ULT

Ugly Lace Thing!

After finishing the BLT (Big Lace Thing) I started another Circular Shawl. If Elizabeth Zimmerman was alive she would have celebrated being 100 this year. In honour of her Birthday I thought I should knit her famous Pi Shawl. Instead of doing it as she had made it, I was making it like she would have wanted us to do, by choosing our own lace sections. I was working away at it, but not really liking the results. I plodded along getting up to 288 stitches in the round, still not happy. I got to the increase where I had 576 stitches and knit 4 rounds, new lace design but I just didn't feel right about the whole project.

Then after seeing Gwen's VBLT (very big lace thing) I had to rip it back and start with another design. The yarn is Classic Elite's Silky Alpaca Lace, lovely Yarn, but for something else.I started a triangle shawl last night.

Today a lovely box of Misti Alpaca arrived. Just what I needed more insulation!
Trying to stay cool.

Ramen Knitting 101

Gwen sent me this link, actually a very good learn to knit tutorial!

(Don't bother me I am making dinner!)

Keep cool!

VBLT

VERY Big Lace Thing!

My friend Gwen, knitter extraordinaire, decided that the new baby arriving into their extended family deserved a special gift. Just before Easter she approached me about the best choice of yarn for a 'traditional' Scottish Lace shawl. We looked through the selection I have in stock, and then I suggested that she try Zephyr. A lovely Merino wool and Silk blend, lace weight and strong. She thought she would need 4, I ordered 5.

The pattern is actually a lace tablecloth pattern from the 1950's by Marianne Kinzel.

Gwen has been knitting on this everyday since Easter, at least 2 hours a day sometimes more. She has 'tinked' back many times. It became clear that this was turning into a huge project (she came back in for the 5th ball) and her biggest issue was finding a large enough flat space (animal free) to block it. I suggested she come to the shop.



Saturday afternoon she and her kid arrived with tiles and a freshly soaked shawl.

I thought first that we could do this on the floor, then I decided against that! We cleared the table added a leaf and moved the sewing desk against the table. The tiles fit nicely over the table and chairs held up the odd droopy corner. Gwen came prepared in that she had created a 6 foot circle with pen already marked on the tiles.
and we began:
We carefully eased the we knitting onto the clean 'blocking' boards, actually those spongy tiles you buy from the big box store for kids to play on.
Pinned the centre and started to measure and pin the obvious straight lines.

we used a lot of pins

We ran out of pins, (if you knew how many I had at home you would find this funny) fortunately the fabric store up the street was open.

after we finished pinning every 'loop' in the edging Gwen gave the whole thing another squirt of water, despite the humidity it was drying very quickly

The finished shawl, ready for its closeup!

We met on Sunday to unpin and quickly put the shop back together. It's beautiful!
Gwen has truly created a family heirloom.

BLT

Big Lace Thing!
I have been working on this for just over a month, which is really quite fast for the size of this project. It began as a way of using up some of the stray skeins of Berroco's Vintage wool. Hemlock Ring is an old lace doily pattern reborn as a smallish throw or baby blanket. Once you have finished fighting with the centre section the rest is really very simple, 4 rows of knitting around and around and then one row of endless counting yo's and ktog or ssk. I stopped at just after the small version...I was running out of yarn. The border takes a huge amount of yarn but it's worth doing.

Many on Ravelry have made this, usually out of even thicker yarn. Next time I would choose 100% natural fibres, blocks much easier. (Used a little steam persuasion, not always recommended with yarn that contains nylon and acrylic.)

This weekend I think we may watch a little sports game happening in South Africa.

Having Internet access to the shop meant I could watch the game on Tuesday! Very exciting. Also fun to watch the local Dutch Community 'whooping' it up outside just after the game.

Hup Holland Hup!

I think I might knit something orange!

Keep cool!

Watch this: Renate Hiller - "On Handwork"

thanks to Mason Dixon knitting for the link.

Too hot to knit?

I must admit that knitting has taken a holiday with this heat.

Good time to go through your patterns and your Christmas (yes I wrote that word!) list and think about what you are going to knit!

The shop is in a bit of chaos right now, we are moving stuff around. A couple of new (new to me!) display racks are ready to be filled with stock.

I huge shipment of Baba Tree Baskets is waiting to be soaked and shaped in my house. Some new designs and colours! Gregory (the basket wrangler) has decided to make this the last shipment he is bringing into Canada. Bureaucracy and increasing costs are making it more difficult for him to be competitive.

Pictures to follow shortly.

Trying to keep cool in this air-conditioning free zone!

See you Soon

I'm Back!

Holidays are over for now, we had a nice couple of days away! We took a trip to Ottawa to visit The Girl. We managed to get lost a couple of times on the way into this lovely city. At one point I said 'we are going south? Shouldn't we be heading north?'

We visited the Museum of Agriculture the first day, saw some cows and tractors!

The gardens were lovely, volunteers everywhere weeding a dead heading plants.

The roses were amazing!

We visited many of the places that the Queen was going to visit: Rideau Hall and the Museum of Nature we drove around the Parliament Buildings (lost again). The Girl has lived there for almost 5 years but we still manage to get completely turned around!

On the way home we had a tour of the Diefenbunker a fascinating place!

Not much knitting, but before I left I finished the big lace thing.

Working on the HST, this week it will be all about accounting!

See You Soon.