Midsummer...

..not the weather here in the UK that's for sure, but the shawl which was designed as a Mystery Stole Project for May & June this year by the Goddess Knits. I Joined after the 1st clue had been posted and by the time I got my yarn the last clue had been started, so I decided I would leave it for awhile.

Fate had other ideas.... one of our oldest & closest friends, Janet had a little girl back in February and she asked both myself and my husband to be Godparents in September. I decided as I'd bought the yarn in white (intending to dye it myself for this shawl) that I may as well knit the shawl for her christening. I'm not intending the shawl to be a traditional christening shawl, but if her mum wants to use it at the christening that will be nice, but I'd like it to be used as Sarah grows up (both Janet & I are very practical about things)....

Anyway here are the photos and plenty of them...

Blocking on my new mats, thanks for the tip Linda, they're great according to DH, as the pins stay where you put them!!!! As I used smaller needles (DH calculated 10% smaller) we blocked it at a respectable 74" by 40"

Close up's of the various patterns....




and finally the finished shawl.... I actually like it more now than I thought I did, the final edging seemed a bit heavy to me on the pattern but when I see it's lovely..... I am very pleased with it.

Details:

• 4.5mm Knit Picks Options (pattern state 5mm)
  
• 3 x 50g balls of Yarn Treehouse "Classic" fingering weight 100% wool in "Vanilla" (pattern said 250g)
  
  
  
  

Off the needles....

... and onto the blocking mat is Midsummer, even I have surprised myself how quick I've managed to finish this one!!!!!


I'll put up more photos and details after blocking, which may be tonight or it may be tomorrow, who knows, but for now you'll just have to make do with this....

Not Just Lace... Well Today Anyway

These seem to have been on the go awhile now so I was quite relieved when I finished them last night.... they're Opal Hunderwasser "Der Blaue Mond" and they're actually for me :) It'll be a bit before I get a chance to knit myself another pair as I'm starting to plan Christmas socks and I have a pair of knee length socks to knit for a friend in a size 10!!! so I'm going to use the opportunity to have a go at a toe-up pair of socks as featured in IK Summer 07

On another, completely out of the blue front Gilraen nominated me as one of her "Rockin Girl Blogger" nominees for my "lace knitting, extraordinary level!!" I am honoured that you think I am worthy Gilraen of such an accolade. Thank you very much.

I have to say though that my awards for Rockin Girl Bloggers have to go to some serious lace knitters. The following people really do inspire me with their lace knitting exploits, their encouraging words as well as their time they give up to explain things despite having busy lives. Although they live thousands of miles away they have become kindred spirits and friends, so my nominations are:

• fleegle (Harry included if we can entice him out the fridge crisper to collect the award)
• lacefreak
• missalicefaye
• lacemaven

Yarn Pron

I received this in the post today and I just couldn't resist posting a photo of it as it's so beautiful....



It's from the Posh Yarn sale last Sunday. It's Baby Lucia (720yds or 658m in 100g) which is 30% Cashmere & 70% Merino in the colourway "Alien". I'm really not sure what I'm going to use it for but there's 100g there to play with. It was just one of those things I saw it and I kept being drawn back to it to drool over it, so I bought it.....

On the knitting fron I completed Clue 5 from the PLT Mystery Stole yesterday, it's a bit difficult to photograph at this stage, but here you are for those of you who like detail ;)

Joining the Border Gang....

Yes that means at long last (it does feel longer than 4 months) the body of the VLT Sampler shawl is complete and to prove it.....

It's going to be big without the border and blocking it's about 5' 5" and 20" wide :0 but it's finally complete.

I didn't think it would come out quite as big as the yarn is quite fine [finer than it was meant to be :S) ] The yarn should have had 250m in a suposedly 25g hank (it's sold by length) however on weighing the hanks after starting they turned out to be approximately 22g which means that the yarn I thought was 10 m/g was in fact just over 11 m/g if I had known this at the beginning then I would have used 3mm needles instead of 3.25mm and it perhaps wouldn't have come out so huge...... so far I have just started into my 6th and final hank so I'm not sure if I will need to purchase more; however they do still have some smaller skeins (25m) of this dye lot left so I'm not sweating too much......

So along with Fleegle, lacefreak and missalicefaye I will be starting on the edging but not until weekend.

I now have questions for people if you don't mind....

I'm contemplating buying Hazel Carter's "Shetland Lace Knitting from Charts" and was wondering if any of you have it and what you think of it? or if you have recommendations for any other Lace books, I do have a few already....

I'm also asking what's your favourite lace yarns those around the 10 metres per gram mark (it's just my way of calculating how fine lace yarn is for comparison), the reason being I'm going to be knitting the Alpine Scarf from VLT and just thought as I'm not paying for the yarn it would be nice to experiment with a different yarn.... I don't do fluffy yarns such as KSH and don't want a cotton based yarn, preferably a merino or merino blend, so if anyone has comments or suggestions please leave in the usual manner.... TIA

Finally thanks Fleegle for the Norwegian Purl link, I will give it a try when I've watched it a few times..... perhaps trying it after a glass of wine will help ;)

Midsummer

Despite the KAL is now finished for the Goddess Knits Mystery stole 3, I've just come to the end of clue 2 and about to start clue 3 so I thought I would just put a photo up to show the progress, plus I don't think the pattern on the Goddess Knits site doesn't really show the lovely beginning pattern up...

Just for Fleegle

As requested close ups of the PLT mystery stole....