I’ve been away so long! I think I may finally be caught up after my vacation, so can post a few pictures of what I’ve been working on. The Myrtle Leaf Shawl went with me to Italy and really helped the airplane and layover hours pass pleasantly. It’s getting a little big to carry around now, so I found an old plate box to keep it in. I love cool containers! I’m about a third of the way through the second hank of Shadow lace yarn. I’m just going to make the Shawl two hanks long and then use a third hank for the border.

Pattern: Myrtle Leaf Shawl from Victorian Lace Today
Yarn: Shadow in Campfire, a discontinued color from my stash
Needles: US 3 Harmony Wood 24″ fixed circular
And, here are my meeting socks. It looks like I’ve …

Parker’s Baby Blanket is finished! And, I used my Flip Mino to record a little lesson on applied I-cord borders.

Here is the blanket without the border.

And, here are my little videos! The first one covers getting the applied I-Cord started.

Now I show you how to turn a corner!

Now join the ends with Kitchener Stitch!

Here is the Moderne Baby Blanket with the border! Notice how I have enough yarn left over to make a Baby Surprise Jacket? I always get 9 balls of each color so be sure I don’t run out. I figure that I can always use up the extra Swish Worsted yarn in a sweater, or something! <

I’m really excited to finally get to share with you a yarn line that we’ve been working on for 9 months! Imagination is a hand-painted Superwash Merino and Alpaca blend sock yarn. It’s machine washable (we weren’t sure if it would be, but it passed the machine washing tests with flying colors), and it knits up to be slightly thicker than our existing sock yarns, probably because the Alpaca content makes it a little fuzzier and lofty. The photo on the right is my ad photo, so you can see the names (click for bigger).
I thought I would give you a behind the scenes look at how we picked colors for this yarn, which has up to 7 colors in each colorway. At our fall color choosing meeting, Tina and Kelley approached Katie and me and asked that we come up with …

This has been a week for finishing things. It’s not every day that I get to prop my feet up on my desk, take a photo of them and call it work!
Pattern: Two at Once, Toe Up, Magic Loop Socks
Yarn: superwash Merino/nylon Sock Blank
Dye: turquoise Jacquard Acid dye
Needles: US size 0 40″ nickel plated fixed circular

Pattern: Apres Surf Hoodie from Interweave Knits Summer 2008
Yarn: Shine Sport Sand (discontinued color from my stash)
Needles: Knit Picks US 1 (2.50mm) 32″ nickel plated fixed circular for the body and two 24″ nickel plated fixed circulars for the sleeves <

I am sooo close to being done with the regular knitting. I still have to cut the steeks, do the neck/hood ribbing, sew up the hem, weave in ends, etc. The deep v-neck steek makes the neck look so much smaller than it will be after I cut it open. It certainly doesn’t look like it could fit an adult human right now, but maybe an alien..? My alien says hello.
Pattern: Apres Surf Hoodie from Interweave Knits Summer 2008
Yarn: Shine Sport Sand (discontinued color from my stash)
Needles: Knit Picks US 1 (2.50mm) 32″ nickel plated fixed circular for the body and two 24″ nickel plated fixed circulars for the sleeves
And, here are my meeting socks. Getting close too. I only knit on them during work meetings – maybe two more staff meetings worth of knitting – or one staff meeting and two podcasts. What …

I ended up getting four skeins of Shimmer in Bayou and two skeins each of Shadow in Snorkel Heather and Spring Green Heather. Here’s my swatch:

I held one strand of Bayou with one strand of Snorkel for the first half, then switched to one strand of Bayou with one strand of Spring Green. Using Bayou throughout softened the other two colors and pulled them together nicely. I got gauge (20 stitches/4″) using size 6 needles, then washed my swatch in cold water with some Kookaburra and blocked it out on a towel to dry overnight. The fabric softened up quite a bit after washing, and the Shadow kind of puffed up a bit and filled in the gaps in the fabric. <

Finished!!!
I don’t know if you’ll be able to see in this small picture, but about half way through the body of the shawl, I must have skipped a row, thus switching RS for WS. I didn’t notice until I had the shawl laid out flat, blocking. Oh well, I’m sure very few will notice while I’m wearing the shawl since it will be either bunched up or in motion with me.
Pattern: Curved Shawl from Victorian Lace Today
Yarn: Alpaca Cloud Autumn Heather
Needles: Harmony Wood Size 3, 24″ circular and dpns
I am soooo addicted to lace knitting now. I’d picked out my next project before this one was finished. I’d forgotten to wind my hanks into balls last week, so I came into work on Saturday morning to do it – I knew I couldn’t get through the whole weekend without starting the Myrtle Leaf Shawl, …

I’ve had an unhealthy obsession with the Bayou colorway of Shimmer, and I’ve been scheming and plotting ways to work it into my not-so-lacy world. Now that Knitty has released their Spring surprises, Tempest has pushed me over the edge.
I thought I was so sneaky, and then the requests for yarn substitution help for Tempest starting rolling into my email inbox. On top of it all, Melissa wrote up a nice post on double-stranding our lace weight yarns for subtle color variation. At last, I had the work-related reasons I needed to do a little swatching.
I used Shimmer, in the discontinued Flower Garden colorway. I double-stranded it on US 6 needles, as per Tempest’s suggested needle size. Melissa and I talked a little about this yesterday, and we were both skeptical about knitting what would essentially be fingering weight yarn at a worsted weight gauge. The fabric could turn out …