First Shawl Finished.....Hooray!

Wow, I can't believe it has been so long since I posted. I have been so busy here at Emerald Hill. As you know I have been working on 2 shawls and last Friday I finally finished one. I love it. I blocked it yesterday outside in the warm breeze. It wasn't very comfortable standing out there in the glaring sun but I just had to get it done so I could post pictures. The pattern I used is the Mohana shawl by Monika Steinbauer. I did change the edging though because I couldn't quite understand how to do the picot edge so I added a couple of rows of my own and then did a crochet bind off. I like how it came out. I don't believe I will ever be able to get the color the same. It was a dye experience.

The past week I have been out almost daily picking the wild blackberries in the yard and then cooking with them so I haven't had a lot of time to knit on the pie shawl. I have never seen this amount of fruit in my yard. The vines are growing everywhere. I have made jam, pies and muffins. Today I will make jelly from just the juice of the berries. I can't eat berries with the seeds so this batch is for me. After extracting the juice from the blackberries and storing it in the fridge for my jelly making I added some water and vinegar to what was left in the pan and then some wool to see if it would dye the wool. I heated it and then left it overnight. Unfortunatley most of the color stayed in the water and the wool was a very very light raspberry. Maybe if I had added more juice it would have taken better but I think I would rather have the jelly. I started washing fiber again and it is now sitting in tubs in the kitchen. I sure do keep busy but somehow I always manage to find time to knit. Anne

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