However, I can show you a close-up of the cast-on edge of the Chevron Stole.

I used a lace cast-on for the bottom edge so it would be nice and stretchy. The cast-on is one where you start with a slip knot on the left needle and then knit a stitch into it, transferring the new loop onto the left needle to make the second cast-on stitch. Then you continue on, knitting into the previous stitch on the left needle each time, and pulling the new loop up and placing it on the left needle.

The stole has garter stitch edgings — I started by working several rows of garter stitch before beginning the lace pattern. Once I started the lace, I worked the first and last 5 stitches in garter stitch to keep that edge going up the sides of the stole. To get a nice stretchy edge, on every row I slip the first stitch as if to purl with the yarn in back, then knit the next 4. Then onward to the lace section.

In other news

From time to time y’all ask me in the comments how the clean eating is going. It is going just fine, thank you. It’s been almost 3 months since I made this lifestyle change and I don’t miss my old ways one little bit. I would estimate that I eat 95% clean because as far as I know, nothing I eat is processed or has preservatives in it (and I work hard to make sure this is true). I eat no sugar or artificial sweeteners. I drink water all day (and one cup of coffee in the morning.) I’ve even started making my own yogurt (from organic fat-free milk) and let me tell you, that stuff is yummy. I do buy organic as much as possible.

I’ve noticed that I am much healthier. The respiratory and sinus issues that have plagued me forever are gone, as are any digestive issues. Unfortunately clean eating has not stopped my spine from disintegrating, but then, I guess that’s a bit much to expect. I look on the bright side — while I am hobbling around and screeching in pain as my lumbar vertebrae viciously squeeze my nerves, at least I’m not sniffling and sneezing at the same time.

Another a nice side-effect of clean eating is that I’ve lost a bit of weight.

(Aside: Speaking of hateful uncooperative vertebrae and disks, the little bastards are causing me  rather a lot of pain these days. So much so that it affects my normal day-to-day activities. I’ve had to cut back on some things — like computer time. I get a fair amount of email every day with knitting questions, requests of one sort or another, and other random things. Because it hurts to sit at the ‘puter, I can’t answer ‘em all.)

To close:

A girl and her tail-less mouse.

ETA: I appreciate all your good wishes and suggestions but truly, I am not looking for medical advice here (I’ve got a good doc I’m working with). Just wanted to let you know that I am less available than usual. Thanks!

She had her photo-shoot for her glamour photos.

In the photo of my shawl in progress yesterday, you may have noticed that I have the pattern repeats marked with stitchmarkers. I have since removed the markers.

Most of the time, I prefer to knit lace without stitchmarkers. I put them in this project, because I took it with me to work on at the yarn shop on Monday. I knew I’d be talking to people while knitting, picking it up and putting it down mid-row, etc. In that scenario, I’m happier having markers to keep me on track.

But when I’m knitting in solitude (and this is how most of my knitting is done), I’m happier without the markers. I find that for me, they get in the way of the “big picture” of the lace. I also find it annoying to have to slip them as I knit. Even more annoying — when a marker is in the middle of a maneuver that requires that I move the marker one stitch to the left or right. Know what I mean?

Take a look at this chart:

This is an all-over lace pattern that has a 6-stitch repeat, which is shown on the chart with dotted lines. The even-numbered rows are not shown, because they are all simply purled.

Note that on Row 5 of the chart, the beginning of the repeat comes in-between a yarn-over and a double decrease (sl 1, k2tog, psso).

Okay, you start working Row 5 — you have three stitches before your first repeat marker, right? The chart tells you to knit 2, yarn-over before the marker. But you still have 1 stitch left before the marker. That’s because the yarn-over makes your third stitch before the marker, and that 1 stitch is part of the double decrease on the other side of the marker — that “sl 1, k2tog, psso” maneuver takes up only 1 stitch on the chart, because there is a yarn-over on each side of it there to compensate for those 2 stitches that are decreased. But because it is in the middle of a pattern repeat, you have to move your danged stitchmarker one stitch to the right before every repeat.

Of course, if you think ahead, you can make this move on Row 4 — as you purl across move each marker one stitch to the left (left instead of right because you are on the back side of the work, going in the opposite direction).

Still, I prefer to do away withe the markers entirely.

Lucy sez:

“I’ve got my eye on you!”

That’s, reading from left to right, Dragonfly Fibers Dragon Sock in the Prophets of Persia, Golden Pear, and Villainness colorways, Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in the Clover colorway, and Miss Babs Yummy in the Spring Lettuce colorway.

Winners!

The Random Number Generator has chosen five winners in the Crazy Aunt Purl book contest: Laura S in MD, Liz T, Amy in Atlanta, Kathy D, and Jackie. The winners have been emailed, so if you think one of those individuals is you, check your email!

Current Knitting

I haven’t talked much about what I’m working on at the moment. I started another lace shawl, then decided I didn’t like how it was looking, and ripped it out and started over. Here is what it is looking like now:

This is Wollmeise 100% merino sock yarn in the Herzblut colorway. I finally got around to putting “herzblut” into the Google online translator and discovered it means “Lifeblood.” I figured it was blood of some sort . . .

I’m using a U.S. size 4 needle for this. After ripping out the all-over lace pattern I started, I went back and started with stockinette in a more-than-a-triangle shape, and am now doing a lacy edging on that. I think I’ll like this much better.

Lucy Sez

I got this toy for my birthday. I’m not exactly sure what to do with it, but it has catnip in it!

I finally made it to the Bird’s Eye Lace portion of the Aestlight Shawl.

I would have made more progress had I not done something stupid halfway through the first repeat. As I knit I realized that the holes in the pattern weren’t lining up properly, so I had to backtrack and see where I had messed up. I’d dropped the second yarnover on one of the motifs so I was off by one stitch. I managed to repair it without having to rip back, so all’s well that ends well!

I’m trying to time the completion of this shawl to coincide with the start of the Enchanted Wood Knit-Along. I’m too lazy to read the posts in the Ravelry group, but L-B tells me that the first clue will be emailed to us just after midnight this Saturday night.

I guess I could wind up some of my yarn in preparation.

But at the moment I’m too distracted to even think about such mundane tasks. Look what I got today:

On preview copy of my new book Toe-Up Socks For Everybody, which is coming out on March 23rd. I am very very excited but Lucy doesn’t seem to be too concerned about it, does she?

Bonus shot — the back cover!

Lucy seems a bit more interested — I guess she likes colorwork socks better than lace.

Here’s the view from this morning:

The sun was coming out. Yay!

Things are looking good down on the street. I went out and ran some errands. The streets were fine. The parking lots, not so much. Very icy.

I also finished this:

My Talisman Shawl. It sure doesn’t look like much in that photo, does it? The pre-blocked dimensions are 48″ by 24″.

Blocking achieved this miracle:

After blocking, it’s 64″ wide by 34″ down the center back. Knit from one skein of Wollmeise, with just 14 grams leftover.

Here’s a close-up of the lace pattern:

Here’s what I started today:

Care to hazard a guess as to what it is?

Miss Lucy slept through the blocking of the Talisman Shawl today. I’m sure she’s kicking herself that she missed out on helping me. But I turned the heat on this past weekend and she’s been happily sleeping through the most exciting events.

I seem to have hit a bit of a dry spell with the knitting.

See, in less than a month I am embarking on the Unique Sheep’s Enchanted Wood Lace Shawl Knit-Along. We start January 10 (if I remember correctly). I’m sorta sick of socks for the moment. So what to knit?

Aside: I did finish my socks-in-progress, see?

They are sportweight, knit from Fiesta Boomerang in the “White Zinfandel” colorway (which is one of my all-time favorite colorways). I like the socks, but as I was knitting the second sock I thought of some ways I want to adjust the pattern a bit. So i shall be winkling it a bit at some point and knitting another pair.

But not right now.

I am feeling uninspired, so what to do?

Wollmeise to the rescue!

This is Wollmeise sock yarn in the “Rhubarber” colorway. I started knitting some lace with it last night, but I didn’t like my results — I was using too large a needle (a U.S. size 7 – 4.5mm). I didn’t have other needles handy just then, so I just frogged the bit I did and will start again today with a size 5, I think.

I tend to like more “solid” lace, particularly when I’m using a variegated yarn. While this colorway isn’t wildly variegated, there are definite shifts of color. If I knit on too large a needle, the open-ness of the fabric plus the shifts in color detracts from the lace pattern.

Tune in tomorrow to see how successful I am!

Before I start in on the knitting, I have some gifts to wrap.

And Lucy is getting ready to settle in for a long winter’s nap!

Here’s my shawlette pre-blocking:

It is 48″ across the top edge and 21″ down the center back.

And here it is after blocking:

(If you click on the photo you can see a larger size that shows the detail quite nicely.)

After blocking it is 66″ across the top edge and 30″ down the center back.

And I’m happy with it — it looks the way I envisioned it.

The pattern will be available — eventually. You might have noticed that I’ve not written up patterns for my past few projects. I’ve got a lot of “stuff” on my plate and simply don’t have right now to release any new patterns. But I appreciate very much that so many of you ask and want to knit my stuff! In time, you can!

You may note that there was no small fluffy kitty reclining on it in either photo. Small fluffy kitty is here:

Happily snuggled up on her sheepskin!

Yesterday evening I sucked it up and finished the wimple I was working on, while watching The Diary of a Chambermaid on television. The film is in French and has English subtitles, but as I was doing mindless stockinette, and I do know some French, I could happily knit and watch at the same time.

I did 4 rows of garter stitch at the edge before binding off, using a Russian bind-off.

In the interests of full disclosure, the wimple is clipped together under the neck of my disembodied head, because it is smaller than an average sized human head. The wimple fits nicely on my head sans binder clip.

I made this wimple using approximately 350 yards of Alchemy Juniper sock yarn and a US size 7 (4.5mm) needle. I started by knitting a lace edging and joined it to make a tube, then picked up stitches along the top edge, and knit a lace pattern up from there, decreasing a bit as I knit. Then I increased a bit after the neck and just knit straight after that.

The pattern will be available at some point. And for now it is called “It’s Wimplicious!”

So now I am concentrating on my Two-Thirds Shawl, being knit from Handmaiden Mini Maiden in the “periwinkle” colorway.

At this point I have approximately 350 stitches in each row so a row takes a whole freaking lot of time to complete. But it is fun to knit, and the pattern is so nicely geometric that not only do I not need stitchmarkers to separate the repeats, but I need only glance at the chart at the beginning of a pattern row (wrong side rows are just purled across) to remember it for the row. It’s close to being mindless knitting, so it came on the train with me today.

And I may need to find another foreign film with subtitles to watch tonight while knitting.

Lucy sez:

“I’m just hanging with my pink mouse. Whatcha doin’?”

What happened to the True Love Stole?

This is what happened to it:

I finished it!

That’s a pic of it unblocked. Even as we speak it is relaxing in a nice bath of woolwash and blocking will commence momentarily.

But meanwhile, I am knitting on my new super-not-so-secret project:

This is the beginning of a shawl being knit from Tempted Luxe Grrl yarn. The colorway is un-named, as Stacy custom-dyed it for me when I requested a blue-green almost-solid. Isn’t it gorgeous?

The yarn is fabulous to knit — it is sport/dk weight and a blend of 80% Superwash Merino, 10% Cashmere, and 10% Nylon. I’m knitting it on a larger than recommended needle (a US size 7) and getting 4.5 stitches to the inch. I wanted a nice drapey fabric because I’m knitting lace.

The shape is a more-than-triangle — extra increases on the front edges result in the nice shaping that will make the shawl stay put on your shoulders. Because it is a heavier weight yarn, I opted for a stronger non-fussy lace pattern.

Right now I’m calling it the Stacy Shawl and I’m liking the name. The shawl reminds me of Stacy: strong, beautiful, and straightforward!

Now don’t quote me on this, but there is a very strong possibility that this pattern will become available in a very fun way (she said mysteriously).

Lucy sez:

“Please thank Miz Stacy for dyeing pretty yarn for a blankie for me!

In other news, I need to change the name of my Bamboozled socks as a reader pointed out there is already a design by that name. And here I thought I was being so clever . . .