I have finished Icarus! I am so amazed at what the blocking does for the whole process. So is my husband – he just couldn’t see how my big lump of knitting was going to look anything like the photo in the magazine.
I made this for my mom’s birthday, which is today, and I completed it Tues, blocked it Tues, and got it in the mail overnight to her yesterday.
Here is the shawl (no it isn’t huge – it is being modeled by my 8YO DD). I added beads to the edging, like many other people – Thanks Miriam for the directions on how to do this!
I started this project on June 26, and finished on Aug 15. I have to admit I neglected my family as much as they would let me during this last week, and I definitely neglected my house. I used a 80/20 Mohair/Nylon yarn by Filatura Di Crosa in a dark red. It turned out to look great, but was very hard to fix problems because it was so fuzzy and didn’t frog very well.
I am hoping someday to make another one of these for myself. Someday…
I started working on the epic that is my husband’s sweater, I knit about three rows, then decided to measure guage, and boy was it off. So I frogged the 10 or so inches that I had knit of the back. …A little back ground…I made this sweater for my husband 3.5 years ago (at his request), and it was huge. I don’t know if my guage was off, or if he just chose the wrong size, or both (most likely) but it would maybe have fit a 300 lb man, and my husband is only 200 lbs. I spent a year working on this sweater, spent $100 in yarn.
My husband tried to wear it, but finally gave up with instructions to either give it away, or throw it out. I couldn’t do this, so I tried washing it in hot and drying it. I did not know about felting at this point, and the yarn must be superwash, because it didn’t felt. So I frogged the whole thing – I think it was about 23 balls of yarn originally. I started again. I used the same needles, assuming I had guage, because I had the first time (supposedly). Obviously I didn’t.
I now need to decide what to do. The yarn has all the squiggles in it from having remained in a knitted state for so long, and through a wash and dry. I can’t decide whether to wind it into skeins, wet it and dry it with weights so the squiggles will go out, or just to junk the whole thing. I talked to DH last night about it, and he just said “Forget It”. I think he has given up on me and the sweater. Oh well, I’m going to knit a baby blanket in the mean time and stew on this issue.
It’s beautiful! Love the red color and the beads are a nice finish.
I remember one time reading about using a coat hanger to help uncrimp yarn. I am hoping to do the same thing with the first sweater I knitted in the freakin seventies. I don’t even know why I kept it but there you have it. Something about bending the coat hanger so the yarn can be stretched across it-maybe a spritz or two or three. Well! this certainly is a very long winded comment!
And the shawl is stunnning:)
Wet it, yes, give it a good soak, but for goodness’ sake don’t put weights on it or you’ll just stretch it. Get it into hanks, tie the hanks at intervals so that they don’t get tied into knots, soak for 10 minutes or so, then lift out and blot thoroughly with towels. Don’t rub or squeeze. Lay flat or on an airer to dry. When throughly dry, wind into balls. You don’t want to stretch it at any stage because it may shorten again after you’ve knitted it and you don’t want to do that, do you?
Then knit as usual, but this time do a gauge swatch. My aunties used to do this all the time, but you can also see it at http://www.az.com/~andrade/knit/thrifty.html who has pictures too.
Your Icarus looks beautiful. I’m planning to do one sometime soon: I don’t think I’ll have the patience for the beads but when I see how good they look, I’m tempted.
OR, loosely wind the warn onto wire coat hangers. Put a large pot of water on to boil. Lay the hangerful of wrinkly yarn over the boiling water until the yarn relaxes. I don’t let it rest on the kettle, but hold it up just baarely. The steam unwrinkles without soaking the yarn so that it takes for-ever to dry. If the children won’t eat it, just place the hangers on door knobs to dry thoroughly after steaming. Rewind into balls over your fingers. Start over two fingers, as you change direction of winding, add another finger under the yarn being wound until you are winding over your whole hand. The yarn will stay squishy but hold together in the ball. Whew! I am such a chatterbox! 8^)
Your Icarus is gorgeous! I have a huge hank of bright red laceweight that I was thinking of using for my own, but I was worried it might be too bright. Now I can see that a bright color looks great! Love the beading, too.
The Icarus is terrific. I spend a lot of time frogging but I will persevere and finish it someday. The yarn that is in a squiggle, wrap it in loose hanks, soak for about 45 minutes, remove, hang from hangars and let it drip dry. It takes Reynolds Candide about 5 days to get totally dry but the squiggles do go away from the water weight. The sweater I frogged and did this process had been laying for about 5 years and right now it is almost done. No yarn waste.