Becky's Knitting

So, if you remember from this post (scroll down), my mom ordered a Colinette Ab fab kit last fall from the guys at Threadbear when they had them on sale.  She started working on it recently and here are her results so far.  Very pretty!

She likes it too, except that the color scheme isn't exactly what she was hoping for to match her living room.  So, when I got this week's email from Threadbear and saw they had Ab Fab kits on sale again, I told my mom.  She was trying to decide what color to get this time, and I recommended she talk to the guys on the phone and see which THEY would recommend.  Well, not only did they help her out, they pulled together a selection of yarns just for her.  Within minutes of her call, she had an email with pictures of a group of yarns they pulled together.  And she loved almost all of them, but had one change.  Then they right away sent another email with 4 other options for her to choose from!  So, she ended up with a custom-made kit in exactly the color scheme she wanted - without even asking!!!!!  That is service!  I wish all yarn stores were like this.

In other news, I've updated my finished object, work in progress, and about me sections.  A few items are missing pictures.  Once I am back up and about more easily minus the crutches I'll try to get pics of those, but there are quite a bit of updates with pics.   

My lace KAL starts tomorrow so that should be fun.  Plus, I'll be stopping by the LYS tomorrow to hit their First Thursday sale and get some needles for the lace and some yarn to complete the collection for my Grandmom's wrap that I am going to start sometime.  I need to take some pics to tell ya about that one so stay tuned.

Finally, I joined the Trekking Along.  Trying to decide whether or not to frog the sock I started or keep going - I'm not sure if it fits or if it should be looser.  We'll see.  Of course, I won't be doing any trekking anytime soon, but at the end of July, I'll be in Chile and Peru so I should have some great pics then!

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I've been wanting to knit a stole for quite some time.  Basic black to work with dresses when I go to musicals and ballets and weddings and that sort of thing.  I've also been wanting to knit a MAJOR lace project, especially after seeing everyone's beautiful creations during the Summer of Lace last year and throughout the year on people's blogs.  I was thinking about making a shawl, but let's be realistic - it's just not me.  So, I think a lacy black stole is just what I want to do. 

I picked up some yarn when HCW was having it's store-wide anniversary sale.  I looked at several different brands and knew I wanted something with at least a little silk so that the stole would have some sheen making it a bit more dressy for what I am hoping to use it for.  The decision was easy when I came across this skein of Fino by Alpaca with a Twist.  It's 875 yards of 70% Baby Alpaca and 30% Silk.   

Now that I have the yarn, I need to pick a pattern.  Here are some ideas that I have come up with so far.  If you have suggestions for others or comments on these, I'd love to hear them.  I'm not sure when I'm going to start this project - the LSSK group I'm a part of is starting a Lace KAL on a specific project on June 1 and I'm probably going to do that as a warm-up so this may be on hold.  But, I want to start collecting ideas and I figure input from others will help as well. 

Here are the candidates so far:

Lacy Lattice Stole from Fiddlesticks  

Inky-dinky Spider Stole from Fiddlesticks  

Paisley Stole from Fiddlesticks  

Estonian Garden from FiberTrends         

Cocoon Lace from FiberTrends     

Candle Flame Shawl from Knit Picks  

Hanging Garden Lace Stole from Knit Picks  

Mists and Mellow from Lavish Lace  

Deborah Newton Lace Shawl     

Gothic Leace Stole by Silvia Harding   

Evening in Eden Stole by Cabin Fever   

Song of Hiawatha by Hazel Carter  

Legend of the Shetland Seas by Hazel Carter 

Sampler Stole from A Gathering of Lace  

The Angela Wrap by Heirloom Knitting   

Print o the Wave Stole by Eunny Jang  

Moon Dance Stole by Melanie   

Leda's Dream by Melanie  

By the Alpaca Yarn Company:

Southern Evening Lace Wrap  

Rose Lace Stole   

Forest Path Stole   

My initial thoughts on pattern selection:

• I don't want a really simply pattern that just repeats the whole time because I think I will get bored with that.  I would rather do a lace scarf instead of a whole stole - plus, I like to save the simple patterns for variegated yarns since those are the only patterns that look good with them.
• I don't like fringe.  Any of the patterns shown above with fringe - I would skip that step.
• I only have 875 yards so that might limit me a little in pattern selection, although I could probably skip some repeats or something.  I'm not a big person so I can me a slightly shorter stole and it will fit me better. 

So, please, if you have other suggestions or if you have comments on pros and cons of any of the patterns shown, please share!  I look forward to hearing from you!

Posted by Becky at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Oh my, can you believe it, actual knitting photos?!?!

I have reached the midway point on my Mermaid.  Ok, it's not really the halfway point because I am only half done the body and haven't done any sleeves or anything, but I am still very proud of my progress. 

Why have I made so much progress?  Here's a hint:

My second knee surgery took place on Monday.  This pic shows how very high tech knee surgery is nowadays - I have my ice machine which runs ice water through a pad wrapped around my knee to keep the swelling down.  And I have a machine which passively moves my leg to bend my knee.  And of course the non-high tech extremely cuddly attachment - Major sound asleep with me.  Awww!!!

(Please ignore the drug induced ickiness of my appearance - just look at the cat.)  I am thrilled to see Mermaid coming along so well, especially after seeing so many beautiful completed ones at the HanneAlong knitalong that I run.  And, my LYS, has a Hanne Falkenberg trunk show going on right now so I actually got to try a completed Mermaid on which made me love it even more.  Of course, I don't want to finish too quickly because I want it to be cool enough for me to actually wear it when I finish.  No worries of that right now, but if I get too far I may have to slow down.  I have lots of other projects I want to work on, though, so I don't think it will be an issue.  I've been amazingly monogamous to this project this past month.  The only other item I have worked on is a sock that I keep in my purse and do a few rows here and there on:

My purple trekking sock.  I got this yarn when I was on my East Coast trip.  Which reminds me, I got lots of yarn on that trip that I need to show you.  I visited I think 4 yarn shops on my trip, so I'll try to remember to take some pics and show what you what I got while I was there.  Anyway, after finishing my first pair of socks (oh my, I haven't blogged about those yet either), I started on these.  They do fit my foot, but are a bit narrow, so I am hoping they stretch out a tad upon wear.  I am working them on Size 0's and probably should have cast on a few more stitches but I can't bear to rip it out now, so we'll see. 

That's it for now.  I know I have lots of overdue blogging to catch up on from the past 2 months and it may or may not happen.  Just depends on how addicting Mermaid remains for the time being :-)

Posted by Becky at 09:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Many of my friends think I should be a wedding planner - and I think maybe one day it would be a fun second career.  Basically, I love weddings.  I watch Wedding Story and Whose Wedding Is it Anyway and I critique and I admire.  Planning my wedding was quite stressful due to it's bad timing in regards to work, but my mom and I had so much fun with most of it.  (I blame this whole thing on her because she loves weddings too and definitely raised me as the kind of girl who had her wedding planned very early in life). 

My friend June, on the other hand, is the complete opposite.  She had a lot of other things going on since she got engaged and the wedding was pretty low on the priority list.  So, other than buying her dress, pretty much the entire wedding was planned by June, her fiancee, and me over the last 3 weeks.  That includes things like bridesmaid dresses (thank god for David's), finalizing wedding location (challenging since the same weekend as UT graduation), and ALL of the smaller detail things (cake, flowers, programs, etc., etc.).  It was a little stressful, but it all worked out in the end, and the wedding went off really well with no major crisis.  I don't have any good pics of the wedding yet since I couldn't take my own pics, but here's a few from my camera.

And here's the food I made for our girl's night the night before (chocolate peanut butter pie and chocolate chip cookies).  We also had my famous pina coladas.  Yum!

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