Day 29 ~ Purchased

The pattern to make this shawl was my purchase on Wednesday. I found it on Pinterest.com first and then went to Ravelry.com to look at it in further detail. I think I will make it in some of my handspun yarns as I have 4 different shades of yarn I can work with.

Day 13 ~ From a Distance

Here's yesterday's shawl from a distance.

Day 12 ~ Close Up

Here is my mohair hand spun on my Thurmaston Suitcase Spinning Wheel and then I hand knit this shawl. I made it this summer as part of the Ravelry Ravellenic Games which is a fun competition associated with watching the Summer Olympics. It is now ready for it's close up...

Day 10 ~ Something I Made

I have many things that can compete here. I chose this yarn that I spun as it's such a lovely colour.

Day 9 ~ Faceless Self-Portrait

Hmmm, how to convey me in a self portrait that's faceless? Valiant effort on my behalf, if I do say so...

Leap Day

I have been making art, but I haven't gotten it photographed. Too much else is going on in my life of course.

Altered Art Journal project is going well. Three two page spreads, got done. One was for Ash Wednesday, not sure if I will share it publicly, as it's verra sad.

I made a wee shawl for a friend to give to his wife for her birthday. Made from a lovely hand dyed alpaca. I need to get more of it and make something for myself.

I have also made 10 hats for charity. I also figured out what lace pattern I wanted to use for Angelique's sweater and am now merrily knitting along.

#99 of 365 - Big Shawl to Be

So, yesterday I frogged a shawl that wasn't growing to my satisfaction. It was a simple triangle in Stocking Stitch, made be increasing at the beginning and end of every row, but I could see that it would be dragging the floor before it was a wide as I wanted it to be. I had been more and more getting to the point of decision, press on or frog. Frogging won, sigh! No pictures of what it looked like as I neglected that part. Oh well.

After my daily perusal of the blogs I read on a regular basis, I discovered the Mini Weaver's shawl on my friend, Judy's most recent blog post. I cast on for the new one yesterday. Here was the beginning of it as of last night.



Here I am as of today.

It's all scraps and skeins of these two yarns with some mystery yarns thrown in. The two yarns are Reynold's Lopi and Brown Sheep's LambSpun. They are blending together quite nicely. The weight and the shape of this shawl will make me very happy next winter.

This is a replacement big warm shawl for me, as Erin is taking the fringed triangle shawl (which is currently living with Rebecca) with her when she moves to England. It was made from the remainders of some Manos from projects of my dear departed Mum and therefore is sort of a family heirloom now.

#81 of 365 - Heaven Is Spring Green

Here is a full view of the 198 Yards of Heaven in the lovely Spring Green handspun I received as part of the Saint Patrick's Day swamp. I used every inch of the yarn I received and 9 inches of my own handspun to finish the cast off. I could have tinked back a row and cast off earlier, but I wanted to used ALL of this yarn and I had a handspun of my own in the approximate green.

#78 of 365 - Two More Join the Pile

I finished another 198 yards of Heaven yesterday. This one is in a lovely variegated light green hand spun I got in the most recent Saint Patrick's Day swamp.

I also finished, FINALLY, my Citron, such as it is. I had a hard time with the instructions on this on. So this is my take on it. It hasn't been blocked yet but it's size it is more like a scarf than a shoulder cover. I also made the last ruffle really, really ruffled.



Again, it sucks getting old. Rebecca had trouble with the 198 and I had trouble with the Citron. I guess either we are tripping down Old Timers Lane together or some knitting instructions could be better written.

#76 of 365 - We Was Pretty in Pink

Today I went to Rebecca's house to felt the comet bag I have been making for her. She has a top loader and I don't. Top loader are supposedly better for felting knitted items. Besides, I was letting her washer fill up with the lint, not mine, LOL... Actually, we put the item in a zippered pillow slip for the felting process. It surely contain a great quantity of the fluff inherent in the process, I must say. Here's a photo of me, seaming the bag prior to washing it. Hopefully Rebecca will read this and get a photo of the bag which is now pinned down to her carpet and drying.

As a general rule, knitted wool tends to reduce by 30 plus percent in length and about 10 plus percent in width. We got the 30 percent but not the 10, so Rebecca is going to cut off a section and make a clutch from the remainder as she wants a messenger bag not an over-night bag. Most of my felted experiments are by guess and by golly, but so far there has been only one fail in the felting department and that was a piece that just never felted to it's own company specifications.

Whilst we waited for the washer to do it's thing, Rebecca gave me a gift of her musical talent. Basically, my own private concert, how kewl is that?

Bleah, I have cropped this photo twice, but it still didn't take, so you get to see a corner of the shawl that Rebecca is borrowing from me. It's a basic bottom up triangle in garter stitch on large needles, done in 4-5 colourways of Manos de Uraguay yarn that was left over from some of my Mum's projects. It's post over on Facebook in the Garden of the Gods Album, if you want to see it and the one that Rebecca was wearing for that photo as well.

In reference to the title, again great minds think alike as both of us had pink on today.

#62 0f 365 - and Another One Done Redux

This post is about a number of things.

Among them are Deborah's finished Skully Blanky for
one of her grandsons. Kewl blanky and
very kewl granny that made it. If you look closely you will see the illusion skull and crossbones she borrowed from Ysolda Teague.





I also found the heavier weight yarn to make the kilt hose for my Da to wear with his kilt. He plans to wear the kilt and hose for the DD's wedding next fall. They will likely look something similar to these. I will do the foot part in a fingering weight and the cabled part in a sport weight to make them really comfy and so the cables stand out. I was ecstatic to find two blacks that matched in two different weights and that are both washable. Woot!

This shawl is done! but for the blocking that is. With all the yarns (5 different ones), including a cotton chenille, the drying process for this will take at least two days, so you'll have to wait for the finished picture. Again, this is a 198 Yards of Heaven. This one done on big needles and I made some changes to the last lace section, because I could, LOL.

#61 of 365 - and Another One Done

I started and finished 198 Yards of Heaven. So called as the pattern is suppose to use less than 200 yards of yarn. I knit this one with the remainder of the yarn from the Yvaine Meets Ishbel that I finished the day before yesterday.

I had only about 5 feet of yarn left after casting off, it was that close...

Here's the obligatory photo of a part of me, pinning out a point in the lace.

I have already cast on for another one, this time on big needles with 5 strands of yarn held together. The yarns are the VERY last of the stash I had from my Mum's Needlework Shop. They are comprised of a silk and wool, a cotton chenille, a cotton with a metallic wrap and a slubby mohair. The only change I will make to the pattern is on the edging lace motif. I will stocking stitch the points instead of doing them, as the pattern states, in garter stitch.

#60 of 365 - Another One Done

Finished up Yvaine Meets Ishbel yesterday. I used the shaping from Ishbel which is a 3 garter stitch edge with a yarn over (YO) then pattern to the center, then a YO, stitch, YO, then pattern again to edge and repeat the first 4 stitches. I used the Yvaine pattern for the idea of the garter stitch sections.



I also used, believe it or no, MATH. Each section was done with Fibonacci Sequencing. The stocking stitch section added by twice and the garter sections added by twice as well. As in 1, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, etc.


This was made for the DD's wedding. I will likely need the warmth of it, since the wedding is in October, in the UK, on the Channel... I am wearing Citrine Yellow silk with brown accessories, so this is perfect to go with. Erin gave me the yarn in my stocking for Christmas, so I used up stash as well. I am making this shawlette with the remainder of the yarn as it requires slightly under 200 yards and that's about what I have left of the yarn after making the big shawl.

#50 of 365 - Then and Now

I got this far yesterday. Along the way, I discovered that my stitch count was way off. So I FROGGED IT (rip it, rip it)! Sigh! I also thought I should, maybe, be using a bigger needle size as well. This is the pattern from Knitty.It is called Citron.

I am doing it as an orange slice as oppose to a lime slice which is the colour of the original shawlette. I am, therefore, calling this one, Orange Zest. Again, my thanks to Rebecca for de-stashing the oranges I will be using to make this little shawlette.

Now, I am at this point on the bigger needles and I like the way that is working out. I have just gotten to the section that was giving me fits yesterday, we shall see what we shall see. More shall be revealed, as I am so fond of saying...

#47a of 365 - New Works, What A Concept

Here are the latest in the New Works Department. I rather think that you have had enough of the Thoughts for awhile. Although you are still going to get some thoughts.


This is my Feather and Fan Shawl in a single ply of handspun. Technically, it's a shawlette and I rather think that I will wear it as a neck scarf more than any other way. Yes, it is pretty in pink! What you get see is what you get when you help someone else de-stash their yarns and then use them. It is an experimental shawl anyway, to see what happens when you knit a single ply of yarn for a lace type shawl. I have an idea in mind for some of my own handspun, so this was a process knit... Process knitting is basically for the pleasure of knitting and learning something new.




This is Jenna's Mini-Multnomah. It's done in handspun as well, Although it's a two- ply with very short yardage. It took every inch there was of the one skein of pink and the two skeins of multi-coloured. The cool part is it is going to be exactly the perfect size for Our Wee Jenna. Multnomah is a free pattern from Ravelry.

#40 of 365 - Big Purple or Otherwise Known as the Moonlit Birch

It's done and it's big. It's light-weight, warm and fuzzy and I love it a lot. I like the Birch pattern from Rowan well enough that I think I will do it to gauge in another yarn as a Super Secret Surprise for Someone... The pattern is available for free over on Ravelry, just search for Birch by Sharon Miller. This one was knit from the top down which I hadn't done on a BIG shawl before, so it was about the process more than anything. When I have someone to take a proper picture, I will show you just how big it really is...

# 29 of 365 - Shawlettes, I Have Many

This is me at SnB at Knitter's Kove last year in my silly little green shawlette that I get SO many compliments on. I think the whole thing cost me about 6.00 to knit as the 3 skeins of the green wool/mohair blend were on clearance at Michael's aeons ago along with the fun fur and ladder yarn that I did the edge in. I own a number of these as they are handy as scarves in the winter as well as shoulder covering in chilly houses. One of them, I even spun the singles, plied the singles and knitted up the resulting yarn. About the only thing I didn't do was dye the yarn myself. Here's a picture of the beginning of the project and my yarn.



These are pictures of Deborah and Rebecca, my friends that I made at the SnB. Deborah was here this morning whilst biding time til she picked up her grandson. She was also wearing a very kewl knitted cowl, which I may have to knit too. The other picture is our Rebecca in one of her infamous Doofy Hats. She's the reason I post a picture a day, so you can blame her as it's all her fault.

Another Hat that I Wear - #12 of 365

I am pretty well known for the fact that I wear hats. If I don't have one on, frequently people who have known me for years don't recognize me. I look for hats everywhere and have bought them everywhere from Nordstrom's and the ARC. The blue bowler in my Blogger Profile is from Nordy's and this brown one is the latest addition to my collection, which I found at the ARC.


I am still knitting away on the Shawls for 10 Shawls in 2010.

However, I frogged the original #2 (the Lacy Prairie from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Shawls in LBY Fisherman's Wool) and started it anew. I also started a cotton lace stole from a leaflet I got at Michael's. I did, as is fairly usual, amend the pattern to add an extra repeat so the stole is a bit wider. It's being knitted from Sugar and Cream Confectionary in the Plum Pudding colourway. It's a worsted weight yarn but done in the lace pattern, it will make it loose and light-weight. The lace pattern is an eight row repeat on fairly large needles, so it's a pretty mindless knit.

I also took delivery of two skeins of Cherry Tree Hill Misty Moor sock yarn yesterday for one of the 10. Though, I keep changing my mind about which shawl it's going to be. More shall be revealed.