The Angel is Done!

I'm pleased to announce the completion of the Angel Pearls Beaded lace Scarf, my 1st FO of 2008. I really thought I would be done in no more than a week, but a few interruptions for things like Christmas and another unplanned hospital admission for my Father sort of delayed things a bit. Well, that and the fact that I was so afraid my scarf would be too short that I kept adding extra repeats of the main chart. The pattern called for 10-11 repeats and I finally stopped after 15. You know how the story goes: you finish knitting a repeat and you try the thing on to see if it's long enough OR you grab a tape measure and run the numbers. You hmmm a bit and decide it's too short and knit another repeat...and another...and another...and well, you get the idea :-)

At 14 repeats I figured I was OK, but I decided to knit one more just to be sure. Well, after a nice warm bubble bath to get the machine oils and grime out of the yarn, the finished scarf headed to the stripped down "blocking bed" (formerly known as the guest bed). I gave the scarf a nice block, but not as severe as I typically stretch my lace. I was concerned about the fine, cobweb wt fibers breaking, so I was gentle. From previous experience I have learned that alpaca does not hold a crisp, sever block anyway and I'm thinking a gentle block has a better chance of keeping it's structure. We shall see. Anyway, I was so surprised to find my finished scarf measured 77" long and 6.5" wide. That's at least 10" more than I anticipated and I'm so pleased! By the time I add the beaded tassels to the points it'll be 80+ inches! Cool!


The finished shawl used only about 40g of yarn. After some fancy calculating I used roughly about 236 yds. of the triple stranded yarn. That's pretty much spot on with what Sivia used in her original scarf out of Kid Silk Haze, so that's also good. Oh, I forgot to mention how I solved them problem of the HOLE. Some careful scrutiny revealed that I had dropped a yo stitch from a k2tog. After playing with it a bit I realized I could do a repair job that would be essentially invisible, thus avoiding having to tink/frog back the better part of a repeat. So after casting off, I went back with a single strand of the cobweb fiber and caught the yo loop up to the next row where it belonged, weaving the yarn tail before and after the catch-stitch. You can't even see it and I'm happy. Those of you who know me well know that I could never just leave a boo-boo like that. If I couldn't have made the invisible repair I would have frogged back for sure :-)

New Year's Eve

It's just another New Year's Eve, just another Auld Lang Syne -- sounds like a familiar Barry Manilow song, doesn't it? ;-) I'm another year older, maybe I'm a little bit wiser or at least I finally have the PhD to prove it, and life goes on. It's been a very good year on the whole, and my knitting has progressed significantly. It's hard to believe that it's only been 2 years since I knit my 1st lace scarf, now I'm addicted to lace knitting. My latest project, the Angel Pearls Beaded Lace Scarf has reached the half-way point and it's really quite lovely. Or at least that's what I thought until this afternoon when I spread it out to shoot a couple of photos. There it was!!!
Here's a closer view...can you see it? A HOLE. A big ugly hole!!! I was aghast. It's about 1.5 repeats from the top, or the equivalent of what I knit late last night before falling asleep. I'm not exactly sure what happened, if I dropped a stitch or simply missed gathering one up in a cluster, or if it's simply a tension disaster. It could be any or all of the above. The alpaca is very slippery and it's not the easiest thing to knit with 3 strands I'm trying not to separate. So it's been hanging out for the evening while I decide whether to frog back (PitA) or forge ahead and do a sneaky repair later. My go ahead side is reminding me that it's at the back of the neck place in the scarf--the place where no-one will ever see it. Of course the perfectionist me wants to frog/tink it, but I know that the risk of losing even more stitches is super high with this yarn. Perhaps my 1st New Years Resolution needs to be getting over my need to have everything done to perfection. Honestly, this gap in the lace really isn't a big deal, isn't it????
I kind of want to finish the Angel scarf before I cast-on and resume working on Thistle's Epistle. It's a great stole, but I know finishing it will test my tenacity to the max cuz it's reached the sigh, ho hum, BORING! point where I want to do something else. Another resolution: finish the UFOs. I did really well this fall finishing stuff, so my WIP/hibernating list is fairly short, but I still have serious get-it-done work ahead of me.

Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve with Ryan Secrest is on, it's 11:00PM here and I'm signing off to go and knit in the New Year. I'll let you know what happens to the BIG HOLE on the flip side. Until then, I wish you PEACE, HOPE, and JOY! Happy New Year :-)

Merry Christmas!

Another Christmas Day is coming to a close and I can't help but reflect back on what's happened. The long-awaited socks for Daddy were unwrapped, not with surprise, but with a great deal of joy. Daddy put them on immediately last night and declared them perfect. Ever the critical eye, I thought they looked just a smidge on the snug side. Next time I'll try either a slightly fatter yarn or a few more stitches for some extra give. They also looked a little snug across the toes. They didn't feel too tight and Daddy said they weren't, but once again, I'll add maybe 1/2" on the next pair. He wore the socks with his dress loafers when we went out today and he showed them off to everyone. For as much as I did not enjoy knitting those socks I know I have to knit another pair for him very soon. It's the very least I can do to help his poor aching and sensitive feet find a little comfort.

I showed mother what I had knit on her lace stole thus far. I have dubbed my adaptation of the HeartStrings Scotch Thistle Lace Stole pattern Thistle's Epistle. I kind of like the ring to it, and I got into knitting an adaptation because I didn't go back and read the pattern instructions (the "epistle"). Her response was favorable, although she was so tired and grouchy that any hint of a positive response was a miracle. But, since the stole wasn't going to be under the tree, I gave her a new set of Wolfgang Puck knives--ones that are sharp and safe, unlike the scary things she's using now. I refuse to touch those knives--scary!

A few days ago I was feeling the need to knit a little something simple, yet lacy as a perk me up alternative to the big shawls and stoles I have OTN. I was surfing the FOs at Ravelry and someone posted a scarf by a popular lace designer, Sivia Harding. Off to Sivia's website I went in a flash, threw open the lace files and coughed up some cash! (My apologies to Mr. Clemens, ahem) There are 3 Harding designs I'm eager to knit, 2 of which are med-lg shawls. The other is this sweet beaded scarf called Angel Pearls, knit from a single skein of Kid Silk Haze. After a little math and some scary yarn manipulations I turned a cone of cobweb wt. baby alpaca singles into a triple-stranded center-pull ball. The yarn is a rich golden yellow so I chose silver-lined gold beads to go with it and I cast on. Failure to concentrate did necessitate tinking a row here and there, but I have 1.5 repeats of the center chart completed and things look good. The yarn is a bit tricky to work with as it's very slippery and easy to split the strands, but the fabric it produces is lusciously soft and enhances the lace. The best part of this scarf design--it's knit in one piece from start to finish with no grafting or provisional cast-ons or anything complicated. I'm finding such designs in lace to be hard to come by, so this is a big deal.

My Christmas was everything I had hoped for. I knew what most of my presents were beforehand, but Mom did surprise me with a few things from Coldwater Creek. I love everything I received, but I'm especially liking the new pajamas. A nice, heavy cotton jersey, the red pants are covered in preppy plaid and green triangle "trees" with a white top emblazoned with the word Celebrate right across the "girls". My "big" present was a red suede jacket, which I adore, but I Bet I wear the PJs more ;-D

Ho Ho Ho, it was a very Merry Christmas after all!