Monthly Archives: July 2017

That’s No Moon!

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Every once in awhile its important to challenge yourself, and you have to understand that masterworks don’t just appear, its something you have to attempt.  For lack of a better option to call them… I call the knitting ones my Knitting Opuses.  The last one was my two color brioche shawl.  I have had “Knit a Herbert Niebling lace” on the opus list for some time, and had gotten as far as tracking down the one English translation book and added it to my library.  The knitting group on Rav started talking about doing an informal KAL and so I finally jumped in at the end of March.

And in true “This is why we block/blocking is magic” fashion I bring you the before and after of blocking my Glocinella.  Blocking added 18 inches!

Now I see you saying… “but Carla, that doesn’t explain your title” and so I bring you to the second part of this post.  Maybe you are sitting there thinking that lace is old fashioned for old ladies with candy dishes and its just not you.  And you are right, lace can indeed be girly and frilly and formal.

But you are also wrong, because at your house when you are an adult you can decorate how you want and have ice cream for dinner.  Parents have been telling their kids that for ages.  When my husband finished his 39 inch Lego Apollo Rocket, I told him the dining room table would be a nice place to display it (The model breaks down into its respective parts and the moon lander fits inside too!).  It certainly is.

And yet, That’s no Moon!

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Next Up:  More socks, a knit basket and a worsted weight lace shawl!

Cakes, Hanks, Socks and Lace

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At the end of June, I was back to my thrifting ways and found a nice deal on what I thought was a couple skeins of point 5 (A thick/thin bulk weight) and some professionally dyed fiber so that I could compare to my current just washed fiber and see if that improved my spin, and a couple of skeins I was kind of ambivalent about.  Turns out it was 10 skeins of the point 5…. larger than my teapot!  So I am thinking based on the color I will make up some larger toss pillows for our living room.  I also spun a bit of the unlabeled extra fiber, and it definitely went smoother than my first  round with my own prep work.

Earlier this month I turned 40.  I celebrated by wearing a shirt proclaiming I was “Adult-ish” and drinking a blackberry hard cider while eating a chocolate cake… like the adult I am! It was also new license year for me so I’m kind of glad I lost weight this year.  Now just about 15 lbs to go and then maintain it.  Health-wise some things have gotten better, and some haven’t but overall I’m doing pretty good for 4 decades on this planet.

Naturally I took the occasion to buy myself some hanks of yarn.  There was a special on a weight I wanted to use with the handspun I got from a yarn swap, as well as a camel/silk blend which.  It should be arriving later today. (refreshes package tracking again)

I have finished my first non-wool socks pair, and the first of the Op-Art Socks KAL Anni which I made for Ben. I’ve got yarn picked out for Bora next month and I’m hoping to double down with the Alhambra if I can find a suitable combination. (I wonder if I can sneak in a bit more yarn when I go shopping for my latest swappee….)

I did start on my June KAL lace project, but had difficulty reading the pattern due not in small part to the printing side of things so I’ve put in more work on my Glocinella than I have on my alpaca lace shawl.  I’m down to the last 55 or so rows, which are fast approaching 1000 stitches per round, but its coming along.

I’ve also been attempting to get a couple rows of quilting in on the guest room quilt… but its slow going and like most things these days, it seems like the things to do are piling up faster than the things done.