The next Socks-for-Mum podcast has been uploaded.
In this episode I show my newly finished Diamond Fizz Shawl and I chatter about the Fern and Feather sweater. There is a prize draw. I share a little bit about knitting in Colonial times – yep, I have finally started my research on for the dreaded History of Knitting paper I must write for Master Knitting Level 2.
Even though the date on the calendar indicates spring has arrived for most in the United States, we still have snow showers in the Rockies. I’ve wanted to do nothing more than knit lace lately. I suppose it is my sub-concious longing for warmer weather.
April was a busy shawl knitting month for me as I had signed up for two mystery shawl knitalongs with new clues released each week.
April 29th is the International Day of Dance and in celebration here is Danse Macabre, a MKAL that started on 1st April.
The name of this shawl comes from the music written in 1874 by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. Danse Macabre immediately lets your imagination wander to dancing skeletons in graveyards; what better yarn to pair it with than Dye for Yarn Tussah Silk Lace, many perfectly named for such a shawl!
I can’t even begin to express how much I love this shawl. This photo was taken with my phone and doesn’t begin to show it’s beauty. Danse Macabre was my first BooKnits design and will not be my last. The yarn is DyeForYou Tussah Silk in the color way ‘Bloodthirsty’ and it shimmers in the light. There were close to 1000 garnet silver-lined beads placed throughout the design but most heavily on the border. They also shimmer in the light, simply beautiful.
Romi’s Mystery Shawl 2016 used two colors of fingering weight yarn so it is a heavier shawl. I used Shalimar’s Breathless which is 75% Merino, 15% Cashmere, 10% Silk. It was a lovely yarn and obviously very soft.
The design feature I most liked in this shawl was the twisted stitch border in the lighter color yarn. It was slow and somewhat tedious to knit but oh-so-worth-the-effort!
This triangular shawl is simply a stunning design but I’m not surprised because the designer is brilliant. 
Oh yes, the lace bug has definitely bitten me. I have just cast on MORTICIA by BooKnits and I am anxiously awaiting June 1 so I can cast on her ETERNITY pattern with others in the BooKnits group on Ravelry. Come join us! Summer is almost here, or so they tell me.
I’ve missed the last two Friday Fiber events so I was excited to get back together with friends for a bit of spinning and fiber talk.
One of our members is opening up an eclectic bakery/cafe/art studio/class place in Guffy, a mountain town near me, and wanted us to be her guinea pigs and we willingly complied.
She made us some delicious scones and Danish pastries – baking is not an easy accomplishment in high elevations but she nailed it. I neglected to take pictures so you will just have to take my word for it, they were pretty to look at as well as yummy in the tummy.
The grand opening is a week or two away. The logs are still ‘green’ and my friend did not want to wait two years for them to be ‘seasoned’ so they are light colored now but will darken as they age. The chinking in-between the logs will widen as much as an inch in that time.
Only one person was knitting today, the rest of us had brought either spinning wheels or spindles.
It has been months since I have spun so it was nice to feel fiber sliding through my fingers again. I so enjoy the beauty of all these wheels whirling around while hands gently draft fibers and mouths chatter away.
When it was my turn during show-and-tell I shared my newest gadget.
This gadget is used for troubadour embroidery but I use it for placing beads in knitted shawls. It came with three different crochet needle tips so I will be able to use it for cobweb lace, regular lace weight and fingering weight yarns. What I especially like about it is the location of the screw which serves as a lever when I put my thumb underneath it. This helps me to pivot the tip easier when I slip the bead over the yarn.
I also shared the Mystery Shawl …… more about that in the next post.
It was a happy day.
Several books have been read since I last joined Ginny and her peeps on a Yarn Along. After reading Kate Atkinson’s two books about the Todd family, A God in Ruins and Life After Life I thought needed something a little more uplifting – not that Atkinson’s books were downers because they weren’t, they were very well written and I enjoyed them. I just needed something familiar, a family that I have revisited more than once, the Eliots of Damerosehay. This is a beloved trilogy that captured my heart and my imagination along with countless others who are fans of the bestselling author Elizabeth Goudge. Brilliant author!
Every family has its particular bright stars, and David and Grandmother were the particular stars of the Eliot family, people in whose presence life was more worth living, people who warmed you, like the sun and lit the whole world to a richer glory.
In my knitting world I am working on two shawls, both mystery knit alongs. One has gone in time out because I goofed three rows down and it was alarming enough for me to set it aside before gathering fortitude to tink back.
The second shawl is stunning and I am thoroughly smitten with the beautiful twisted stitches, tedious but well worth the effort. I feel like a tortoise working on the border but my Ravelry friends assure me they are in the same race going at the same speed. The border itself uses almost a whole skein of yarn so I need to keep reminding myself of that.
What about you? Have you read any books lately that I might like to add to my list?
There is a mystery shawl knit along about to start that I will be participating in and I am in a state of indecision. Anyone who knows me, knows I vacillate when it comes to choosing colors – should I pick this one? that one? no, no, the other one?
I asked the ladies in the Romi’s Studio discussion group on Ravelry their opinion and it was a almost a virtual tie so now I come to you and ask, “Which combo do you like?” This will be a mystery knit along with clues released weekly so I can’t give you any particulars except that it will be a triangular shawl knit in two colors.
Option 1 – Tart and Whiskey:
Option 2 – Whiskey and Well Water:
Option 3 – Whiskey and Rainwater:
Part 3 brings me to the inside of the cowl that will be folded to the wrong side of the Front. The pattern on the front of the cowl had a decidedly traditional look whereas the inside has a modern flare. The inside chart has much less stranding with four rounds of single color knitting per repeat and no long floats to catch on the backside.
All the knitting for Ambiguous is finished and after a good long soak in a warm bath it has been measured and pinned out to block. All that is left to do is to fold it in half and graft the top and bottom ends together.
Happy Knitting!
I woke up today to three inches of snow on the ground! Imagine that! The weather man said it was supposed to be a nice sunny day, too. It was very pretty. Later that afternoon I walked down to the mailbox to get the mail. It takes twenty-five minutes to walk down and about 30 minutes to walk back. It was fun walking through the snow. It is so white and pure and glistens in the sun.
I have two different socks on the needles. The picture posted is Conwy and is from Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road. The knitalong ends at the end of the month so I need to get moving on them! This poppy color is a popular color this year.
