Good news!

It may have taken a bit longer than originally planned, but I've finally cast off my 'Lace Modular Shawl'...


Apologies for having photographed it with our awful pink carpet as the background, but it was the easiest place in my house to lay the whole shawl out.

By way of comparison, here is the cast on end of the shawl...


I'm quite pleased with the way this shawl is turning out, and have high hopes that the ends will be quite well matched once it is blocked out properly.

Now I just have to weave in the ends, and get up enough nerve to run the power steamer over it -- which is how Iris Schreier (the designer of the shawl) said she finished hers.

More good news... The yarn I ordered for my Mystery Shawl 3 finally arrived here on Tuesday. Woohoo! :)


It's JaggerSpun 'Zephyr' (50% fine merino wool & 50% tussah silk) lace weight yarn in the 'Blueberry' colour.

Unfortunately, the knit along is pretty much over now -- the final clue was posted on March 18 -- so I guess I really will be doing this one on my own now. ;)

I also received this on Tuesday...


... some GGH 'Soft Kid' yarn in shades 32 and 63, which came all the way from the UK. This yarn really is amazingly soft, and I can't wait to see how it knits up.

One of my Christmas presents from Michael was a lovely fountain, which has sadly been left languishing in its box for the past few months while it waited to be set up.

Well, we finally got around to it...


... and I can't believe how well it fits in where we decided to put it. The angled slope of the top edge is just perfect, and it looks like we had it custom made to fit the space. It really was just serendipity though -- Michael decided to buy it for me after I made a stray comment that the fountain was pretty as we went past it on one of the escalators at the local shopping centre. Now I only wish I'd got around to setting it up sooner, as the tinkling sound of the falling water just makes me feel so happy.

The other thing I've been putting off for a while now was admitting to myself that I really needed to see an optometrist to get my eyesight checked. Yes... reading the fine print has been becoming increasingly difficult, and even my knitting has been looking a little fuzzy lately. *sigh*

So, not surprisingly, I now have my first pair of glasses...


Want to see them modelled?


Well, I didn't say I'd be modelling them... ;) I'm not feeling especially photogenic at the moment, so this will just have to do for now.

The last thing I'm going to write about today is my secret project. Shh! It's secret because I wasn't supposed to start another project until after I finish knitting Katherine's 'Skull Vest', but after the marathon that knitting the 'Lace Modular Shawl' turned out to be -- mostly due to the long, excessively humid summer we've had here in Sydney this year -- I felt I needed to do something easy that I could finish quickly to recharge my batteries before grappling with what is essentially a fairisle design -- albeit with a distinctly Goth twist. ;) So the Lorna's Laces 'Lion & Lamb' yarn in the 'Tahoe' colourway which has been maturing in my stash for about a year now has at long last been given its chance to shine...


... as my second Clapotis.

Those of you familiar with this pattern will probably be able to notice already from the photo of my work in progress above that this will be another of those mirror image projects which helped me come up with the name for this blog. ;)

Mystery Shawl Along 3

I followed Melissa's advice and contacted the person responsible for this knit along to ask her how to pay the $US3.00 fee for the pattern as I live in Australia, which unfortunately is not one of the countries her online store accepts payment from. Believe it or not, her response was that I should do exactly what Melissa did -- select one of the countries she does send things to, and then leave a comment to let her know that the country I live in is actually Australia. Worked like a charm! :)

I didn't take part in the first two of these knit alongs, but this third shawl looks like being a real winner -- yes, I peeked at the finished photo as I'm not really into the whole idea of spending time knitting something unless I'm sure I'm going to like the end result. Mind you, as the yarn I'd like to knit this with is not likely to even arrive here for another few weeks, the chances of me knitting this at the same time as anyone else taking part in the knit along are pretty slim at this stage. Anyway, I've gone ahead and put the 'Mystery Shawl Along 3' button in my sidebar -- just to remind me of my good intentions. ;)

There hasn't been a lot of knitting going on here since my last posting, but I have at last started on the final skein of yarn for the 'Lace Modular Shawl', so the end is finally in sight there. I won't bore you all with a photo of my progress as, to be honest, it wouldn't look different enough from the last one I posted to be worth the effort. I do have another posting in mind to write which will have photos though, but that will have to wait until after Michael gets home later tonight as he currently has another device connected to his PC where the cable for the digital camera normally goes, and I'm not going to risk damaging anything by fiddling around with things on my own.

Still negotiating the learning curve

Firstly, thank you very much for the lovely comments my first entry received. :)

Since my last posting, I finally gave in and just went ahead and blocked the 'Flower Basket Shawl' I knit for my Mother for Christmas -- mostly because I was dying to see it in its non-crumpled form and discover how it had actually turned out.

Here it is, post-blocking, relaxing on my lounge...


I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I hope my Mother likes it when I finally get to give it to her.

Just by the way... That furry blue and grey thing folded up on the arm of the lounge is the throw I knit from 49 skeins of Cleckheaton 'Silky Faux Fur' in a fit of insanity one summer.

Here is a close up of the shawl to show the pattern better...


Project Details:

'Flower Basket Shawl' - 'Fiber Trends' pattern S-2014
Almost 200g of Rubi & Lana 3 ply in a Barbie pink colour that nearly drove me crazy
Addi 3.5mm circular needles
Total number of times rows 25-34 repeated: 18

I've actually got a bit of a backlog of items I've knit for my Mother here. The Strawberry Pattern Scarf in Cleckheaton 'Studio Mohair' I knit for her birthday is still waiting to meet its intended recipient too...


The actual colour of the yarn is darker than it looks in the photo -- as you can see, I'm still working out how to use the digital camera too, and this was the closest I could get to the true colour.

I've made a bit more progress on the 'Lace Modular Shawl', and I'm now on the fourth skein of 'Regal Silk'...


I'm starting to think now about how best to finish the shawl. The designer apparently used a steamer like the one shown below to finish hers, but I'm a little concerned that the steam might over-heat the silk yarn and cause it to lose its beautiful lustre. Any advice?


When I do finish the shawl, the next project I'd like to start on is a bag based on 'Unbiased' from the Fall 2004 issue of 'Knitty', but knit -- hopefully in the round -- using the techniques I've learnt while working on the 'Lace Modular Shawl'. And here is the beautiful, silky soft Recycled Sari Silk yarn I'll be using for this project...


Once again, the colours are actually much deeper and more vibrant in real life than shown here.

Of course, what I'll ACTUALLY be knitting as my next project is the 'Skull Vest' I'm designing *cough* for Katherine, using Rubi & Lana 8 ply wool in black and white. Here is what I've knit of it so far...


Yes, it's a tension square. As you can see, it still needs to be washed and blocked before I can proceed on to the next step and test out fairisle skull pattern I've charted for it.

My take anywhere project used to be a scarf I've been knitting using the 'My So Called Scarf' pattern. At least it WAS my take anywhere project until I decided that I really wasn't all that keen on the way the colours were pooling...


That and the fact that it was becoming apparent that there was a fair bit of variation in the depth of colours between the three hanks of Debbie Bliss 'Maya' yarn I'm using -- as with most of the scarves I knit, I'm knitting mine wider and longer than the original version. So I unravelled it all and started again, this time working from all three hanks together, working one row from each and then changing to the next one in the cycle. The colours are now much better behaved, but unfortunately the need to keep the three large balls of yarn from tangling means it's nowhere near as portable as it once was.

So now it's the project which sits in the basket on the coffee table next to my PC, and gets worked on while I wait for things to happen.


And if you look closely at the basket, you may even spot the final ball of 'Regal Silk', patiently awaiting its turn to join its siblings in the 'Lace Modular Shawl'.

All this working with handpainted yarns has made me want to have a go at dyeing yarn myself.

So far, I've bought some 'Landscapes' and 'Gaywool' dyes, and have started winding some yarn into hanks on a niddy noddy in preparation for my first attempt at dyeing.


Now I just have to get up the nerve to finally give it a go... Eek! I'm thinking that I should perhaps rein in my ambitions just a bit at first, and for my first attempt at dyeing try over-dyeing the Barbie pink 3 ply wool I have left over from my Mother's 'Flower Basket Shawl' with Landscapes 'Bloodwood' dye and see how that goes.

I know this has been quite a marathon entry already, but before I finish up, I have to show off the extremely early Easter present Michael brought me home just after Valentine's Day.


He knows how much I love really dark chocolate, and was worried that by the time Easter actually came around he wouldn't be able to find it in the shops any more. He was even happier with his purchase after it scanned at the checkout as "Bunny & Balls". *grin*

If you're wondering about the plush legs standing on the table behind the box, wonder no more. They belong to the giant Lindt Reindeer Michael won in their Christmas competition.


Isn't it huge? Michael was actually quite disappointed that there doesn't appear to be a similar competition to win a giant plush Lindt bunny for Easter. ;)

OK... I think that's probably more than enough for tonight.

Now if only I knew how to get rid of the extra copies of photos I uploaded to Blogger earlier while I was trying to work out how to get them to display in this posting in the order I wanted... *sigh*

Did I mention I'm still on a learning curve here? ;)

Starting out...

As this is my first ever post to a blog, I'm not expecting this will end up looking exactly the way I'd like it to, but I guess I'm just going to have to give it a try and see what happens.

Here (Hopefully!) is a photo of one of my works in progress...


This is the start of my Lace Modular Shawl, which I am knitting with Artyarns 'Regal Silk' yarn in colourway # 106. I've actually knit a bit more since this photo was taken.