - and it's blocking comfortably on the floor in the living room too:

Buttons haven't yet been picked, but I have a couple of weeks before I have to go into panic mode.  I'm hoping to find the right yellow/green plastic shank buttons someplace, but if not, I'll use wooden ones.

Lastly, Tilia is done and I found her in the bag I took to knitting class.  I wish you could see the color of this shawl, it's lovely.  Schaefer Trenna in the Willa Cather colorway:

The bind off got kind to screwed up because apparently when most folks read instructions that say 'do not turn', they usually follow that direction.  Unless you are me.  I don't know which of the three words confused me, but the end result is that there are no 'points' on my shawl.  Oh well.  Thank goodness there's no knitting inspection officers!

My next mission is to find the perfect yarn for my next shawl in my stash.  I'm all about stash busting, so I guess I'm going to have to do some stash diving.  Wish me luck!