Finished All ... except... 6.26.11

Well, it only took losing 3 kids  (3/8) to finish the knitting part of my summer shawlette. My 3 wonderful God Children have gone home to live with their father.  You saw photos of Holly in the volleyball pics in an earlier post.  I am sure you will be seeing photos of all of them if you continue to read this fabulous blog (all 0 of you who are following it), as I intend to knit their Christmas gifts...

So here is a photo of the finished ... except shawlette:

So what is the except?  Weaving in the yarn from when I had to add another ball, and then blocking it.  Here is a close-up of the pattern:

The color is gorgeous.  The feel is fabulous (silk and bamboo).  The shawlette is indeed a shawlette meaning TINY.  Perhaps I should have really looked at the finished dimensions before I decided not to expand it...  But it is very very pretty and did I forget to mention FINISHED?  except... Well I shall weave in ends today, and I have to buy the special soap for soaking then blocking, but, it should be completely finished by tonight.  As it is so tiny, I am thinking of giving it to my niece who is 5.

Next exciting news is that I have now crocheted my first Rose and 2 rose leaves using the Irish Lace book.

I am noticing that all of my photos are blurry.  This is disconcerting since my idiot-proof camera is supposed to auto-focus.  Since I have an astigmatism, and rarely wear glasses for it, I can't always tell if something is blurred or if it is just my eyes...  Hmmm.  I am going to post this anyway, then try to take some better photos for the next post.  Perhaps if I held the camera a bit more steady?

Anyway, I really want to make this "opera bag" from the Irish Lace book.  As far as I can tell, it is just a collection of motifs:  flowers, spirals, stars, leaves, etc., laced together with a cool lace border and then a rope strap.  I plan to make the various designs in the book and when I have enough for 2 sides of a bag, lace them together.  By "lace them together" I mean, use the lace crochet techniques in the book for connecting motifs.  This will be certainly long-term, but each piece will be short.  My favorite kind of project since it will seem that I am continually finishing stuff!  I am reading the directions for the Wild Rose.  The first line says something like "make a small loop of pl."  the PL means Picot loops, ok, that is easy, but what is a small loop?  how small?  One of the interesting things about Irish Lace patterns is that they aren't exactly patterns, since as the author says, every lace maker uses different tension, different size stitches, etc, so they can only suggest the number of stitches certain things will use.  I of course, in new things, like EXACT PATTERNS with EXACT NUMBERS.  But I will try hard not to freak out and just be creative and trust my own judgment. After all, if it is too big, I can just rip it out.

O!  I also found a new blog that I am following on my kindle.  It is    Knitqwik by Marla Theodoro.  So far it is a new pattern with every post.  That is about it.  Not a lot of chat, just a complete "free" pattern.  But since I pay $.99/month, that is a lot of free patterns every month.  Also it has the market bag pattern I saw mentioned in another blog I read (forget which one), and really want to make.  If that bag isn't too hard/long, I might make some for my sisters for Christmas gifts.  How Green of me.

I wanted to say also, that not only did I lose my 3 God Children  (they left Friday morning), but also my youngest son who left last night for 5 weeks in Pittsburgh to dance/study ballet with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School.  I am down to half my kids.  Will I get a lot of knitting/crocheting done?  or will I just mope around missing the kids?

C. A. Losi