The Lure of Lace

It's been so long since I've posted. Thanks to those of you that haven't given up on me and e-mailed. DH and I are settling in here and things are starting to feel normal again and not like I am on some extended vacation. For a time there was no knitting being done, though there was yarn buying, but I am making up for that, now.

I am in a state of finish-itis, which I suppose is better than being in a state of start-tis. But, perhaps, this finish-itis has come upon me because of the guilt I know I would feel if I let the start-itis that is lurking behind it come to the forefront before finishing some more ufo's! But, before I tell you what I'm working on, let me show you a few yarn acquisitions.


I had to find out what all the noise about Tofutsies was about. That was my first purchase. You can see it was around Easter time. This is from my new LYS in Knoxville.


On a trip to Lexington, I found some sock yarn for DH. He's a drab color kind of guy.


Back in Knoxville, I found some really gorgeous lace weight called Jojoland Harmony. The colors seem to blend like trekking in an ombre fashion. I can't wait to find the perfect lace pattern. I've seen some really pretty things people have made out of it on Ravelry. The other sparkly stuff was on sale. I know I'll find something to do with it one day.

So what have I been working on? I put away the wrap sweater for a little while, because I've been itching to work on some lace again. I made some progress on my Heere Be Dragone shawl.

I am actually, farther along than this photo shows. I've started the wings. This pattern is so much fun. Every part of the creature is made from a different textured lace stitch. I am not so much fond of dragons as I was interested in learning the techniques used in this kind of pictoral lace knitting. The horizontal stitch is my favorite thing I learned from this shawl and it's so useful.

I was almost tempted to use lifelines making this shawl, but being kind of lazy and never using them before, I've just been knitting happily (and sometimes frustratingly) along. I find fixing lace mistakes kind of fun and challenging, especially if you have to drop (on purpose or not on purpose) down some stitches to repair something a row or two down. What a weirdo! The most difficult thing for me is to remember while knitting this pattern is that on the even numbered rows you still have to pay close attention to the last charted row, because there are some stitches that have to be slipped and they are not marked on the even row.

Yesterday, I put this shawl (which I am calling, The Green Dragon, in honor of the tavern by the same name in, Hobbiton, from Tolkien's trilogy) aside in order to finish the Peacock Feathers Shawl that I started long ago. I am now on the border, and should be done with it tonight. This is that variegated mess that I will be over-dying in order to bring the gorgeous lace pattern back out to the forefront.

Next post, which will be very soon, maybe even tonight, I will show you what I have been up to with yarn purchased from Laura at Drooling Over Yarn.

Posting From the Gap

Yay! It's great to hear from you guys! I have only 54 minutes to get this post up before it is no longer today, and I did say that I would post today! Can you believe that I have only been here for a couple of weeks and I have already bought yarn? In two states! In fact, I've already been to one yarn shop, twice! The closest yarn shop to me is in Knoxville, TN, which is at least an hour away. The other yarn shop that I went to is one that I used to go to in Lexington, KY. I'll show you pictures of my new stash acquisitions in my next post.

So much has been going on here since we arrived. The one thing that we wished would not have happened was that one of our very favorite people in the Gap passed away, suddenly, a week after we got here. Her name was, Minnie, she was a wonderful, feisty, eighty-six-year old lady. We will miss her so much, but we are so glad that we got to spend some time with her before she left us. I'll tell you more about Minnie in my next post, too.

In all other ways we have been happy and trying to settle in and unpack. Thanks to Feliway and Rescue Remedy, PH had a good car trip. Here he is, unsuspecting little fellow, before we left Williamsburg, VA.

This is what we found waiting in our apartment for us when we got to the Gap. Our awesome friends Madge and Bill somehow managed to sneak in sandwiches, drinks, snacks and other gifts for us, even for PH! This was a godsend for us, because we ended up rolling in at about 1 a.m. and needed some nourishment. We slept (Ha! I use the term loosely) on an air mattress that night and movers came the next morning, early, to unload the U-Haul.

So, we are now spending time, visiting friends and family, and settling in. And PH?

I think he's adjusting pretty well.


After all, this is where PH was born. He's a little TN mountain cat. Very ferocious!

Horton Hears a....Huh?

We are here! We are here! We are heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere!!!!

~Whoville Whos

I will be posting tomorrow. No matter what.

Oh, My Aching, Packing Back!

Hi, everyone! I haven't been very good at keeping up with my blog lately. Why? My husband and I are MOVING! Needless to say, we are packing, packing and, yes, more packing. We have left our jobs here and are going back to Cumberland Gap, TN, where we lived three years ago. It's been calling to us for some time now, and when we went back for a visit last October, that sort of clinched it right there. We have good friends, family and church there. It's the place where we've felt the most at home in our ten and a half years of marriage. I think that you'll enjoy hearing about life there in the Gap. It's one of the last "Mayberry's" left in the U.S. I think there was actually a magazine or newspaper article about it that said just that. Life seems to move a bit slower there than on the east coast of Virginia. My DH and I, we like it like that. The funny thing is that we are moving into the same place that we lived in three years ago. PH found us and adopted us there. Do you think that we'll wake up our first morning back and think that we've been dreaming all this time?

PH dreams.

Wrap Redux

I've decided to frog and start the wrap cardi over in the smaller size. The fabric seems to be very stretchy in this yarn and I think it will also grow, due to the alpaca content. I consulted with my friend, Natalie, over the phone this evening, and she comes to the same concensus. She has made a hat using the Ultra Alpaca, so I bow to her experience, as well. So, if it doesn't come out well, I don't have only myself to blame. Makes me feel better. Heh.

I would show you a picture of my meager progress, but my camera batteries died. It is just as well. I only have a bit more than an inch done from the neck, down. This yarn is so soft and pretty!

Say It With Yarn

Today was the day that I started a new project and entered it from "day one" on Ravelry. I even put today's date down and started a notes-diary section, like I wanted. You see, today I got to pick out Valentine's Day yarn! Yay! Today was our day off, so DH took me over to my LYS and let me pick out whatever I wanted. He's so great!

Well, look what I chose!
It's Berocco Ultra Alpaca in a heathery lavender shade. It's a very soft, worsted weight, 50/50, wool/alpaca blend. There is a generous 215 yards in each skein. I don't usually go for purple shades, but this one just jumped out at me. The next photo shows it more true to color on my monitor.
I have decided to make the Knitting Pure and Simple, Neck Down Wrap Around Cardigan. It's #263 on the linked page. I started it this afternoon, before I had to run off for a rehearsal, but now I'm wondering if I should make a different size. The size I started would give me about two inches of ease. The pattern says that it is designed to be close fitting. A size down would give me two inches of negative ease, (in my fattened state), although it is a wrap style cardigan, so does that matter as much? I am going to lengthen it a little and also add some waist shaping, as others have done on Ravelry.

Thanks, Laura and Jules, for the nice comments about Airy Wrap cardigan. I think it turned out better than I thought it would. Jules, it's funny that you mentioned the Central Park Hoodie, I have the yarn and pattern to make it, in red! I was really thinking that I might start that next, until the V-day shopping spree today. I also decided that I needed something simple to knit next week while sitting in some dull, lecture-type training classes. Heh heh. I will probably start the hoodie next.

It's been a busy week, here, and it's going to get busier. I missed S-n-B, last Thursday, which I was bummed about. I needed to get some things done for a friends bridal shower. It was held on Saturday and was such a good time. I haven't laughed so much in a long time. It was a lingerie party and my gift turned out to be a hit. The bride-to-be couldn't stop laughing. It was pretty funny and involved do-it-yourself iron-on transfers, an old map and white, lacey panties. Hmmm...I'll stop there. The wedding is this coming Saturday, with the rehearsal the night before. Should be loads of fun!

It's a Wrap!

PH and I share a love for storms. He is the only cat I know that loves to sit outside, on the porch or under the car to listen to the thunder, and to watch the lightning and rain coming down. Tonight there is an incredible wind. After DH went upstairs to bed, PH and I took the laptop and went outside in the dark, on the back deck, where the windchimes were in constant motion and song.

It's been so warm the past couple of days that it feels like springtime. We've had the sliding patio door open so now the air in the house smells fresh as the outdoors.

Anyway, I stretched out on one of the benches that line the railing, with PH, sphinx-style, next to me. We could hear and feel the wind roaring through the trees. Leaves swirled by and caught the light as they danced past us. Through the wind and the music of the chimes, we could hear, every now and then, a bird saying something to comfort himself up in one of the trees, and we heard other noises that sounded like birds until I realized that it was the trees, themselves, creaking.

Then, I looked up.

It was surreal. The trees around our house are so tall and slim that they looked like palm trees swaying back and forth. Then I remembered how sandy the soil is around here and how some of the trees have very shallow root systems, how in the first summer we lived here a tree came down and stretched the whole length of the backyard, and how the house next door was flattened by six trees during a hurricane.

PH and I are listening to the windchimes from inside, now. The wind, itself, sounds like the ocean from where we are. We had been stretched out in front of the patio doors, but have since retired to the comfort of the couch--me on the couch, proper, and PH on the back of said couch, where he is pleasantly resting on top of my Airy Wrap-Around Sweater, after long since giving up kneading it to death.

Speaking of the finished Airy Wrap-Around Sweater from Fitted Knits, here it is!

It's really not that bad, in fact, it's kind of cute. Even DH humored me with some appreciative comments. I do think that I will like it much better after getting rid of the extra blubber that's been plaguing me lately. I swear it just snuck up on me! One day I looked in the mirror and went, "Auuggh! Where did that come from?!" It's got to go. Hey, this blog has helped me to finish three sweaters that were languishing, maybe it can help me slim down a bit, too? It's worth a shot.

Remember that I gave myself permission to start a new sweater after I finished these three? Now I have to decide which one will be next. Any suggestions for worsted weight? At the moment I'm all into cardis. Of course, I could still wait until I finish that Rabbit Ears Cardigan....