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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Happy Leap Day!

We celebrated with a supper of frog legs, followed by a dessert of grasshopper pie. Delicious -- even if I had to pick the legs out of my teeth afterwards!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Of an Evening Shawl

I've been knitting away on the Crown Prince Square Shawl in Nancy Bush's book Knitted Lace of Estonia, and I'm having a blast. I just cast off the interior square last night, and I'm practicing the double-stranded cast on for the lace border.



Ready to cast on 409 stitches! And, that's just for HALF of the border!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Catch up

It hasn't been very quiet weeks here in Lake Wobegone...

I have had two trips and moved the in-laws in with us to help through their transition.

Some knitting has happened through this all.

On my trip to Salt Lake City to visit my friend Tamara and her hubby Rob, I busted out some Finnish knitting from the book I bid on last January. Remember Huuto? And the Mary Olki book? What a fun buy!

I translated the one paragraph instructions, studied the filmy picture and dove in. On the first flight, I cast on and did the yarn fringe. Or, rather, tried to do the yarn fringe. Turns out, I didn't really remember how to. I pulled it out, scared the woman I was sitting by, I think, and fudged it again.



I did the fringe and braid on the way there. Then, raced through the cuff. After a couple days, Tamara said, "why don't you do the other cuff?" So, I braked before the first mitten's thumb and cast on the other cuff. On the plane back home, I completed the first mitten, and almost completed the second mitten on the second flight. When I got home, I just had the thumbs to do, having even woven in all the ends!

Gave them a nice steam bath...



I need to reblock them to straighten out the cuff, but otherwise I am pleased with them!

Once home, I cast on an Estonian lace shawl a la Nancy Bush with some real Estonian micro lace yarn -- a two-ply. It's kind of frightening to knit with. It is so thin, I'm constantly afraid it will break, but so good so far. Half done with that to date.