My First Attempt at Knitting Lace

When I knit stuff with my handspun yarn I don't usually follow any kind of a pattern because it just seems like too much effort to figure out how to get the two into sync. That means I've never relly tried any knitting that is very complicated- or interesting.  So, I decided I wanted to try following some kind of a pattern and I decided on a lace pattern for a scarf I saw in a book.  I had one ounce of Tussah silk and one ounce of soft merino wool.  I tried to spin them as fine as I could and then plied them together. 

Tussah Silk

Spun Silk

Spun Merino Wool

Silk and Merino Plied

The silk is shiny and the wool is more matte. 

After I was done spinning my two ounces of fiber together (that's not much!) I decided I wanted to dye it.  I ordered some commercial synthetic dyes online and mixed up two colors to come up with this teal color.  

I let one half of the skein soak in the dye for awhile before I put the rest in to give the yarn a little bit of a variegation in the color.  

It came out a nice color... and I started to knit.  I of course had to change the pattern because I knew I didn't have enough yarn to make the scarf as wide as the pattern indicated.  :P

I enjoyed knitting the lace pattern, but I usually had to wait until the kids were busy to work on it, because I have trouble counting stitches and carrying on a conversation at the same time (you know how kids are with their out-of-this-world questions when you are trying to concentrate on something)!

Levi wanted to take a picture of me knitting, so here it is :)

This is what it looks like.  As you can see it didn't turn out overly "lacy", so I probably should have spun my yarn even thinner.  Live and learn! It is soft and not itchy at all and it matches my eyes, so I guess it turned out satisfactory for what I put into it.