Did I mention it's a mohair blend? Being a bit on the wool-sensitive side, trace amounts of very fine mohair is the closest I've ever come to actually doing anything with the stuff. And I have a question for the girls and boys that work with mohair regularly:
How do you do this without going insane?I mean, it's light, it's feathery, yadda yadda, but it sticks to EVERYTHING. Itself. My hair. My imaginary cat. EVERYTHING. The sheer amount of dust-bunnies I discovered accidentally by dropping it on the floor - they must have run top speed from under the way-far-back corner of the couch... I can just hear the Dust-Bunny General: "Look! It's MOHAIR! Get it, boys!" Every bit of fluff from every color I've worn since I started it has managed to tangle itself into the fibers. (The blues and greens can stay, but the bright red and hot pink have to go.) There's no gentle way to detach the mohair from its little prizes, either... fortunately, I've figured out that it's pretty strong stuff. And persistent. Really, really persistent. If I had an actual cat, said cat would now be lost somewhere between the beads of the 19th and 23rd rows. The sheer fiber-magnetism this "mohair" stuff exhibits is, as I stated, maddening.
And yet... it's worth it somehow. It's soooooo soft, and soooooo light and fluffy, even weighted down with a tube and a half of beads. (I'm so running out of beads, I just know it. Thankfully, there's time for one last trip to Joy of Beading at lunch.)
Now, the pics...
Note my lovely hot-pink lap desk/bead tray my husband just got me.
Mostly so I'd C&D about how hard it was to bead on the couch.
The obligatory close-up.
This is the last row before I start the "peacocky" bits at the "end" of the feathers.
(You know what I mean. The Eyes-of-Hera bits.)
Now, about the next ten days: I won't be a work, so my uploads may not be precisely to schedule - more "hey, I've got something to show you" rather than "oook, it's a weekday, must post!". Expected photo ops include the Secret of the Stole play-by-play how-to (if I can figure it out, and get pictures of how, then probably everyone else will already be ahead of me, but just in case...), my first trip to Sweetwater Knitters on Thursday, Stitches East on Friday, the Small Press Expo (There will be knitters. Lots of comic artists knit.), the SISMG hayride-trip on Sunday, and then a week of Home Improvements and Knitting. I'm expecting the better pictures will come out of this week, just between you and me.
Anyway, I'll be posting again eventually, probably before the end of the week.
Rah!
Mohair is evil stuff. I'm attempting to knit with it at the moment and it's driving me nuts. The fibres that fly off it and attach themselves everywhere! aaarrrgh.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful stuff though, even if it is evil LOL.
Peacock looks gorgeous.
If it's a tradeoff between sanity and a "look at me! look at me! I'm GORGEOUS!" project, I'd say you're getting the better end of the deal. Stock up on extra heavy-duty lint rollers, and, uh, laissez les bon temps rouler.
ReplyDeleteI love what you've done so far with the peacock scarf. It's beautiful and the beads really set it off.
What a lovely project--but I think you definitely have room on your plate for another one (Swallowtail Shawl, from Fall 2006 IK). You asked about it, and I (being a reference librarian) had to answer. It's not too big, and it's definitely beautiful...tempt, tempt, tempt. :-)
ReplyDelete