Introducing Team Chaos!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone!
Welcome to Team Chaos! and we hope to live through this summer adventure.

Let's introduce the members:

• The Rose of England (ROE): She is British, and has been giving me a bit of the stiff upper lip. The pattern is from The Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting. And the end dimension aim is for 7oish". Yarn: unknown make as I picked up the cone of 2ply laceweight wool at a Local Knitting Guild Stash Bash for $5.00. It is a lovely shade of lavender. We are now officially on V4.0 of ROE, as we have gone through changes in needle size, dropped stitches, and the horrid experience of the lifeline that broke. Who knew that could happen? *shrug*

NOTE: The pictures of completed ROE are from members of the yahoo Folk Shawls group.

Now for the rest of the team. To pick just who would be on the team in case ROE and myself have a temperary falling out, I have picked the lace in my Frog Pond. I think the Pond is starting to become a BOG it's so crowded with over growth!

• Meet Muffy! She is from Oat Couture, Spiral Petal shawl. We met at last year's Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. I choose her because she reminds me of a Lotus Blossom. Thought she would make a wonderful meditation shawl for myself.

I couldn't leave well enough alone, I got creative with the yarn. The pattern asked for only bulky weight mohair. I chose some mohair/acrylic blend I bought off a fellow knitter in the area. 2 skeins each the largest balls of mahair you have ever seen! on the left hand side you can kinda see the ball that hasn't been used yet. The color is reddish, pink, burgundy. I am also carrying with it, Red Heart in Cranberry. It was the best color match i could find. Thought it would give body. haha!So I now have a shawl at least 75% done that weighes alot.

How did the beautiful Muffy end up in the frog pond? Denise Needles. I was connecting all my cabled together reather than buying the newer long sizes. the sheer weight did it in. While at SnB, she gracefully slide from the needles and floated onto the floor. So there I was on the floor of Border's Bookstore Cafe picking up any stitches I could see, of course this happened on a pattern row so there were yo's involved.

It is Muffy time to become a FO! She deserves it

Note: Picture is from Oat Couture's website of the finished item

• Next up: The Lacey Prairie shawl!

What we have here is a miscount within the pattern repeat that only happens within the first 20 or so stitches of any row having 200 or more stitches. Thinking I was going to one day unknit all the way back, it is still a UFO.

There is also another dialema: I've learned that varigated yarn, even when it is of one color does not do any justice to lace. Yes that is a lace shawl in that picture! Also I am a tight knitter, I went up in needle size. Being more experienced now, I think the pattern needs to be on even larger needles. Do I just finish it and have done with it? Or Rip and start over? Or ***Drum Roll***completely rip and use the yarn for something else? Don't be shy, give me your opinion!!!That's what the comment section is for!!!

Well, here am I being the smart ass that I am, modeling with ROE V3.0. Known by many names as I seem to have a personality that makes people want to nickname me. Currently sticking with Jennifer and Pumpkinhead, either one is good!

Was in a hurry to get the pictures done and posted, hence me playing with the bellybutton start of the shawl! lol! Ever elusive, not liking my picture taken. This will be a very challendging event for me. as you can see i have a lot of ufo's around, and am currently matching wits with ROE. If you look at some of the pictures you will notice that crowding the background seem to be books. I felt they needed to be in there as they will be traveling with the team. You might consider them part of Team Chaos! I am currently starting the 3rd week of a 10 week summer semester of college and carrying a load of 13 credits!

With almost everyone introduced, I would like to sign off at this time. Hope everyone is rearing to go! Can you please remember to check on me every so often to see if I'm alive with all this yarn and textbooks while having pointy sticks easily availible.

Jennifer

The Amazing lace

Well, I'm so behind in setting up this blog for the Amazing lace. I need to be able to post some pictures of the team. Luckily I seem to have a village behind me waiting to help out on us doing a more relay team approuch. i have gone through all my stash, and:

• pulled the Folk shawls still on needles (I know! Shame on me! i'm only the yagoogroup owner!) How many years of pergatory is that in Knitter's hell?

  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/folkshawls/

• any remainding yarn I could find to go with them.
• Placed the folk Shawls books in the bag.
• There is currently the Lacey prairie shawl....so close to being finished! but one miscount and it went to the frog pond, it's been there so long the frog's made a nest out of it!. My dilemma.....my skills as a knitter have increased since i had originally started this shawl. so I see the faults it contains. I used reynold's Signature yarn. worsted weight. To my now abit more experienced eyes, i see that i could of gone higher in the needle size. Also the color of the yarn is a variegated of various shades of purple. This takes/distracts from the lace pattern. What element is more important? The colors of the yarn? or the stitch pattern that is a bit on the tight side.

What's your opinion I would love to know! Do I rip a shawl that is over 50% done and reuse the yarn? Keep going to just say i did it. Strike it up as a learning experience.

• Next shawl in the magic bag: the kimono shawl. I think. will have to take a closer look later to just make sure. This one had me cast on a zillion stitches. I was on the border in the beginning when I stopped for some reason. I must of made a mistake in the sequence of increase/decrease and ended the row with a miscount. Thus the crowded frog pond it went. Now for this one, you will be able to see a bit of my renegade spirit. Something to possess me to combine cobwed weight yarns together. 3 yarns each on the same section of the color wheel, yet still completely different. Together they created the most stunning color.

When I officially introduce each of the teammembers i will show the yarns.