Qiviut Lace and Adventures in Boucle!

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Whew, now that I got that out of my system! I'm super excited. I finally completed the qiviut lace scarf I have been working on. I blocked it and everything! As it turns out, qiviut single-ply doesn't have the memory that I might like, so rewetting the scarf undid some of the work, but the person to whom it belongs will not be repinning it every time he needs to wash it. Without further ado, pictures!!

Laid out on a chair.



Another chair angle! But, very crooked.


Working on blocking the scarf. For the record, this was my first lace project, my first blocking, and so there you have it. If you've never blocked before, it's much easier to do it once, instead of pinning and unpinning and repinning. So, here's a good(ish) way to do it:

1. Lay some straight lines out for yourself.
2. Use a marked board, or measure constantly as you go along to ensure the width is consistent.
3. Pin down one end and work your way toward the other (evenly on both sides).
4. ???
5. Profit!

Okay, kidding about the last two (I hope that joke wasn't lost competely). But I did none of the first three, and I should have. It would have made my life a lot easier.

So, more pictures:


All pinned down and waiting to dry.


Me wearing the scarf in one of many ways. Please excuse the mess -- we're packing everything up for the big move!


It ended up being approximately 7.5" X 70" after blocking. In the pictures, you can see that the weave is SUPER spread out, even for lace, but it's qiviut, and as such, it's PLENTY warm even that way. I've already decided that I am making myself a scarf similar to this one (different pattern for sure though) with my qiviut / black bear / dog hair batt.



Oh, and the boucle:



I'll dye it later, but I already packed my dyes. It's a mohair single plied with a commercial acrylic plied with a cotton thread as a binder. I can't decide if I like it or not, but it was a good first attempt.


I've also been working on making some stitch markers:


This isn't actually as good of a picture as I wanted to post here but I'm too lazy to fix it right now. These are punky stitch markers, good up to US size 4, with rainbow beats attached. I like them a lot. I am making other sets.

Also, did I post pictures of my two batts here? I finally gave in and rented the electric drum carder at my LYS a time or two and craked out a couple of fun batts.


"Trout Fishing"


"Autumn Rain"


You can see the batts in either my Etsy or my Artfire stores. The stitch markers have yet to be listed, and the scarf is obviously for someone (which is actually only obvious if you've read previous posts).

Anyway, hope this was a good update! I have bored hands and very little with which to fill them. Maybe I'll drag out some fiber...I just hate to since everything is packed up already!