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.