Ziggity Zag!

Here's my current project; a pair of zig zag-y socks from Lucia's pattern. If I were very technically savvy, I could make her name green and you could click on it and go to her site. But I'm not, so you'll have to make do with an old-school link:

Lucia

I had to do a little bit of fiddling because I wanted to do them at the same time on Magic Loop. But I've got them started now and once you get going it is a very simple and pleasant pattern to work.

I'm doing them in the Opal colorway "Flamingo", from their Rainforest line. It makes me feel very fancy to say that, as apparently the yarns from the line are difficult to obtain. I was seeking the "Zebra" colorway for my friend Dani, and found all of the US suppliers were out of stock. I found a British supplier that had stock, and so I decided since they were hard to get....I'd get a couple of balls for myself ;-) I got "Parrot" as well.

The great part is that around here, even if I *could* find them, Opal typically goes for $15-18 a skein. Even with the exchange rate, I ended up paying only $10 a skein. And while it takes Amazon.com 3 weeks to ship my CDs from Colorado, my yarn arrived by airmail in less than a week!

And a picture will be forthcoming when Blogger gets its act together :-(

It's Done!

I think instead of the rather prosaic "blue shawl" I am going to call this shawl my "Goddess Shawl". I feel so beautiful in it, and the blue color makes me feel the energy and peace of the ocean even though I am miles away from the real thing. It's like a little piece of the ocean to wear around my shoulders!

I used another one of those abalone buttons from my grandma; she had pretty good taste, huh? I had to use a counterbutton on the back to adjust for the weight of the abalone button; this sucker is HEAVY.

I just LOVE how it came out!

Note to any others who may wish to do the pattern, it's called "Chanson en Crochet" and it's featured in the book Wrap Style. Before you start, however, download the errata from the Interweave site, as nearly half of the rows have errors in them in the book! (Yikes!) I didn't discover this until I got to row 17 (out of 22), which directed me to 'work into the single crochets in row 16'. The pattern, as printed, featured not a single single crochet in row 16, and so I got temporarily derailed. That's when I found out all the other errors existed, but you can't tell, and fortunately I am a pretty experienced crocheter. I won't just blindly follow a pattern when the directions are clearly off; I will do what makes it work (thank you Maggie Righetti!!). So I didn't have to rip anything at all.

Other than that I think the pattern is really nice; the book shows it in a smooth cotton yarn, which would make it a beautiful casual summer topper instead of a more dressy Goddess Shawl :-)

Beautiful Blue Shawl

The lovely blue Handmaiden Spun Silk yarn that I treated myself to has been sitting in my yarn basket for a month now, waiting for me to decide what to make with it. Oh, I go over and pet it now and again to make sure it doesn't get lonely. I assembled some of my nicer yarn in the basket with it so it would have friends. In case anyone's interested, its friends are; 2 skeins of Lornas Laces Shepherd Sock in Bittersweet, 2 skeins of Regia Silk sock yarn in candy pink, a skein of monster-green Lacey Lamb laceweight, and the two skeins of hand dyed green Manos-like yarn from Dani.

My goal had always been to wear the yarn, as some sort of shawl, to an upcoming wedding. But I couldn't decide what to do with it. I thought I wanted to knit it in order to maximize every inch of the gorgeous stuff.

But then I ran across a beautiful crocheted capelet in Wrap Style. I'm about halfway done, and I just finished using the first ball. Deep breath and fingers crossed I will have enough yarn.

Here it is, half done. I hope you all approve!

I found a toad!

Look at what I found in the boiler room at work! I have no idea how he got in there! One of the guys here drilled holes in the lid of a plastic wire nut jar for me to keep him in.

You can just see him in the lower corner of the jar; he's so tiny he could sit on a nickel!

More Productivity

Continuing adventures....

*3 more hats on the knifty knitter. One for a Christmas gift and 2 for my school district's mitten tree (I know they're not mittens, but kids need hats too).

*A scrapbook of my various vacation adventures

*2 pairs of earrings, 3 elastic bracelets, and some charm necklaces that were a bit experimental.

*my pink & green 'warshrag'.

*a whole bunch of crocheted flowers from leftover novelty yarn.

Pics to come!