I have started said stole and here it is.

This is more Madelinetosh Tosh Sock yarn, this in the “logwood” colorway. The stole will take more yarn than the shawlette, so I bought two skeins. But it is great fun to knit. The rows seem to zip by quickly because they are not growing. They are all x number of stitches, so I know exactly how long each row will take me. I find that somehow comforting.

And Check This Out

I did a guest post for the Potter Craft “Crafter News” blog that is posted today. Check it out here. And as a bonus, you can download a pattern for Bouquet Socks, one of the designs from my upcoming book!

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Lucy hasn’t murdered any more of her toys.

She looks very ladylike, doesn’t she?

But all is not doom and gloom, for I have finished the garter stitch triangle that makes up the center portion of the Aestlight Shawl, and picked up the stitches around that triangle.

I am now ready to commence the fun portion.

From the comments, some questions.

Annette asked:

I note that you sometimes use superwash wool in your shawls. I’ve always thought that superwash wool, or wool combined with synthetic fibers, does not hold the blocking well. So, I tend to shy away from that combo. What’s your opinion?

I’ve made a lot of lace pieces from superwash wool, and have never had any issues with blocking. I tend not to use synthetics, so can’t offer any opinion there.

A number of you have asked what I do with all the shawls I wear. Well, I either shred them or burn them.

No, just kidding. Some I give away, and some I keep and wear. As simple as that.

And several of you have asked what Lucy’s pillow says. Here you go:

Lucy agrees completely.

The bag has made an appearance in my blog before — it was made and given to me by Richmond knitter Issy when I was down there at the end of June. It’s just the right size for carrying the pink blob around!

I’m getting ready to transfer the pink blob to a longer needle. It’s on a 24-incher right now. While that is perfectly fine for the number of stitches I’ve got, I do like being able to spread my knitting out a bit more, particularly when I’m knitting a new design that I may wanna make changes to on the fly.

This Weekend

Tomorrow I’m going to Minneapolis to teach classes and hang with knitters at Needlework Unlimited. I hope I’ll see some of you there.

I return home late-ish Sunday night, so no blog post on Sunday. (Oh, and I’ll be internet-free for most of the weekend too.) So I’ll see y’all Monday.

Lucy Sez:

Momma’s going away again? Catnip par-tay time!

I have done the last set of increases so I am now up to 576 stitches around, so each round is taking a lo-o-ong time to complete. I did make some progress over the weekend, though, even though I did no knitting at all on Saturday as I was busy teaching classes. And very little knitting yesterday, come to think of it.

Since I didn’t bother to swatch, and I changed my mind about a couple of the stitch patterns after I started knitting, I don’t have a really clear idea of how good this will look once it is off the needles and blocked. I picked lace patterns that (to me at least) seem to go together, so hopefully the end result will be more or less pleasing to the eye. But I won’t really know until it’s off the needles and spread out.

I’m betting I’ll be working on this for at least another week, so I have at least a week of suspenseful knitting ahead of me.

I’ve got some of this going on:

And some of this:

And some of this:

And on the back of the couch, I have one of these: