I am very pleased with this month’s shipment. A nice small project, some lovely cotton yarn, chocolate, tea, soap, bath salts, and a small beeswax candle (wrapped in the tissue paper still). This month’s theme was Wrath vs. Peace, where the club designers decided to focus on ways to make us feel more peaceful.

Malabrigo lace in Tortuga.  I love the lighter areas of purple and green that come through in this otherwise black yarn.  I like this colorway so well that I’m thinking of buying the last skein in this dye lot from my LYS, River Knits.

I also bought another set of Chibi needles and some of the new Eucalan woolwash.  It’s the grapefruit scent which I don’t usually like, but the Eucalan version was fresh, so I bought it.

After finishing my last lace project, I was still feeling the lace itch, so I searched through my stash for a new yarn to work with. I considered many options and finally settled upon some Misti Alpaca Lace in a lovely cream color.

Choosing a yarn means choosing a new pattern; which always means perusing your pattern and book stash. Sometimes, it also means creating your own pattern, which is what I did this time. Using the Barbara Walker treasuries, I paired a lace bleeding hearts stitch with a Japanese Feather stitch.

Yes, I did use a crochet cast on so that I could choose a neat edging later to finish the shawl. I just haven’t decided on my edging yet. I might actually attempt to echo one of the motifs in the edging, or I might just blow that idea off and go for something already charted. We’ll see.

ps, See those fat clematis buds? That’s the plant on the other side of the steps. I can’t wait to see some big clematis blooms.

I have not been ignoring the blog, really.  I just haven’t had much to say.  I’ve been a bit here and there on my health and I think you can tell that my last few posts have been a bit, well, off.  I’m on the mend at this point, again, I think, but I could be wrong. 

I’ve been cruising along on a new shawl because I’m terribly interested in lace again right now.  That means there won’t be any finished socks for at least another two or three weeks while I indulge my lace fetish.  And speaking of lace fetish, I’ve been seeing lace every where lately!  In the tree branches, fallen lilac flowers littering the sidewalk, at the antique store (quite obviously), and in every movie that I watch.  I even bought Elizabeth: the Golden Age because of the costumes and the lace.  Well, the movie was really good too. Now I just need to buy Elizabeth to go with it.

Anyway, pictures of baby bunnies, the new lace shawl, and a tiny purchase are coming soon.  I just need a bit of sunshine to take my pictures. It was frighteningly rainy, windy, and stormy yesterday and I decided it was safer to actually clean the house than to venture outside. Tragic isn’t it? Being forced to clean the house. 

I didn’t just stop at one little bit of nothing (aka hand embroidered table scarf), I also bought some other little nothings. I found this beautiful little hand towel (maybe?) with a sweet tatted edging in pink and white. Now, I don’t like pink, but the tatting was too pretty on this to leave it behind. (Sorry for the poor picture, I couldn’t find a good way to display it.)

Then I found this little tatting edged hankie that I just fell in love with and paid entirely too much to own it. The tatter that made this was very skilled and did a beautiful job with the stitching.

Finally, an accidental find amongst several crocheted pieces, this pair of gorgeous pillowcases.

The width of this edging means that the tatter spent hours creating it and I feel so special being in possession of it now. I have no plans to use this pair of pillowcases. I’m going to tuck them away and display them when inspiration strikes me.

I was visiting my grandmother some days ago and she mentioned that she had a table she wanted to give away. At first my uncle was going to take it, and then my dad, but in the end, neither one of them took it. I thought it had a lot of potential so I brought it home.

It looked a bit bare though, so on my quick trip to Michigan yesterday, I popped into an antique mall and found a lovely hand embroidered table scarf. It had a few age spots, but then again so does the table.

I think it looks rather smashing with the vase of flowers I bought and arranged for my mom for Mother’s Day. She was down here for a few days and I wanted to spruce up her room a bit.

Fresh stock and gerbera daisies, an antique hand embroidered dresser scarf, and an approximately seventy year old table that my grandfather built in his high school shop class. I think it fits the room beautifully.

Knit from my own handspun Merino/Corriedale blend roving that I purchased from Maine Woods Yarn and Fiber on Etsy, this lovely shawl finally graces the Japanese Maple tree. While I originally started this shawl as a triangular shawl in February, the design just wasn’t speaking to me. There was something that just didn’t quite mesh between the yarn and the pattern, so it was subsequently ripped and rethought.

I decided on a different shape for the shawl at that point, feeling that a rectangular stole-type shawl would be a better fit for the yardage and colors. Which then left me with the puzzle of the pattern. Happily, Gabrielle sent me some lovely green beads and it inspired me to flip through most of my pattern books resulting in the choice of the Rose Lace pattern (also known as Rose Trellis Lace).

It’s hard to see the bead accent to the center of each floral pattern, but they sparkle in the sunshine outside. It’s the perfect touch to finish this shawl.

After my first failed attempt with this yarn, I went through several of my stitch pattern books and several pattern books looking for just the right combination with this yarn. After much consideration, I finally settled upon the Rose Lace pattern (also known as the Rose Trellis Lace pattern) that can be found in both a Barbara Walker Treasury (sorry, I forget which one) and the book Heirloom Knitting by Sharon Miller.  I used Jacquie’s free charting software to make my own chart of this pattern and then got to work.  I have two repeats done with a lovely bead at the center of each pattern.  They’re hard to see right now, but once it is blocked, the beads should pop.

I really like how this pattern is knitting up and the way that the yarn is sort of striping, but not really striping.

I had a lot of waiting to do yesterday, so I took along a ball of cotton and some size 7 needles and whipped out this quick dish cloth.  It’s the same checkerboard pattern as last time, except I made it one repeat longer (cast on four more stitches).  I really like these checkerboard variegated face cloths. Oh, yes, and it is posed with the clematis so that you can see how green and leafy it is getting.  There are more blossoms too!!

I finished the Alpine Lace shawl/scarf from VLT last night. I really wasn’t sure that I was going to have enough yarn. In the end, I omitted one plain knit row from the edging to ensure that I could bind off. If my cast on hadn’t had such a long tail, I think I could have knit the last row AND bound off. Such is life.

I took a few artistic shots of the blocked shawl on my lovely Japanese Maple Tree. I don’t know which variety it is, but it has the sweetest feathery leaves that are soft and wispy in the spring.

At the end, I let it drift against the sidewalk like it was an after thought to some young woman’s evening, forgotten but still lovely as it spread along the cement.

Sometimes I make up the strangest little stories about my handknits.

Well, as close to all as I get.

I recently bought A Fine Fleece by Lisa Lloyd and it is the first book that I have looked through and thought “I would knit AND wear any of these.” There are two vests in the book and I don’t wear vests, but I would knit and wear these vests. The patterns fulfill my intense desire for attractive, classic, beautiful items that will look just as good in ten years or twenty years.

I thought that I would share a few of my favorites in case you were thinking of buying the book, but haven’t been able to flip through. I did skip the first section that deals with fiber and spinning and gauge among other things, and went straight to the patterns, so I can’t comment much on the first section. I do want to say that even if you don’t spin, this is a wonderful book with an alternate commercial yarn listed for each project.

The first pattern that drew my attention was Rhinebeck. I love the small collar, the touch of patterning on the body and the lack of patterning on the sleeves. Plus the big buttons are just the right accent to the finished project.

The next sweater that caught my eye was Kearsarge. With the cute v-neck and and mistake stitch rib sleeves, against that basketweave body, it begs to be cast on.

And then Halcyon. Oh, that bold back cable wending its graceful way up the models curves. I want to trace the cable crossings with my fingers over and over.

The final piece that I want to share is Ravensong. There is something about that simple lace eyelet ribbing and the big cowl neck (is that the right terminology?) make it look so sweet and sophisticated. It’s almost something that I could wear to the office by day and out to an elegant party that night.

Every time I look through this book, my favorites change. I may never find another book of patterns that appeals to me as much as this one and I am going to make full use of it . . . as soon as I finish a few things first.

Speaking of which, I finished a washcloth because I needed to finish something. I knit until I ran out of yarn in a simple K4P4, repeat across row for four rows, then P4K4, repeat across row for four rows. I like the little bubbles of stockinette and garter stitch. I’m sure this has a pattern name somewhere, but I just made it up as I went along.