When I first started spinning I vaguely knew that someday I was going to knit and weave with the yarns that I was making. I hadn’t made any specific plans though, as I did not then know how to knit and the loom I had was broken.
So after being asked many times, “What are you going to make?”
I decided to make a shawl that I had found in “The Best of Knitter’s Magazine Shawls and Scarves.” The name of the shawl is “Faroese-style lace”. This was the beginning of my love for knitted lace.
I think I un-knitted about as many rows as I knitted the first couple of months. But I loved making it and knowing that it was yarn that I had processed from the lambs born in the spring, to the fall shearing, then washing, carding, spinning, knitting and FINALLY wearing!
Mom took all these pictures on Christmas day out on Grandma’s deck.
But we had a little hiccup in there…MOTHS! Yup they found my shawl sometime after I finished knitting it and before I had had a chance to wash and block it properly. (Which I think was about a year.) The little bugs ate holes in my beautiful shawl before I realized they had struck. So, I got rid of the moths and set the shawl aside to try repairing when I had time.
Another year or so passed and I was having a spin-in at my house when upon showing the shawl to some of the ladies, Carolyn (who is a Master Knitter) told me that my assignment was to fix it before the MCC (Mankato Children’s Chorus) winter concert which was about 4 weeks away.
This was one of the worst holes and took me the longest to fix. I forgot to take an after pic.
I found four holes when I started to repair the shawl. After fixing those I washed it and blocked it out. I rinsed it with lavender oil in the water to keep the moths away before I blocked it. If you look closely at the pic below you can see what I found while blocking it, Yes more holes! By the time I was done I had repaired a total of seven holes.
Here is the shawl being blocked (above),
And a close up when it was all done. (below)
I am very happy with the end result of this first shawl and now that I have it done, I hope to wear it for many years.
The Shepherdess
) 
) I will lengthen it to my dress length, and possibly flare the skirt out a little bit more to give more walking room. Or if the fabric doesn’t allow for flaring it out I will put a small slit in the back.