it's working now.

I don't have dice blue finished, but I continue to work on it. It's given me more grief than I anticipated.

After seeing cece I had to buy the pattern. The only yarn I had that would work was Mary Maxim Mellowspun. If blogger's photo upload was working I would post a scan of what I have knit so far. In the meantime, I'm trying to decide what yarn I want to buy for my next cece.

I've narrowed the selection down to brown sheep cotton fleece, Elann's Peruvian collection silk or quechua. Elann has some affordable cotton, sonata and connemara, but I don't know if I would like knitting with it. Not having a local yarn store is really a pain in the neck.

Here are the first few rows of Dice Blue.
It's a very easy pattern to follow, any beginning lace knitter should be able to knit this shawl.

For experienced lace knitters it may be somewhat monotonous, though.

I've changed my knitting plans all ready. While perusing my Knitter's mags for a cable sweater, I came across dice blue, or in my case it will be dice midnight alpaca cloud from knitpicks . Of course, this is all dependent on whether once I start the scarf, I don't rip it out.

I can't believe I haven't posted since September! I can't believe I haven't knitted anything either! I've started numerous projects and ultimately tore them apart for one reason or another. I started fiber trends moebius scarf, but my needles were too short, as soon as I can get some 40" needles I'm going to start it again. Now that tax season has started I need a knitting project!

I finished my vest over the weekend. The steeks weren't as bad as I thought they would be. The yarn I used was slippery, so I had to take the extra step of doing an overcast stitch on the cut edge. I don't know if that will help anything or not, time will tell.

Now I'm back to working on a sweater I started in July.

Since my DH has been goose hunting since Wednesday, I've had a lot of knitting time. I started a fair isle vest from an old Knitter's Magazine. This vest will be my first experience with steeks. I'm using Peruvian Alpaca yarn that I purchased from Elann quite some time ago. See, I said I would start using up my stash...

My little foray into weaving was short-lived, not that I haven't enjoyed learning something new, it just isn't the same as knitting.
So, in my effort to clean up some of the UFOs, I have finished my black flower basket shawl.

Unfortunately, I don't have much to report in the knitting department. My 93 year old grandmother was moved into assisted living on August 1st and we've been cleaning out her house ever since. You know those news stories you read about people having a house so full of stuff that a person can't even sit down? That's my grandmother's house. We have filled 5 20-yd dumpsters and will probably need at least one more before we are through. It's been fun in a lot of ways, kind of a treasure hunt, but we are all ready for it to be completed. On Thursday Aug. 24 we are having our second estate sale, since we couldn't put everything out during the first one.

She has an old floor loom in her basement which she said I could have. I don't know anything about weaving, but she also has a table loom that I'm going to use to learn. She was a knitter, but did more crochet than knitting. And she embroidered a lot of linens and added crochet edgings. She had a large stash of yarn, but all of it had to be thrown out because it wasn't stored properly. I have a small stash and will definitely be thinking twice before I make another yarn purchase.

I'm satisfied with the size, I thought it might be too small before I started the final chart.

Kiri is done except for weaving in the ends. Here's a close up which shows the colors more accurately.

I'm still knitting kiri. It takes about two hours to knit 10 rows, so it will be awhile before it's finished. I purchased two skeins, but I think I'll use only one and make it smaller. Since I'm using size 4 needles, the pattern is tighter than the original pattern and it's one of the reasons it's taking me longer to finish.

Blogger is misbehaving. I posted something yesterday and it shows up in the archives but not here.

I started another flower basket shawl using black fingering weight yarn. The shawl is almost done, but when I received my order from www.handpaintedyarn.com


I had to start another shawl. I love the vivid colors! This is lace weight wool, a little on the scratchy side, but I don't mind it, quite a change from the soft alpaca, though. I'm making the kiri shawl, which is very much like the flower basket shawl. At first, I was hesitant to make the kiri because I thought I would get bored, but the colors keep it interesting.

Like usual, I'm late to the party. Here's my Flower Basket Shawl from IK Fall 2004.


I knit this with KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud on size 6 needles. I added one extra repeat of the lower basket pattern, but it was still a little bit smaller than the shawl in the magazine. My blocked shawl was 52 X 24 inches.

If I want to make that bolero, then I'm going to have to buy more yarn because I can't get gauge with the yarn that I purchased a couple of weeks ago. So I started knitting a vest with that yarn, but it was so ugly I had to rip it out. I don't like the look of garter stitch as the main stitch in a garment and this pattern was almost all garter stitch. I had the back completed and the left front was almost done.

I think I should do some knitting for the Dulaan Project. Mossy Cottage has organized some knitters to contribute hats, mittens, scarves and sweaters to the project.

Ballet Neck Cardigan by Annie Modesitt



This was knit using Schachenmayr Micro, a soft, slippery acrylic mircofibre. I made only two modifications, smaller bobbles and I-cord instead of the twisted cord. I haven't blocked it yet, so hopefully the edging will stop curling after that is done. My next project was going to be a bolero, but since this is much like a bolero--size-wize, I might knit something else.

I'm still working on my cardigan, in spite of all the little mistakes I'm making, I think it will be done this week. I bought some yarn yesterday to start making a bolero from Vogue Knitting. While perusing Cast-On at the bookstore,I saw a cardigan that I really liked, but refrained from buying the magazine. I have way too many knitting magazines as it is.

An FO Yay! It's too late for the baby shower, though. But I can still give it to her when the baby comes.


Now I'm making Annie Modesitt's Ballet Neck Cardigan from IK Spring 2004. I'm hoping to have it done to wear to a wedding on the 7th. I should know better than to set a deadline because I almost never get them done in time. This project is going quickly though, so there is hope.

This purse was made with Clip from Klaus Koch Kollektion. I first made it in sections, front, back and gusset, but when I sewed it together, it looked terrible. If not for the cute dragonfly button, I probably would have abandoned it all together.


I ripped it apart, then knit the bottom, picked up stitches all the way around, then knit it in the round. I made a closure at the top for the button to go through, but it didn't work right so I just sewed the button on the front.

This purse is smaller than my other purse, so it's going to take awhile to get used to it.

Ene's scarf is finished!


I don't know why I can't get a good photo of her, not even in the natural light. Knit with knitpicks alpaca cloud, I think the color is mist. As lace knitting goes, I would say that it was an easy pattern to follow. The only thing I don't like about it is the 8-stitch garter stitch edging. If I had gone down a needle size or two I think that edging would have looked neater. The photo in the book doesn't show that edge very well, but what I can see looks like the stitches are tighter. The yarn in the photo looks heavier than the lace weight that I used.

I'm thinking about trying the new cotton yarn knitpicks is now offering. I bought the new VK and there is a bolero jacket with lace edging I would like to knit--just have to decide on a color.

In the meantime, I started knitting a purse from some scrap yarn. Every time I go shopping I look for a new purse, and haven't found one I like so I'll knit one instead.