what a pair!

There is a wee little girl on the way right now, and I needed to make her some bootees:

Periwinkle Sheep watercolors II sock yarn, "hot pink", size 2 needles.

Though that pattern, which has been made over 8,000 times according to ravelry, gave me fits by the time I made the second shoe. I had to rip out the wee little straps twice. Didn't know what was frontwards and backwards any more. I'd like to blame the heat and the humidity, because surely it can't be my knitting skills.....

If you were hesitating to comment after the last post, I fixed the link to Donna's blog entry. Here it is again to make sure. Sometimes you have to do things twice the get it right.

I'll also try very hard not to toss any more comments into cyberspace.

more Successful Lace!

If it's Thursday morning on July the 15th, 2010 when you see this, I want to direct your attention to here. Donna Drunchunas, author of Successful Lace, is featuring all of the contributors to the book one day at a time.

And as you may already know, I played a small part. :)

ETA: Kathy and AlisonH: I saw your comments and wanted to post them. The disappeared in cyber space. Something about error#503. But I saw them! I read them! Thank you!

Pink?!

Barbara from the comments after the last post asked me if I'll ever get to wear the set I made for the book.

Indeed I will receive it back this summer, and it is for me to keep and wear as I like. Which is kind of nice! The shell needed to be made in a certain size specified by the publisher, for their model. I'm lucky I'm the same size, though probably considerably shorter. :)

Thing is, ever since I've received the book and posted about the project, I've been wondering whether I would really really wear the ensemble! Anyone who's ever met me, people who know me: have you ever seen me in pink?

Nope. I am not a pale pink and pearls kind of person at ALL. In the summer I'll wear lighter colors, linen and whatever goes with that. But in general I like solids, deep and rich colors, black, and chocolate brown. I've only recently started to augment that with some brights like turquoise and orange (not together, of course!!)

Then there's the lace. I love knitting it, but when I look at my wardrobe, I barely own a single lace garment. Scarves and shawls are the exception, of course. Lace in small doses, that's more my thing.

So why the heck did I knit a lace garment and stole in a color called Antique Rose??

The answer is fairly simple: I designed them not for me, but to the best advantage of the pattern and the yarn.

I was given a selection of Dorothy Reade's stitch patterns. I was hoping there'd be a diamond one, and there was! Lucky me! In two variations!! That meant I could play. One I used for the shawl, the other I used for the shell.

When I saw the yarns we could choose from, I wanted a yarn that would match the stitch pattern: a soft color that would be interesting, but also not obscure the stitch pattern. Sometimes you don't know until you swatch, but in this instant I was sure from the get go it would work. Lorna's Laces dyes Almost Solids, and it's what I requested.

I also knew I wanted to edge the lace pattern of the shell in seed stitch, which would again work well in the pale pink. (There's almost nothing seed stitch doesn't work with, really.) It would look like small pearls along the neckline. Diamonds, pearls, what could go wrong?? Funny thing is, I don't wear a lot of jewelry, either, I usually save it for special occasions.

So there you have it. A pink lace shawl and shell, and all I wanted was to do the pattern and its inventor justice. I hope I've done that.

Successful Lace Knitting

Two and a half years ago, Donna Druchunas was talking to my friend Alison Hyde about how she is planning to write a lace knitting book, honoring the work of Dorothy Reade. Donna wanted Alison to contribute, as they had just collaborated on Alison's book, Wrapped in Comfort.

Alison in her kindness referred Donna to me, who in turn graciously asked me whether I'd be interested in participating in a project that would involve 24 different lace patterns and just as many designers. We would all be able to pick a stitch pattern from a list, and then submit a design. I gratefully said yes.

I was very much inspired by a pattern that had 2 versions, and submitted designs for a shell knit in DK weight yarn, and a matching shawl, knit from chunky weight. Lorna's Laces was one of the companies that gave yarn support - and THAT inspired me even more. When a yarn and a pattern come together, it's a beautiful thing indeed.

Two years ago, I finished the pattern writing and the pieces and took a million pictures, before sending them off. Finally I am able to reveal:

Thank you for taking a first look. I am sure that I will be talking about this book and the projects in it a lot more....consider yourselves warned!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. It's Memorial Day weekend here, the weather is beautiful and summery, and tomorrow I get to go to the Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft fair in Cummington. My dear friend Anna is driving, and I reserve the right to take a nap in the middle of the day.

lace on the brain

It must have been the anticipation of THIS arriving in the mail for me that my mind has been on the subject of lace knitting lately.


I made this Foliage hat for my sister. (True confession: I started it before the Citron shawl. First I would alternate: do one repeat on the hat, do one section on the shawl. Then it was just one more section on the shawl. The shawl won.) I finally finished the hat a couple of days ago. This is very soft Queensland Super Aussie Merino worsted.

Then I have the terrible, terrible task of test knitting a new yarn I dyed before my surgery. It's an as yet unnamed blend of 50% merino, 50% silk fingering weight that is simply divine to knit with.

I started on a Prairie Rose shawl from the Knitter's Book of Wool.

I liked the pattern well enough. In fact, it's gorgeous. It was kicking my butt a little, since it's been a while that I've made anything more complicated. Maybe it was my poor post-surgery brain that just couldn't handle it. (Ask me another time what really stupid things I've done in the last two weeks.)

But I decided that the yarn and the pattern were fighting each other....the yarn was too busy for the pattern, the pattern too intricate for the yarn. I frogged it,

and started a Twilight scarf from the book A Fine Fleece.

Better, no?

Tomorrow, we talk about what's inside the book. ;)

peeking allowed

Some of you may remember that I was part of a blog tour with Donna Druchunas last year in April. (Here and here are the two parts of an interview we did.)

Meanwhile, another beautiful book was in the works, researched and written by Donna, about the work of Dorothy Reade.

This time I am proud to be able to say: I am a contributor!! There are many names in this book that you will definitely recognize, and I am humbled and happy to be among such illustrious designers: Evelyn Clark, Annie Modesitt, ...

If you go to the amazon link and click on "see all product images", you can see the projects from the book. Mine are the pink sleeveless shell and the pink shawl.

The book has not been released yet, but I am pre-ordering it today!!! I am sure I'll be talking about this book more as it becomes available, but I am officially allowed to show you the above image now.

Have fun peeking!