Vampire W(h)ine - On the Rack

Okay - it is pinned out and will come with me to Chicago for Stitches Midwest. (Hope it dries in time!) Here are some pics!

Shawl Update

Just a quick update. I'd lost my (photo) card reader, so I haven't posted for a while! It doesn't matter though, I've mostly been working on the edging of the shawl. I have not pinned it out, so you can't see the points on the edging at all, but still one can get an idea of what it is going to look like.


You can see that at least one member of the family likes it. I am 11/16 of the way around and racing to get it done in time for Stitches Midwest at the end of the month. (I'm also really not looking forward to dressing it- There are hundreds of points on that edging and every single one will need a pin! I may have to do it in sections!

Oh and what the heck is this? I was digging in my garden and I unearthed this: about 2 inches by one inch and scary because it squirmed!


I'm guessing maybe it is a Cicada pupa because of the green, but the internet seems to suggest it's a moth. This one's a gypsy moth. So maybe mine's a luna moth. I couldn't find anything quite like it on the net.




So what would you do with something like that? Me, I buried it again. I didn't know what else to do with it.

On the Needles

I've been working on an MMario design called Vampire W(h)ine. I'm really liking it thus far. It is currently about 18 to 18.5 inches in diameter and I am going to have to order more yarn before I can finish, but here is what it looks like at the moment.

And of course I have to put a picture of my puppy up n the blog. Yup that's her on my couch!

What's On the Needles Now

I've started two shawls. Here is MMario's Vampire W(h)ine:


I'm only on row 35, but it is coming along. Currently 240 mm (9.5 inches) in diameter. Since there are 225 rows without the edging, this will probably be a pretty large shawl (and I will run out of yarn before it is done!!) It will be more than 5 feet in diameter when done before the edging if size is consistent with what I have done thus far!! The yarn is KnitPicks gloss.

The other shawl is a Niebling variation called Frosted Ferns,

Experimentation

After having knitted so many other people's patterns, I decided I would play with making my own. Although it looks exactly like Myra Wood's free form lace, it isn't really. I actually drew up a plan and hoped that I would produce something organic and curvy.

The product however is less than pleasing to me. It looks very eratic and poorly planned.

Here is a larger version done with a flash. You can see the beads better and the "pattern".  The cabled movements of stitches to broaden the swing of the ssk / knit two together lines has not worked too well, and I will have to figure out another way to do this (Maybe try it on the purled row instead of the pattern row.)

I guess I still have a long way to go to become a Herbert Niebling:

Started Over

Here is the progress on the restarted Panama Shawl - I wasn't happy with the apparent mistakes in the first effort.

This is the first clue (above). I decided to put the beads in a different place this time around. Here is midway through clue 2:

Here is a close-up of the beading.

Here is a side by side comparison of the old (right) with the new (left).

Mario Mystery Shawl