missalicefaye: June 2007 Archives

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June 25, 2007

Beauty by mail

You have every right to feel jealous. I am the truly honored recipient of this beautiful laceweight yarn, handspun by Jane of Lacefreak. Sooooo lovely--I hope I can do it justice. Swatching commences tonight!

Thank you so much for all of your kind comments on the Wedding Ring Shawl! A few things I forgot to mention: 1) It does indeed fit through my wedding ring, but I haven't gotten around to securing photographic evidence--eventually! maybe! and 2) my finished shawl is significantly smaller than the dimensions given in the pattern--I assume this had something to do with my yarn choice, tension, etc. It ended up being about 60" square, which is more in line with the size I was hoping to achieve. Dumb luck.

And now that the Wedding Ring Shawl is finished, what's next on the agenda?

Sharon Miller's Spring Shawl. I couldn't hold out until November for another Shetland lace fix.

I'm using the Skaska Designs merino/tencel blend that I picked up at Rhinebeck last fall--so, yeah, another gossamer weight yarn on 2mm needles sort of project. My favorite! :)

By the way, I finished the christening shawl last week, too. Photos when I can find a bit of time between reading assignments!

Posted by missalicefaye at 07:07 PM | Comments (10)

June 17, 2007

Wedding Ring Shawl

Here you go: my version of Sharon Miller's Wedding Ring Shawl, seven months in the making.
Knit with ColourMart cashmere/silk (45% cashmere/55% silk) on 2mm needles.

Posted by missalicefaye at 07:03 PM | Comments (85)

June 11, 2007

Do you know what this means?

!!!!!!!!!

By the end of the weekend, I was so brain dead from paper-writing that I knew attempting the grafting would be a Bad Idea. Sometime this week, though....

I was planning to follow Knitterguy's clever method for grafting the ends (hence the blob of pinkish yarn), but I now realize that I forgot the all important contrast row in between. sigh.

For my next installment of Name-That-Plant, I present you with this pretty specimen from the back yard. Littleshika let me know over at Flickr that it's a mountain laurel (thank you!).

I don't even remember this blooming last year--and surely I would remember such a lovely odd-looking thing?

Posted by missalicefaye at 09:33 AM | Comments (12)

June 04, 2007

Growing things

Ah, school. The summer session is slightly compressed--about two weeks shorter than regular semesters--so I got to have my first anxiety attack over deadlines even earlier than usual. Thank God for lace knitting and beer, not necessarily in that order.

But let us talk of pretty things. The christening shawl grows--slowly. But at 400 or so stitches per round, things are going much more quickly than they were at 900+.

While dealing with those early long rows, I had plenty of time to think about whether I was really and truly going to knit all those roses and anchors. And did I really approve of this potentially puzzling "pip stitch" maneuver?

It turns out that the answer to both of these questions was "no."

I substituted a fir cone pattern. It felt like the RIght Thing to Do.

And what else has grown?

38 more repeats to go on the Wedding Ring Shawl edging. I had hoped to get this done before classes started. Ha. At this point, my only estimate for a finish date is "sometime this summer. I hope."

In garden news, varmints have been seemingly thwarted by the fence for the time being. The seedlings are happy. All hail Jon of the Fence.