Ishbel - Done

I thought mistakenly that this was going to be an easy knit compared to the Nefertiti shawl that is currently awaiting new yarn. Did I mention that I contacted the Hand Maiden people and they are dyeing a skein of yarn just for me so I can finish it? I misread the pattern and simply didn't have enough yarn to finish it. So while awaiting the new yarn I started Ishbel.

I had it almost finished when I decided that it would look nicer on larger needles. So it got frogged. I restarted it last Friday night during the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Yesterday it was done and blocked.



It's currently drying on the spare bed.





It is a nice pattern.

A Change Of Pace

I love my Swiffer, it gets a lot of use in this house with all the hardwood floors we have. I am tired of spending money on the disposable cloths plus the fact that they are not reusable. Being a little tired of lace knitting I was flipping through the Mason Dixon book last eve while watching the Canadian Men's hockey team decimate Sweden. I decided a little mindless knitting was in order.

So here it is; my Swiffer cover...
It will work wet or dry. I think I'll make a couple more and save some money.

Darn It, That Hurt

Yup, I did it...I frogged the almost completed Ishbel Shawl and I almost bawled all over the yarn as I was winding it. I went up two needle sizes and I hope that makes a difference. This is not a great pattern I must say, I only knit 8 rows and had to tink back 4 of them. A sign of what's to come.

Frogging Day

So I was pretty excited about this pattern and don't get me wrong, I still am. It's just that I'm not convinced this is the right yarn. I've had this Sea Wool in my stash for a couple of years and it looks really pretty in a skein.



I don't think it looks quite so pretty when it's wound and knit. Kind of blah actually, in my view.
The pattern itself is lovely but I think my needles are too small to do it justice. The yarn calls for 3mm and the pattern for 4mm so I used 3.25 mm.

There is one other thing that's bugging me about this pattern. You can knit this in two sizes and the smaller one calls for 330 yards. I have 350 yards and I'm just about finished and still have half the yarn left. It doesn't really tell you how much yarn you need for the larger size in other than laceweight which this definitely is not. So, I am seriously considering frogging it and either putting the yarn back in my stash or attempting the larger shawl and see if I have enough yarn. Of course if I do that and run out of yarn your going to hear a lot of cursing from this part of the world.



On a more positive note I finished knitting a little cardigan for my housekeeper, without whom I would be in a whole lot of trouble. She is my savior and deserves this. It's drying now and I'll spend the weekend putting it together as I watch the Olympics.



My Nefertiti Wrap is still on hold until I get more yarn from the company in Nova Scotia. I had email communication with them and they asked me to send them a strand of yarn. They said they would dye one skein for me and send it. Wasn't that nice of them?

Hope you all have a lovely weekend...

Nefertiti Wrap On Hold

It's on hold for two reasons. The first is that my operated eye is not working very well yet but hopefully that will improve soon.

The second and most important reason is that I don't have enough yarn. I was gifted two skeins of Hand Maiden Sea Silk from my DIL for Christmas. I bought the pattern after assuring myself that 800 yards of yarn was sufficient. It's not, at least not if you change the needle size one up although I'm not totally convinced about that either. There are 18 charts to the pattern and I've just finished chart 7 with one skein. Around row 14 you start decreasing stitches so there I was last night counting rows and stitches to see if the second skein would do it. So it looks like 800 yards will do two thirds of the shawl only using size 4.5mm needles. Had I used the 3.5mm as given in the pattern do I really think it would have been enough yarn? Nope, I'd still be short. So until I can figure out the next move this is going into my unfinished basket for a while...

Where Has The Time Gone?

Wow, it seems like just yesterday that I posted. In reality it's been a long time. I have been doing a little knitting but not as much as normal. Most of my readers know that I'm pretty much blind in one eye and I'm waiting for cataract surgery. Well the wait is almost over. One week from today it will be a done deal. My only issue is still which lens to have implanted and I don't have that sorted out yet. My ophthalmologist and I are in disagreement at the moment.

Meanwhile there has been some progress on the Nefertiti wrap. I have just started chart 4 of 14 charts in total. I know it doesn't look like it right now but this shawl will be a rectangle according to the pattern. Guess we'll have to wait and see.



Yes, that's a lifeline you see. I made an error in chart two which the designer figured out for me and a little further on, on one of the k3togethers, I dropped one of the three. Of course that only became evident after I'd knit 6 more rows. I tinked back six rows and decided then and there that there would be lifelines in this project. I really know better but I got lazy and whenever I am it comes back to bite me in the bum.



I also knit up a quick hat for youngest grandson who plans to pass through T-dot for one night next week. He asked for one and I hope he likes it.



I'll post after the surgery and let you all know if I can see...

Happy New Year

I'm hanging out in brrrr cold Calgary for the holidays, I mean really really cold. Something like -21 Celsius (-6F) give or take with narry a Chinook in sight.

For Christmas I was gifted this lovely yarn from my DIL. I have 400 grams (800 yards) of the most lovely Sea Silk colorway Storm Water.



This is much to lovely a yarn for socks so off we went to a local yarn shop called Make One Yarn Studio with the intention of finding a nice pattern and winding some yarn on their ball winder.



Life's never that simple for a knitter is it. As I walked out the door I said to my sweetie, "not buying any yarn today, really" and I heard him chuckle in the back ground, "sure"...

I got a little carried away and not only bought the lace pattern called Nefertiti Wrap, which has 14 separate charts, I also bought a lovely shawl pin, some Addi Turbo lace needles and at the same time also bought an inexpensive generic sock pattern for my DIL. I know, I know, they are all over the Internet for free but we don't have a working printer here so I said, what the heck. It was just seven bucks or so. The owner made an error on the bill in my favour of about 28 bucks and I pointed it out to her. She seemed grateful.

I also looked at a lovely knitting bag by Namaste that I had every intention of buying, just not that day.

So here's what spoiled it for me. We found a pretty easy, descriptive generic sock pattern and didn't need the one I purchased. The next day I went back to the shop and asked if she'd take the pattern back as a credit towards yarn or the bag. Can we all guess what happened? Nope, not taking it back, so sorry... even though I assured her I hadn't copied it.

Funny how something so trivial can ruin it for me. I came awfully close to packing up the yarn, yarn pin and Addi Turbo lace needles that I purchased there and returning them for a full credit. I realized that this is a pretty childish reaction and I'm letting it go, but I will say that this shop will not get any custom from me in future, sadly...