Mitteldecke (Fast Test Knit)

Hand spun 2 ply lace weight yarn made from Wensleydale X fleece purchased from Lowder Colours Farm. Spun on Majacraft Rose on the smallest whorl using the lace flyer and fat core bobbins. Knit on US 1 needles. Pattern from Anna Magazine 1996. Fast, easy and a test to see how this yarn works up. I plan to make a shawl with it. It's still wet so I will have a few shots of it when it is dry. It is a lighter color of grey than this and some sections are lighter than others since I spun worsted from flick carded locks and did not do any sorting for color variations.

Goldregen Row 66

A few pictures of Goldregen now I'm on circular needles. I've had a few problems while knitting with this silk. I lost some stitches when a needle protector popped off. Much swearing ensued while I fixed it and I accidentally snapped a thread while trying to knit 5 stitches together. I did a fix and hid the ends but if you know where to look you can see that I did something a little different to get the stitches to come together as I didn't want to put more strain where the break had been. Still, I enjoy knitting with this silk and I always love knitting a Niebling :-)

Salmon Queen (Another UFO Bites The Dust)

Just a quick post to show you pictures of Salmon Queen. This hung around for a long time waiting for me to have time to finish it. I'm really trying to finish off my UFOs so I won't have so much guilt over new projects. The blocking shots look darker because the doily is still wet from washing. As usual, I finished off with steam to set the doily as blocking while wet without use of starch just won't hold the shape. To re-cap. Flora 50 with US 000 needles, Herbert Niebling pattern. The last few shots are of new acquisitions. The roving is a Merino/Alpaca from "Black Bunny Fibers" as part of the "Team B" fiber club, the wooden wrist distaff (by Tom Forrester)and rosewood needle case/inch gage are from "The Wheel Thing"

Winter Slow Down (Row 73 of Salmon Queen)

Short post since my knitting is suffering the usual "Winter Slow Down" as I run around shopping and preparing for holiday baking. I have 26 points on the edge for the Princess, I'm on row 73 of the Salmon Queen doily a you can see above. I have a close shot of the "crossed stitches" that you see in lots of the Niebling patterns that he looks like he puts in for texture. I continue to slowly put more edging on the Sampler Stole. I decided to leave in the abrupt color changes in the edge since it I have no desire to have to weave in multiple ends and anyone who gets this yarn might as well see that this is something it does. I spend more time planning next years projects rather than starting new ones. I have plenty to work on in the mean time :-) Good Evening and Good Knitting!

You Can't Knit Just One Niebling ("Lachskonigin" AKA "Salmon Queen" Doily)

Just a short post since this is, for me, a three day weekend. Did I mention that I can't knit just one lace project at a time? Some get finished sooner than others and some, like the Peacock Shawl, are destined to never be finished by me (maybe someone else will get this project). However, this never stopped me from casting on more lace. See above the start of "Lachskonigin" also known as "Salmon Queen" for some reason. It's another Niebling doily that I bought from doilyhead and you can see a picture on her Flicker Site here . I did the center on US 0000 and then switched to US 000 ( I have ordered circulars in US 0000 and even smaller but they have not arrived yet). I'm using my favorite thread Flora #50. Too bad they stopped making that size of Flora but I have been stashing it so I have enough there to keep me going for a long time.

Also, what do you all do about those large chart inserts in the Anna and Burda magazines? I started buying those old magazines on E-Bay and some of the inserts are "crispy" with age. Now, I'm not collecting magazines for their value as antiques. These are not "first editions" folks. I buy them because many of those darned Niebling patterns have yet to be re-published and I want to knit them! But I was concerned that I would just plain not be able to read the patterns in some of these old magazines or they would just crumble when I went to go Xerox them in the future, they are that old. So what did I do? I scanned them and then cut and pasted them together. I then used plastic laminating sheets on top of these scans to preserve the print. You get a huge sheet and I roll them up until I need them. You can see from the last picture that I also will cut out a pattern and label them when I want to use them. I can stick highlighter tape on these patterns and I can save them for later as well. I keep them in a large, flat, cheap art portfolio. I could just scan them and save them to a disc I guess but I always did like to be able to flip through pages and patterns with my hands. Old dog getting older here :-)

Good Evening and Good Knitting!

Frosted Fern AKA "Oakie Dokie" Blocked (Is it my imagination or are the doilies getting bigger?)

Here it is. Frosted Fern (AKA "Oakie Dokie" for the Niebling Yahoo Group knit-along) is finished and I decided to give it a picot edge because my sister said that the original edge on the free pattern looked too much like "Rick-Rack". Center knit with US 00 and the rest on US 0 in Cebelia # 30 in a pretty shade of blue. It is a little dark pinned out because it's still wet. This 121 row doily is free on the internet and I have a link listed in my left side-bar under the "Stuff" section. Now I can concentrate on finishing the edge for the Sampler Stole, finish the Legends of the Shetland Seas and work more on the WRS. I did find US 00 needles at The Knitting Zone thanks to Fleegle and missalicefaye. They do have nicer joins so I bought some to transfer my WRS to and the stitches slide much easier on this. They should make working on it much nicer so now I think I could actually finish this shawl. I plan to work mostly on existing projects to try to finish them rather than start new ones. This is due to the fact that I tend to be so busy during the holidays that knitting tends to slow down what with baking etc. Of course, this assumes I don't get a florid case of "startitis"or something. Of course, I will be buying my copy of the "Princess Shawl" when it comes out next month but I think that this would be a great shawl to start the new year with. I did pick up a few more colorful shawl pins on E-Bay as you can see above.. I'm afraid I have a weakness for them though that green one starts to remind me of "Knit Picks" needles a little bit. Still, it looks good stuck into the "Boundary Waters" shawl and that's what counts!

One last comment about the Boundary Waters Shawl and Mountain Pines Shawl. The Two Old Bags have re-issued both patterns for those out there who wanted to have a copy. If you click on the hyper-link on their name, you will go there. Finis! Have a great evening!

"Frosted Fern" Row 80 (AKA "Oakie Dokie" on the knit-along)

Just a few pictures of Frosted Fern. I'm on row 80 using Cebelia 30 and US 0 needles. I want to get this done so I can concentrate on the Sampler Stole edging. I did not like the way that the edging is supposed to go on so I ripped out the two inches of it and I will just put it on the way that Sharon Miller suggests. Lots less bother and I'm not wedded to following instructions :-) I will be taking up the "Wedding Ring Shawl"again as well and possibly start swatching again for the "Princess Shawl" that is being re-issued in November. Since I tend to slow down in the Winter with the holidays I will concentrate on finishing rather than beginning lots of stuff. At least that's the plan. Good evening!

Frosted Fern (AKA "Oakie Dokie") Niebling Variation of "Oak"

While I force myself to do more of the Boundary Waters edging/torture, I have also taken time to do the Knit-along for the NieblingLaceKnitters Yahoo group. This is a free pattern titled "Frosted Fern" that is a variation of a larger Niebling Pattern called "Oak". I'm using Cebelia #30 with the center leaves knit on US 00 and then switched to US 0 circular needles. I would have stuck with US 00 if I had good needles, but the circulars I had in a "no name" brand in size 1.75 mm were so horrid that I flung them across the room and then into the trash. Did you know that Addi Turbo circular needles don't come in US 00? They jump from US 000 to US 0. I guess they don't care that I have a gap in my knitting needle collection now. I will have to go to Lacis and look and see if Inox has them in the size I want. You know something, as I write these words I just realized I never tried using my Addi Turbos on the WRS because I just assumed they would be too slick. Right about now, slick might be a really good thing. Hmm....... I think will have to finish Boundary Waters edging first. I'm so darned close to the end, if I stop and try the Turbos on WRS and it works better than the Inox, I will not finish the Boundary Waters Shawl, much less the edging for Sampler Stole (also in progress). Have a good evening and good knitting!

Herbert Niebling's "Lyra" (Who is that headless knitter?)

Pattern by Herbert Niebling, it's called "Lyra" and was obtained by buying a 20 year old Anna magazine on E-Bay. This is an English language publication originally printed for the market in the UK though you can also find publications in German as well. I started knitting my round shawl version of this doily pattern on 8/6/07 and finished 10/2/07 using 2.5 mm needles for the center and 2.75 mm for the outer leaves. I used 2/36 NM Cashmere/Silk from Colourmart in color "Polka Dot". This is a "mill-end" yarn on a cone with the manufacturing oil still on the yarn. I knit it that way and washed it out after the shawl was done. I did swatch and wash the sample to be sure of what needle I would use and what it would look like when it was done. Lots and lots of fun. I'm off to do more of the border for the Boundary Waters Shawl and for the Sampler Stole. I need to finish things before I start a big project, but I am knitting "Frosted Ferns" with the Niebling knit-a-long which appears to be a variation of a Niebling pattern called "Oak". It doesn't look remotely like "ferns" to me :-) I hope to post the finished Boundary Waters next and will give the shawl frame a try! Good Evening!

Fuchsia Doily (085/18) So it wasn't Bleeding Heart

According to Mary Francis at Lacis the flowers in this doily are supposed to be Fuchsia. Too bad. I kind of liked the idea of "Bleeding Heart" or "Love Lies Bleeding"but then I'm a morbid kind of person at times :-) Using US 0000 for the center and US 000 for the remainder, it was made with one ball of Flora 50 in red from a burda magazine in German "Alles aus Garn: Kunststrickent / Folge 1. I'm not perfect. It has mistakes (0ne reason why I will likely never enter a county fair) but I learned new things with this doily so I am very happy. Thank you to every one out there who helped me to figure out how to knit this doily and to everyone who is enjoying this lace as much as I enjoyed knitting it. I am in a finishing frenzy now so I hope to post more completed lace soon.