Lace

falbala row 11
Originally uploaded by spindledreams

Ahhh Falbala how do I love thee. She is a crochet lace triangle shaped shawl. I am using Brown Sheep Wildfoote in Vanilla for her and she is beautiful.

CROCHET!

Man is my mind wondering a lot these days. Can I blame it on the cough? Which is still going strong on week 4 and we are no closer to knowing what the cause is then when I first went to see the doc.

I have all these fair projects carefully thought out. Remember the baby set etc...

So why did I let Jabberjaws AKA Jill talk me into not just a crochet project but an IRISH CROCHET project. I know it is crocheted with Bulky yarn or worsted held double but still Irish Crochet! And with charts! Surprising as sick as I have been feeling this has become my comfort project and the front is nearly done. I have had a couple of times when I got stumped by the chart for a bit when the written pattern didn't help much. But that join with a half double crochet (American terms) I would never have figured out with out the pattern or help. OH JILL where have you been?

I have not been totally neglecting my fair projects The baby hat is now 2/3s done sigh just have about another inch or so before binding off. Socks are still on hold from lack of desire and Nessie, well Nessie and I are not really on speaking terms. I think I need to wait until I can concentrate before I pick her up again. AFTER I tink back this last row.

Weaving: I really need to get these looms warped and start I have the most wonderful yarn for a scarf on my little Emilia and I really should get to work on it.

Spinning: Silk on my Lady Ann do I need to say more. Sigh except to say I really have a big learning curve ahead of me before I can make a decent thread let along a skein. Learning how to spin on center weighted spindles is a goal I have for this year.

DPNs socks and doilies

Now I know I have not used DPNs in awhile but this was ridiculous. I got my stitches cast on and couldn't remember how to join them in a circle on DPNs!? So off I had to go in search of a good tutorial with pictures to show me how to use DPNs. It was rather embarrassing to say the least when I had to ask my online friends for help. But I got past it and even finished a baby sock and cast on a second one. Knitting away on the second one my hands started to itch for cotton thread. I started to LUST for a doily pattern. It has been so long since I made one...

I admit I caved I gave in and went searching the Ravelry data base for a pattern. I even found one sigh a beautiful complicated looking small knitted doily. I found this (excuse me while I wipe the drool away) which is just what I wanted but then someone mentioned that baby set... whimper I want to knit a doily I don't want to knit a baby hat.

Back to Ravelry and yippie I found a solution :) I am knitting a baby hat with a doily start. Now comes the funny part. Remember for those socks I had to relearn how to knit on my DPNs? I looked at the pattern set out markers, needles etc and started knitting. Boom just like that those YO at the start of each needle were automatic just like it had not been years since I knit them. Sigh I am in heaven and the baby set is getting a lovely hat. Oh I almost forgot the hat pattern is Star of The Day hat which you can find here



Oh the shawl that is Gail just ignore her she is being very patient waiting for me to finish my fair knitting. Grin considering that she will be frogged and restarted when I am not on heavy cough meds and can gasp count... she is being a good girl.

Blame it on Gail

I mean seriously if it weren't for Gail I would not be in this mess. This is Gail. Well granted you do have to scroll down to see the photos and find the link for the pattern but well you can see what I am talking about. Gail is the object of Knit Along in one of my Ravelry groups and Gail is beautiful and I was going to use my Blue Jeans sock yarn for her. But Gail and Blues Jeans don't work well together. I mean as in it was a HORRID pairing. :*( So I frogged Gail.


And as I was sitting here listening to Forever in Blue Jeans and looking at Blue Jeans it hit me. Why not try Blue Jeans in the Wild West Lace Shawl I wanted to make for Fair. Mind you I already had this shawl started. In fact I had two starts of this shawl in the same yarn on different size needles, neither of which I was happy with. So Blue Jeans got tried in that pattern...


The blue merino/tencel on the left and Blue Jeans on the right. Ladies and Gentlemen I think we have a winner and it is Blue Jeans.

So now what do I use for Gail and even more importantly what do I make with all this blueberry yarn?

Zephyr scarf

When I first got the book Weaving Made Easy I fell in love with the "Tweedy Scarf" made from Jaggerspun Zephyr. I even scrapped up the funds to splurge and buy the yarns for it. Grin then I came to my senses and realized I was not ready to weave that scarf just yet. That yarn has languished for months as I worked on my skills so I could do it justice.

Today I got up the courage to start that lovely scarf. The project calls for 3 different colors to produce a tweedy effect. I wanted a softer more soothing effect so got three colors closer in color/value. I think the colors look good together and I think the warp using the 3 strands is very close to the effect I wanted. Lets hope its stays that soft ocean like color when woven.

Nice surprise

In fall of 2007 I started a FLAK which is a cabled sweater. You can read about my adventures with that sweater in the posts starting here. It was a really wonderful deep heathered brown and I adored it. My life being what is is somehow this sweater start got misplaced. Then I got some unwelcome guests in my life and since then I have been tossing bug eaten fiber, yarn and projects as I find them. I did find some of my brown yarn that had been ruined and tossed it. Found the cable/texture swatch and to be honest while I have not tossed it yet it is looking pretty ratty. I should toss it but just can't bring my self to do it. Until now :-) While emptying yet another box of JUNK that does not belong to me I found a small plastic bin that had been tossed into it. Always on the lookout for nice plastic bins I opened it and found WOW it had yarn in it hmm a rather odd mix of yarns too. 2 balls each of a green fingering weight, a blue worsted weight and a sage green bulky... Then I noticed the brown yarn. Whoo hooo I had found my "lost" sweater. Grin still nice and clean and with all the markers in place etc plus 2 full balls on my brown and a partial ball of the brown.

The knitted sweater part I found.


A nice surprise but still not my FLAK as 2 and maybe a half ball of yarn are not going to make nearly a whole sweater. But there is that lovely camel Galway I have 9 balls of and maybe they will play well together. Hmmm time for some swatches, it would be nice to at least know all that time spent swatching and editing was not totally wasted.

Spring is here

I know because I have seen Robins flying around and our daylilys are coming up. Sigh now to get up the desire to work in the garden before it needs to be planted out. Of course my little seedlings won't go out until the end of May but still.

My weaving is on hold for a bit as I KNIT some baby items and a stuffed animal for family and friends. I have started a darling top by Oat Couture called the Fisherman T-shirt. The yarn is from an Indie Dyer I found on eBay. Doesn't she make pretty sock yarn? YES I am making this baby top in fingering weight sock yarn and actually enjoying it. Grin hope that pleasure remains until I actually finish it.