Number 11 and counting

Here's the 11th set of socks this year. They're knit from the top down and done in the wonderful Austermann Step with Aloe. I'm in love with the stripes and the repeat was frequent enough that it wasn't hard to match the striping on second sock


I tried something different with the toe: I modified the Round Toe and ended with the kitchener stitch. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE LOOK OF THIS TOE!!!!!! It has a lovely curve and using the kitchener avoids the funny little elf point one so often gets with the regular Round Toe.

SO...one more sock to go. The stress of getting it done for Christmas was getting to me, what with everything else going on. Then it occurred to me that the year doesn't end till the 31st! SO it doesn't look like there'll be a knitted gift under the tree for my husband this year...

That takes a bit of pressure off. There's still so much holiday work - haven't wrapped a thing, still have to decide on the Chrismas Carols we're singing next week so we can learn them all, there are parcels to mail, fruitcake to make (a pale apricot pistachio this year) and the Christmas cards aren't quite finished - looks like England won't get theirs till the week of New Year's at this point...My parents are visiting and Mum took care of the baking-of-the-cookies-with-the-kids this year. (There was a wee bit of stress when my mother realized that my husband had accidentally poured the Wheat Flour into the All Purpose Flour tin, resulting a cookie dough was unbelievably soft and difficult for the kids to roll out, but Mum was a trooper and made the best of it.)

We did make the annual trek out into the woods of Edinboro to cut down our Christmas tree this morning. On a sad note, it was the first year in recent memory that Bailey wasn't with us, bounding around, getting her leach tangled in the trees, and occasionally knocking one or the other of us into deep snow in her exuberance (she never really did lose her puppy mentality). Her absence was especially noticeable because it seemed like EVERYONE IN ERIE COUNTY was at the tree farm WITH THEIR DOG this year...but I think in general fun was had by all.

Here are the kids modeling their knit hats...I love that they love the things I make them!

And thanks Amy and Linda for your kind comments about Bird in Hand Designs, I'm having a really good time with it.

For now it's back to #12. I'll feel better if it's at least on the needles,

Yours in Trekking,
Claire

I've got news!

I'm starting a pattern business! Bird in Hand Designs

Printed copies of my patterns will always be available at Cultured Purl (thank you Sue and Shirani!), but once BirdinHandDesigns.com is up and running, you'll also be able to find me online at Ravelry and Etsy. Toward that end, I have started a blog here at BirdinHandDesigns.com so feel free to stop by and let me know what you think. There is a TON of set up involved: I'm hoping to be officially open for business in February. In the meantime I'd love your thoughts and comments.


I just got designer status at Ravelry.com and I have a couple of free patterns that you can download here and here.

Take a peek and let me know what you think!

Yours in knitting,
Claire

Another toe-up sock completed!

My younger daughter is getting a pair of socks for Christmas, and here they are - my second pair of toe-ups done in the gorgeous but sadly discontinued Trekking 100. For this pair I used the new square needles Shirani and Sue just gone in. They're nicely fast, being metal, and the point is a joy for getting through the tiny wraps at the short row heel, but I have to say my tension is not as even as it is with wood, and I found the shortness of the needles caused a bit of cramping in my hands. But, they are definitely worth a try, if for no other reason than to throw a little novelty into your knitting! They come in sets of 5, which is nice for the toe-up technique, and I believe Shirani has them in 0,1,2,& 3s.

My younger daughter is also a dancer, and although her arch is not quite as high as her sister's, it's high enough to warrant the addition of two 6 stitch gussets at the turn of the heel. (See the detail of the gusset in the photo below.) Also, her point shoes have a wider box to accommodate the width of her toes (making pointe a lot less painful!) so to account for her specific foot shape, I made a much wider toe by beginning the cast-on with 24 stitches.


These small changes to the basic toe-up pattern, made better fitted socks for both girls (although they won't know it till Christmas morning!) For my son's pair, and that's number 11 if you're keeping count, I'm going back to my old friend the top-down sock. I'll let you know how it goes,

yours in yarn,
Claire

Manos del Uruguay

Check out this new yarn Shirani just got in: Manos Silk Blend - a lusciously soft blend of Silk and Merino Wool. Silky soft beyond belief and the colors! Well, these are the three colorways Cultured Purl has in stock right now and I'm in love with all of them. It's hand dyed by the "hands of Uruguay", a non profit organization with over 400 artisans in cooperatives scattered all over the countryside of Uruguay. Its goal is to bring economic and social opportunities to rural women.

This yarn would make a beautiful hat, pair of mittens, or dare I say it, a shawl...
Stop by the store and take a look!

yours in yarn,
Claire

18 Hours of Musical Theatre...

(the same 3 hours over and over and over again! only a Mother's love...)

I had planned to get SO MUCH knitting done, but it turns out that trying to sneak in a few rounds on black yarn in a darkened theatre simply does not pay. I ended up dropping stitches and ripping back so frequently I just didn't get anywhere fast on this hat for my brother-in-law. (Sorry it printed sideways!)

Shirani got me hooked on this awesome Brooklyn Tweed pattern, found here and I have to say I adore this project! It's simple and very intuitive, and I am absolutely enthralled with the yarn I'm using: Nimbus and O Wool, both organic, and a joy to knit with. Each skein of O Wool (made in Middlebury Vermont), uses half an acre of organic land. WE NEED MORE YARNS LIKE THIS IN THE WORLD!!!!

I love this fibre so much I'm ready to get started on a second hat (my husband's birthday is a few short days away and I now he'll love the feeling of this wool - it's very soft and not at all itchy.) I'm going to cast on right now, and then do my best to put it aside for today's 3 hour afternoon show!!

yours in organic wool,
Claire

PS, Next year's sock club is almost full. If you'd like to sign up, stop by or call the Cultured Purl.

Jill's Baby Blanket

This blanket is just gorgeous...in fact I almost hesitated to post this picture because the colors aren't anywhere near as vibrant and beautiful as the real thing. But when Jill stopped by to show us the finished project the only camera I had was the one in my phone.

She did a lovely job! Her color choice was inspired and the garter stitch was spot on! Love the red border Jill!

Yours in knitting,
Claire

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Sent with my Treo 755p smartphone & Chattermail

And then there were two...

The fit on the first sock was just shy of perfect, so I cast on 4 more stitches at the start to make the toe a bit less pointy. I also began the gusset 6 rows earlier to create some negative ease. And after the short rows were done, I picked up 2 extra stitches at each corner to eliminate a messy looking gap at the top of the heel. This second sock fits like a glove. And Robin, yes I did finish the socks in about 2 days, but ankle socks take a lot less time! The ribbed cuff is my least favorite part of sock construction - all that back and forth with the yarn on size 0s is tough on ones wrist. For the girls, I only do 8 rows of ribbing and it's a breeze.

To keep my momentum going, I cast on immediately for a second pair (my younger daughter picked this lovely Trekking yarn out of my sock stash) and I have to say I'm loving the vibrancy of the colors. Thanks Amy for your kind comments. My younger daughter is also a dancer although her feet are slightly less arched so I'll make some modifications to these toe-ups to better fit her wider but equally beautiful foot. This time I began with a lot more stitches at the cast-on to create a flatter, more subtly rounded toe.

Well it's back to the double points for me...my deadline is looming closer!
yours in yarn,
Claire

Toe-Up Socks and "Nice" Feet

Archy feet are lovely on Pointe, but a pain in the butt when it comes to getting a good fit in a toe-up sock. The short row heel doesn't seem to be as elastic as the flap construction of a top-down sock which makes slipping the sock over the ankle and heel difficult for those of us with high arches. After trolling around online yesterday, I decided to add a gusset to my daughter's ankle sock.



When the foot was about an inch shorter than where I wanted to begin the heel, I began increasing one stitch at each side of the instep. I alternated the increase round with a plain knit round, and added 6 stitches to each side, taking my total stitch count from 56 to 68 - allowing a little ease at the widest part of my daughter's lovely ballerina feet. Once the heel was complete, I quickly narrowed the ankle area, by decreasing every round 6 times to remove the extra 12 stitches. The decreasing can be done more quickly because the anatomy of the ankle narrows at a faster rate than along the curve of the arch.

I'll have her try the sock on tonight, but it fits me just fine and while my arches aren't as 'nice' as hers, she did inherit hers from me, so I'm optimistic that the fit will be tailored right to her!

On to the other one,
yours in Opal sock yarn,
Claire

The End of the Year is Coming Fast

I've had to put aside the Silk Garden blanket for a bit so I can get to work completing my goal of 12 pairs of socks this year. For this pair for my daughter, I've decided to cross party lines so-to-speak and give the toe-up a try.

I thought I'd custom fit it to her particular foot shape, so I cast on only 16 stitches to create a pointier toe. After testing several cast-ons, I settled on the Figure 8 method. It nicely mirrors the look of the grafted toe on the top-down sock although the cast-on stitches looked a little loose and sloppy at first. After knitting a few rounds, I used my crochet hook to pull the slack over to the side with the tail so it looks neater. For the second sock, I may try the Eastern Cast-on to see if that gives a neater appearance.

After watching Shirani rip hers out several times because the increases weren't nicely matched, I decided to use the Lifted Increase, my favorite, which is nearly invisible, leaves no hole, and has an almost perfectly symmetrical slant depending on which stitch the increase is worked into.

By the by, here's a photo of the double pointed needle holders that readers asked about. (Hmmm, it posted upside down...)

They are great to use when knitting socks: the needles fit inside the tube and the sock in progress can be wrapped around the outside. Hand made for Cultured Purl by a wonderful Pennsylvania woodworker, they are beautifully constructed out of various woods and come in two sizes to hold either 5 inch or 6 inch needles. They are perfect for protecting your precious wooden double points and keeping your work in progress from slipping off the needles. I have several. Cultured Purl just got a bunch in - they make a great Christmas gift!

Yours in knitting,
Claire

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Sent with my Treo 755p smartphone & Chattermail

A hint on the Rambling Rows Blanket

I'm continuing to make progress on the afghan. It's mildly annoying to look at all those ends dangling from the back of the blocks (but that's NOTHING compared to how annoying it would be to have to SEAM TOGETHER all those blocks, so I'm not complaining...) so I thought I'd stop for a bit and weave some of those ends in. A mistake.

Those ends are really the simplest way to tell front from back. Really, this blanket is so beautifully designed, the joins blend right in rather "seamlessly"! So, if you do decided to stop by Cultured Purl and pick up this pattern and some Noro Silk Garden, resist the urge to take care of all the tails as you go.

By the By, we had a WONDERFUL time in Stockbridge. Turns out the bar has a late night menu with the MOST DELICIOUS chicken nachos ever, so missing dinner didn't matter much. The weather was beautiful, crispy cool and clear: a perfect New England FAll weekend. The Red Lion Inn is amazing.



The rooms are filled with gorgeous antiques from the collections of the various people who have owned the inn since it was begun as a stagecoach stop between Boston and Albany in (around) 1773.



The porch is quintessential New England: a charming spot to sit in the late afternoon with a cup of tea or a cocktail before dinner. Just inside the doors is a room with a roaring fire and lots of old rocking chairs perfect for doing a little knitting.


Almost upon entering the inn, one seems to relax into the nostalgia of another time and place. Even those of us with type A personalities can stop and smell the flowers!!




Keep this magical place in mind if you're ever looking for a weekend getaway.
Yours in knitting,
Claire

On the Road Again

We FINALLY headed out...3 hours later than I had hoped, 1 hour past the point of no return for making our dinner reservation, 30 minutes to0 late to eat dinner at the Inn at all because the kitchen closes at 9...what is up with that I ask. Luckily they have a bar...deep in the bowels of the basement of this 216 old bit of historical New England heaven. A bar appropriately named "The Lion's Den" which I'm guessing will at least have some chex mix or peanuts...

(she sighs as she snaps the photo of the highway sign confirming that even considering remotely the possibility of making it for a little nibble of kitchen left overs is beyond ridiculous.)

but here we are, somewhere in New York State, listening to a Billy Collins poetry reading on a CD I burned last night. I drove for awhile because my husband worked most of the night and, as I knew would happen, he was snoring before we hit Harborcreek. For awhile the pager kept going off, followed by the usual phone calls checking in, till we either crossed an invisible line of unspoken acceptability for leaving behind responsibility and entering
vacation mode, or we got out of the pager's range!

Either way here we are in that comfortable, easy silence earned after years of togetherness -the kind you have to experience to really appreciate. Billy Collins is talking about (ironically) the virtues of staying at home, and I am knitting on my husband's sock-he has no clue...

Enjoy the weekend,
Yours in knitting,
Claire

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Sent with my Treo 755p smartphone & Chattermail

Seamless mitered blocks

Thank you Sarah for your kind words about the blog. We're so glad that people enjoy it! I'm having a wonderful time working on this blanket. The geometry of it is beautiful and I just love knitting with Silk Garden. I have found this Noro yarn to be very soft after washing and I think my son will find the scrunchy garter fabric very snuggly. He's getting a kick out of watching me knit it, and I have to say that his reaction to my progress is really pushing me along. Sometimes it's the complexity of the pattern or the beauty of the stitches that attracts me to a project, but in this case it's knowing I'm giving a part of myself to someone I love who, in his own little 10-year-old way actually appreciates handknits, that makes it very very special.

After knitting the fair isle hat and having your sister love it, you must get a sense of that also. And by the by, fair isle isn't easy...you're already knitting beautiful things!!

Stop by the shop soon. I'd love to see what you're working on!

Yours in knitting,
Claire

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Sent with my Treo 755p smartphone & Chattermail

The Rambling Rose Afghan

I love this blanket!!!!!!



Noro's Silk Garden is such a lovely yarn to work with. This pattern is all about picking up stitches for the different blocks meaning there's no seaming involved! Also, it's done in garter stitch which yields a beautifully thick fabric - prefectly for a child's cuddly blanket!

I was a bit worried that I'd find the pattern boring, but between keeping track of the decreases, and anticipating what each new geometric shape will look like in the self-striping yarn, I'm finding this project to be extremely interesting and a delight to work on.

Yours in knitting,
Claire

It Was a Day Like Any Other...

I got the kids off to school, ran a few errands, stopped by Cultured Purl to drop off the new shawl, then somehow CAME HOME WITH 20 SKEINS OF SILK GARDEN and a pattern for a mosaic afghan for my son. OHMYGOD...i did the only thing that seemed sensible-i quickly ran it down to the basement and dumped the whole load of new yarn into one of my big rubber bins, sealed it up tight, then went upstairs and had a cup of coffee. THEN, I found the right needles, read through the new pattern and, realizing happily that I could finally make use of some of my stash, went back down to the basement, grabbed a couple of skeins of the silk garden, and got started on the project :)

yours in yards and yards of yarn,
Claire

I just finished the new shawl...

It's blocked out on wires and is in the process of drying right now. This is the part that seems to d r a g g g g o n s o o o o oo long...waiting for it to dry to see if it really is as pretty and lacy as I hoped it would be. One never really knows, with a new yarn, how it will work as lace.

This is done in Noro's Silk Garden sock yarn. There's a lot of thick and thin going on, but I think it adds to the organic feeling of this shawl. It reminded me, as I was knitting it, of a butterfly, so I had given some thought to naming it "The Butterfly Shawl". Then I decided that I'm not sure there are any striped butterflies actually in nature, so I was going to call it the "Old Shale Shawl" after the lace pattern. But then today at the shop, Rita commented on how much it looked like a butterfly....so I don't know. What if, for instance, a year from now, I come up with a design that actually resembles a real butterfly pattern? Then I would have wasted the name on a non-existent striped butterfly....





Here, by the way, is my left-it-in-mistake. (If you've taken one of my classes you probably already know that I tend to always leave one mistake in a project as a reminder that no one's perfect and this is a hand knit item after all.) I messed up a couple of yarn overs down the middle seam. However, I don't think it's that obvious!

The shawl should be dry by the morning. If you're looking for a new lace project, stop by the shop and take a peek!

Yours in knitting,
Claire

I'm happiest when...

I'm happiest (knittingwise at least) when I'm designing lace. Anything out of lace, but especially a shawl. I've just started one in the new Noro Silk Garden sock yarn. I ADORE the colorways!! This is going to be a top down, triangle shawl in the Old Shale pattern. I'm hoping the Noro will make an interesting striped "V". We'll see...


Then, on a sad note....
Our beloved Bailey passed away two weeks ago. Just before we went camping actually, but I couldn't talk about it then. I can't even really now, but I did want to post a picture and give her a moment of rememberance in the World Wide Web. She was a sweet thing...

And then,






to end on with something more positive...



We spent a lovely evening at Beach 6 last night - Presque Isle was beautiful, the water was clear, it was breezy and cool, and the children had a blast playing in the sand after a picnic dinner with their cousins from New York. Hard to believe it's the end of summer and that school starts next week.

I love having the kids home, and it's always a bit too quite come the last week of August. But I have to admit, the promise of cooler weather gets me back in the mood for working in wool!
I know a lot of people tend to be cool weather knitters and while I do knit year-round, I nearly always aim for projects done in cotton, silk, or linen in the summer months. Of course there's always a sock or two going - woolly or not, their too tiny to throw much heat! But with school around the corner, the brisk Autumn days aren't far behind and I'm getting ready to pull out some merino!! Why don't you join me!

Yours in yarn,
Claire

Out of woods...

Well, we've packed up and left the campground- in the POURing rain no less. (We had one sunny day.)

All in all in was fun. Let's see, what highlights did I miss telling you about. Oh, my husband falling into the river was noteworthy. Completely submerged-hat glasses, New England Patriots swetshirt, wallet...all drenched....we did have access to a laundry at the campground, so he threw the sweatshirt into the dryer. (I don't have the heart to tell him it smells like riverwater in the car now-water from a "dead" river to boot.)

So, I am Not done with the shawl but the end is in sight. I resisted the urge to undo a whole row after someone worked on it. Everyone thinks it best to leave it as is-it's the thought that counts more than the expertise of craft.

I will mention though, if you do use the Noro sock yarn, whether for this prayer shawl, a pair of socks, or any other project, I recommend pullin from the outside of the skein. The inside pull is easy enough to find, however the character of the yarn causes it to knot and tangle too easily. I think I've spent as much time untangling knots as I have knitting the shawl!

Yours in beautiful striped Noro,
Claire
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Sent with my Treo 700p smartphone & Chattermail

wool and moths

Every knitter's nightmare...finding moths in the stash...one of the reasons camping and knitting really don't mesh too well.

I've always been afraid of moths...something about them getting stuck in my hair. Anyway, so far they've been fluttering around the camper lights and the fire but they've stayed away from my knitting.

In general I love nature. For instance, it's been really pleasant feeding hotdog buns to the family of ducks that swim around the river running by our campsite. I find it interesting that the mother duck hangs back, letting her children have their fill before she takes any.

So I would say definitely feeding the ducks has been one of the highlights this week, except for the part where my daughter's cell phone slipped out of her sweatshirt pocket and fell PLOP into the river. It's now drying out in a bag of rice. (Campers are such a resourceful bunch-a solution for just about every kind of crisis)

I can't really say I was loving nature last night when I discovered some kind of creature rustling around in our bag of snacks. (i don't know what sort of creature it was because I tossed the bag far far far away out into the night.)

But...the ducks make it all quite charming and nice. And the prayer shawl is 2/3rds done. I highly recommend the combination of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino & Noro sock yarn.

Yours in knitting,
Claire

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Sent with my Treo 700p smartphone & Chattermail

A nice slipped edge

I am making some headway on the prayer shawl. This picture is meant to showcase the slipped selvedge edge I decided to use. It makes a very neat and tidy, flat edge.

All you have to do is slip the first stitch as if to purl WITH THE YARN IN FRONT. By this I mean, before slipping the stitch, pull the yarn toward you so it is in the purl position. After slipping the stitch purlwise, move the yarn BETWEEN THE TWO NEEDLES to the back of the work. Continue knitting normally.

I am about halfway through the shawl. It has not rained today - a 1st since we got here. Something else wonderful happened today - I was able to take a HOT shower. My other showers were cold - as in ICE. Really. The first time, I thought 'how awful can a cold shower be?' I do swim in pools afterall. Well it turned out to be so awful I cried. The second time I was at least prepared for the horror of the icy cold water pelting out of the strange sprayer contraption one finds in a rental camper shower, but it was still pretty awful. So, as you might imagine, my hot shower today felt like heaven.

The monster spider has, we think, decided to relocate because it got tired of dodging the heat of my father's blowtorch. Either that or it drowned under the pails of dirty dish water my mother poured over its bush. (My mother doesn't like plum-sized spiders any more than I do-particularly ones living five feet from her camper.)

Well, there's still a bit of daylight left before the bats come out-so I'm going to do a few more rows.

Yours in knitting,
Claire

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Sent with my Treo 700p smartphone & Chattermail

the morning fire

happens to be the ONLY part of camping I enjoy. And this might be the only one we have this week as the forecast is for rain showers, rain, rain, rain, and thunderstorms. We are camping about 10 feet from the Dead River. I don't really like to think about why it's called "Dead" - the ducks seem to like it well enough though. I am taking the Flash Flood warnings in stride though. I'm only marginally concerned that I will wake up in the night floating down the river in our rental camper. My husband is not at all concerned so I am taking strength from him at this point.

The prayer shawl is coming along nicely. The mix of baby cashmerino and Noro sock yarn is subtle and soothing and surpringly soft. Okay that alliteration is in reference to last night's campfire conversation about snakes in Maine that like to nest under rental campers. I don't really mind snakes. But the spiders...OHMYGOD...there is a big black spider with a body as big as a plum ( I am not even exagerating a tiny bit here) living in the bush at my parents' sight. My father, the great outdoorsman that he is, keeps trying to blowtorch it to death but it continues to elude him.

But I was talking about that shawl...everyone (all non-knitters) is very interested in the concept and is eager to do a few stitches. The only trouble I am having with it is fighting the urge to undo their work because it's so mindbogglingly tight - I am, as many of you know, the loosest knitter on the planet...

But back to it...
Yours in soggy, rained on wool,
Claire

Into the Woods...

We are on our way to our annual pilgrimage into the deep woods of Maine...just passed Little Falls NY, its claim to fame being the town with the hotel closest to noisy (beyond belief) train tracks - but that's a whole different story...

Here you see my prayer shawl on my lap. I also packed my new triangle shawl design AND my daughter's sock to finish. Feeling VERY ambitious!!

Yours in yarn,
Claire

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Sent with my Treo 700p smartphone & Chattermail

It's that time again...

yes, Fall classes are just around the corner, and I need some ideas. My plans include:

the Lace Table Runner,

the Fair Isle Bag


the Peasant Shawl (the one that's done in sock weight yarn)

Another fair isle hat, this time with the option of ear flaps,

Mittens, with the option of adding a pretty edging to the cuff,

the Sock it 2 Me class - a sock with heel and toe variations,

and something else Shirani and I are thinking about:

a series of pillow classes, with different stitch patterns or techniques, take as many classes in the series as you'd like.

design your own intarsia - maybe one of the pillow classes.

If there's a class of mine you'd like me to offer again this fall let me know. Or, if there's something you've been wanting to learn, mention it and I'll try to put a class together. I'd like to have my schedule set by the middle of August. It's looking like Tuesday will the be weekday I can teach evening classes this year, but that's not definite.

Yours in knitting,
Claire

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...

I've been consumed with kid things, and summer things, and dog things - but that's a story for another day.

Thanks Shirani and Sue for a lovely birthday surprise!!! The ice cream cake was what just what I needed to cool off after our walk around the hot track. And it was great to see so many Cultured Purl friends out supporting the Relay for Life this weekend. Cultured Purl raised more than $9,000, (mostly from the sale of the lovely crystal bracelets), for the fight against cancer.

I am about half way through my summer sock. It's done in Austermann with aloe and it is one of the true striped colorways - red and grey, a very interesting combination. I'll post a photo soon. It's very slow going though because I'm also spending as much free time as I can working on another passion of mine: genealogy.


I've traced lines going back to 1600s France, England, Germany. But I'm a little stuck (strangely enough) on the American part...

dear Elsie Mae, I should have picked your brain more when I had the chance.

Grammie was the first person I remember talking to about knitting: I sat in the rocking chair in her living room as she walked down memory lane and shared with me the story of how her mother had helped her knit a beautiful pale blue dress for a party. It took her FOREVER, but when she was done, she was SO proud, and she thought to herself that she'd never looked more beautiful. She never made much time for knitting once she married, but she always remembered the feeling of wearing the soft blue dress she'd knit herself. Remembering that story, kind of makes me wonder what I'll be telling my grandchildren someday; what will be the thing I loved knitting the most?

Well, this has motivated me to get moving on the red and grey sock...

yours in knitting,
Claire

Progress Update on my sock-a-month-for-a-year goal...

I started with these in January....















Here's where I experimented with nylon reinforcement thread, which really worked out well given how my son insists on dancing around the house while wearing these.

Then after that, it's kind of a blur, but these came next








There's another pair I sneaked in during the month of March, but I can't find the picture right now.... SO....that brings me to a grand total of 7 and it's only the end of May, so I'm feeling like I'm in good shape for making my goal. How's everybody else doing????


Yours in too much sock yarn (but luckily they always wear out, so can one every really have too much of the stuff?)
Claire

I need to vent...

I've been RIPPING my house apart today, and it wasn't about Spring Cleaning. It was about not being able to find the Altoids tin box containing about a bajillion pretty glass bead place markers that I've spent years accumulating.... yes, while others in my family spent the day outside frolicking in the sunshine, I was NOT getting a lot of knitting done. NOT as in NONE. I have this sort of sick feeling because I kind of, sort of, maybe remember tossing an old almost empty box of Altoids away a few weeks ago when I was cleaning out a bag - but wouldn't it have occurred to me to check inside???? I'm going to choose to believe that memory is more imagination caused by panic and worry than fact, and that one of these days I WILL come across that box.

What I did manage to find in my hunt was an embarrassing number of project on needles. (I was just saying to Rita at the shop yesterday that I can never find the right needle size when starting a new project.) Well it's pretty much because they're all holding projects I just don't want to work on anymore. For a variety of reasons: can't handle the wool on hot days; can't remember where I am in the pattern and don't want to think about it right now; can't imagine what ever possessed me to want to do the project in the first place...reasons like that.

So for those of you out there feeling bad about those unfinished projects you just can't seem to finish, don't feel bad. I've got more. Waaaaayyyyyyyyyy more. There are the 2 Lucy bags, at least 4 socks (mostly all still in the bloody ribbing part), that cute little Ella Rae bag Rita did in turquoise, the sideways sweater that I just know Shirani is working on right now and I might as well forget ever catching up to her, a triangle lace shawl, a peasant shawl, a tank top in silk, my lizard ridge afghan, George's mitered square blanket that is never-going-to-happen-so-I-should-just-recycle-the-yarn, that really funky cotton noro sleeveless cardigan, a floral intarsia bag I started for a class 2 years ago, a noro ribbed scarf that can justifiably wait till fall. I feel like there's something big I'm overlooking but this will at least give you a sense of just how deep of a hole I'm in.

And having said all that, I did come across a small supply of those little plastic markers which will do in a pinch because I've just cast on for another lace design!!!

Yours in way too much yarn-on-the-needles,
Claire

The Fair Isle bag

I'm on a roll....




Here's the completed Annie Meadows Bag, done in Debbie Bliss Cathay yarn.

The first series of classes for this bag is just about finished and a new session will be starting July 16th (Wednesday's 11-1) for anyone interested in giving two-stranded knitting a try - no prior experience required, just a knowledge of both knit and purl stitches and a willingness to try something a little outside the box!

Yours in knitting,
Claire

The Chatelaine Table Runner

It dried overnight...

it never ceases to amaze me - that

something which starts out looking like this



and this,

turns into

something like


this






and

this,



with just the help of some water and a few pins, and of course the patience to leave the thing alone until it's thoroughly dry!

I LOVE LACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yours in crochet cotton yarn,

Claire