It's been awhile since you heard from me but I took a little break to catch up on my trash-novel reading and to go through my clothes closet to purge it of things I will never wear again on pain of becoming a hopelessly outdated fossil. Still, I have not been totally idle. See above, the edging that is now half way around the Sampler Stole. It would be further along if I didn't keep looking for something else to do. Did I mention that finishing a project is not always as much fun as starting one? Still, it's good discipline for me to plod on since I have decided that I only get to start back on the Princess Shawl after I finish this stole. Under this you can see one of the things I worked on to distract myself from edging Hell. I had to force myself to stop knitting on the "International Shawl" because the center is a Niebling and it's way too much fun. It's up to row 79 and you can begin to see the next set of leaves starting as well as the base of the first flowers. The ball of fiber is some Polworth that I got at Deep Color when it closed it's retail store front.I loved the colors in it and it is quite soft though not as soft as a merino. It's been wet and cold out here and that always makes me want to stay home and spin so I started in on this using my Schacht single treadle wheel. It looks pretty on the bobbin and I had never tried any of this fiber before. I think I'm just going to ply the Polworth and pray I have enough yardage to make something pretty. I only have 4 ounces of the stuff but it works up nicely and feels sturdy. I got my Estonian Lace book in the mail and it's very interesting. I feel some swatching in my future will be in order to figure out what I want to come after the Myrtle Leaf section in the International Shawl. I also got a magazine on E-bay as you see above. It has only 3 patterns in it that I wanted but it was not very expensive so I was lucky. It's the tablecloth I really fancy and I am spending a little bit of time interviewing my yarn stash for a suitable candidate. I'm going to try to resist buying lots of new fiber and yarn this year and try to knit from my stash. I hope Stitches West 2008 will be focused more on obtaining new patterns, books or tools etc. I am allowed to buy sock yarn for my sister as I'm wearing out my hand knit socks she made for me. Socks That Rock make a particularly nice sock yarn so I hope to get her some of that. Of course if I fail, I will be forced to wear a hair shirt. But at least it will be a lace patterned hair shirt :-)
