plurkcraft april11, originally uploaded by trillium knits.

I wore my finished sideways aran all weekend. I love love love it. I think I need to score some more of this yarn. After hiking for miles in the thing, it hasn't even so much as pilled under the arms.

The yarn is Rustic 8 ply from Bendigo Woolen Mills in Australia. I bought it a few years back along with the yarn for another sweater for my Grandma (who was from Australia.)

For a while the exchange rate was so bad that I didn't anticipate buying from them any time soon, but it's much better the last time I checked, and this yarn is just something pretty special so I see another purchase from them in the near future.

On Thursday I cast on a new shawl. Shipwreck from the latest Knitty. What a fun and gorgeous shawl! All the pattern repeats are short so it just zooooms along.

I'm knitting it in Dream in Color Starry in Black Pearl. This is the normal DIC superwash wool base with the addition of little strands of silver and it's just gorgeous. This will be my first beaded shawl and I'm hoping the stringing of 5000 beads doesn't take as long as I'm anticipating. Progress shots and more details to come!