a big ol' tangle of mohair

So, I'm on the list to knit a mohair shawl.
Here's my prep work, thus far:

Some time last year, my friend K gave me a huge pile of mohair:





And yesterday I spent most of my time turning that pile into this:









These colors are not normally one's that I'd consider to be "mine," but I've had these skeins hanging on my studio wall for what feels like a year now, and I've actually really learned to love the two of them together. I've considerred dyeing either one or both, but I think I'm just going to go ahead and knit them up as they are. My plan is to do the lace panel in the reddish color and the larger stockinette panel in the orange.

While winding the yarn, I did a little measuring and weighing, and by my best guess, I've probably got about 860yds of each. This means I could possibly run short on the orange. Maybe. I have still have to work up the swatch and see what's going on. I started fiddling with swatches yesterday and to get the drape I want with this yarn I probably going to be on needles much larger than what the pattern calls for. My next step is to decide on my needles, see how much yarn it took to knit the swatch, and then do some more algebra to see if I have enough yarn to finish the thing. You'd think from looking at the pile sitting on that table that I have plenty, but I sure would hate to find out later that I don't.

K has more of these skeins lying around (a family member brought her back huge bags of it from China), and has offered another contribution, but it might be a different color. So maybe my ruffle border will end up being a third color? Who knows. Stay tuned.