Hibernating

Thanks everyone for your nice comments! It was great to see that people still read my neglected blog.

Its cold and I'm fighting a cold so I feel like hibernating. I was going to do some Christmas shopping tomorrow, but I think I'll skip that for the moment.

I've been spending some time organizing my notebook on ravelry. Adding tags, rearranging things, looking at patterns. What did we do before ravelry?

I'm doing a bit of destash on ravelry, really only looking to sell, not trade. But I got a fabulous offer for a trade with a German raveler who offered to send me 2 skeins of German yarn for 2 skeins of Canadian.

So this arrived in the mail yesterday:





Wollmeise! The colours are gorgeous. Might be awhile till I get around to knitting with it but I have it sitting next to the computer for petting.

tap tap tap....

Is this thing on?

I'm suddenly feeling the desire to blog. Hello world!

I am not enjoying the cold and the whole getting dark at 3:30 in the afternoon thing. I'm feeling the need to bundle myself up in knits or even just skeins of yarn.

The wedding shawl is about 50% done!


I took this WIP pic a few weeks ago. I've since started on the border (after picking up 300+ stitches). It's going pretty well. I had some moments of distrust in the pattern but it makes sense now.

I've spent a bit of time organizing my notebook on ravelry, mostly my queue and stash. I've decided that I no longer want to pay for sock patterns. There's so many great free ones out there that unless the pattern is amazing and different, I don't want to spend $5+ on it.

I got sucked in again to the arts&crafts show at work. I'm not putting as many items in this year as I did last. Just a couple of things that I've completed and decided just aren't right for anyone I know so why not try to sell them. I am going to work on some of the baby socks from "New Pathways for Sock Knitters" in some acrlyic worsted weight yarn to sell. We'll see how that goes.

Not Always Knitting

I am a boring knit blogger. I can currenly only knit for short periods of times and need to take frequent breaks. My physiotherapist has recommended only 15 minutes of knitting at a time (hah!). She asked me how much time I usually spend knitting. On a good day? An entire two hour long movie.

In the past week, I have knitting about 30 rows of shawl, an inch of sock and maybe 3 inches of sweater. It's pretty slow going.

The Fair!

Yesterday I headed out to Kitchener with the blogless Debi and Tracy to the KW Knitter's Fair. Despite the fact that I go to Kitchener pretty often to visit my parents, I've never been before. It seemed to have about the same amount of vendors as the Knitter's Frolic, but more spaced out. Was very busy though when we first got there.

I was on a mission for wedding shawl yarn and set myself a limit of 4 projects worth of yarn. I destashed a bunch of things last week so I figured I could add a few things in. I think I did pretty good:



Top: Claudia Handpaints Silk Lace in Baby Girl and Country Kitchen
Bottom: Till Tomas Disco Lights, Misti Alpaca Laceweight (5 skeins)

The misti alpaca is for my wedding shawl. Pink is kind of my colour (with black and silver).

I also managed to pick up a Rowan pattern book for $6 and the 25th Anniversary Vogue Knitting book for $10. Plus the new Debbie Bliss magazine which is excellent! Lots of patterns.

I also saw Malabrigo sock yarn which I'm be interested in trying at some point. And Silk Garden sock. I'm not sure if I would use that for socks or not. Mohair and silk seems a bit fancy for my feet. But would be nice in a shawl.

Please note that I did not buy any sock yarn. Yay me!

More FO's

Isocoles Socks
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepard Sock in Hawaii
Needles: 2mm
Pattern: from Wildhorse Farm Designs
I've had this pattern around for a while. It's simple and easy to memorize. Almost a plain vanilla sock but with a little bit of interest and works well with the yarn.


Diagonal Shawl
Yarn: Knit Picks Shimmer, 1 skein
Needles: 3.75mm
Pattern: Arlene's World of Lace
I modified this by only doing 2 repeats of the lace pattern. It's actually written to be a stole. Blocked very nicely. It's about 6 feet long and I still have some of the skein left.

Blog posting is going to continue to be minimal. I have a lot of pain in my hands so I want to avoid typing too much if I don't have to. I am always updating ravelry and will try to do weekly posts here. So friend me on ravelry (I'm draya there).

Search for a Wedding Shawl

I'm in search for a pattern for a wedding shawl.

So far, I've found this shawl. It requires 2280 - 4560 yards of cobweb yarn. !!!!! That's a lot of yarn. No way I'd be using anything cobweby. Laceweight for me.

Other problem with this pattern - I would need to order it from England. It would be around $32 JUST FOR THE PATTERN. Shipping would be another $16. Total = $48. FOR ONE PATTERN!! That seems a bit much FOR ONE PATTERN! I wouldn't pay that much for a book.

So I'm looking for other options. And I'm open to suggestions. Here's my criteria:
- Pattern does not cost $48
- uses laceweight yarn
- triangular

I'd love to do something with a floral or spring theme, preferbly something with roses. Those who have been reading my blog or seen my ravelry project pages know that I am not afraid of lace. I want something that's going to be impressive. Maybe with beads.... And something that I haven't knitted before.

Suggestions?

Flower Basket

It's very rare that I knit a pattern twice.


Flower Basket Shawl
Pattern: Evelyn A Clark
Needles: 4.5mm
Yarn: Handmaiden Mini Maiden


I started this before going to London and finished it soon after. Just took me a while to get around to blocking it.
My first flower basket shawl was given to my step mother. This one I'm keeping for me.

Mini maiden is a fabulous yarn. Wool silk blend. It's actually a sock yarn apparently but there's no way I'd use it for socks. This used one ball and I increased the number of repeats for the pattern. Not sure how many, I just went till I was running out of yarn.