Short quiet

A certain young man is visiting me again.  This is an unexpected pleasure, but they are always welcome.  

So my plan for the rest of summer just changed.  There won't be a lot of time for sewing and there won't be time for intense knitting or for a lot of plying.  

That does leave lots open for me to do.  I can spin.  I can knit simple things like bottoms of two summer sweaters.  I can comb fleece.  

I need to tell myself these things lest I spend the rest of the summer doing nothing, accomplishing nothing.  I hate when that happens.  It may not be the things I was planning for the next week, but that's ok.  I have always been a better planner than a doer.  

It will all come in time.  

Of spinning things

I decided to sort out my spinning yesterday.  I also did a bit of spinning, I am happy to say.

I finished the blue that I was working on.

I have another braid of this and the plan is to spin this soon to make one nice big project.  

Then I finished some of the last red from my big run of red/pinks from a year or so ago.  

All that was left was about half a braid so I spun that up.

I thought about getting myself organized for plying and I thought I should look at what is waiting in the wings to be plyed.

Some Shetland top, from my purchase with my Julia.  I have a lot of fibre from the purchase of that wheel.

Corriedale from a small bag of fibre purchased long, long, long ago.  For mittens and stuff.

Some cream generic wool.  I think this batch came with my S51 and I spun it up on her as a test to see how it handled.  Destined for mittens.

Very very early spinning, some of the first wheel spun.  It is varying qualities and amounts of spin and twist but it shouldn't stay like this.  It will make fine mittens, no matter how bad it looks.  Mittens just have to be warm.

Some pretty fibre that Frazzled knitter brought me from Halifax.  I may have too much twist on this but there is lots of time to fix it.  You can see how the braid was sort of divided by colour.  They will be plyed together to get the same tones al the way through.  Warm, rich and so very pretty.

And last, the rest of the reds.  The original plan was to mash this all together, but the older stuff is spun much finer.  It was before I discovered the magic of long draw ish spinning.  Lots of fibres here and pretty blends, but I think, there will be lots there for a hat and mittens. If I mash them together or use them like a soft  series of shifting hues.

Sadly, I don't think spinning is going to be open to me the next few weeks.  My daughter in law is off to Ukraine today, to help her mother sort out her grandmother's affairs.  Grandma passed away yesterday and that is a blessing.  She was suffering so much the last few months having lost her independence and her ability to care for herself.  She was in very poor health and perhaps,it is time to rest.  It surely was time for her suffering to end. 

My story is going to be busy with kid things and some knitting I hope.  I'm just glad it is in summer.  Much more flexibility in summer.  Lots of things to do with each other so it is easier on grandma.

We are off to the races here, but first coffee.  I really need a coffee.

  

Goofing Around.

Before things get lost in the wind, and I forget,  for Gaile.  The toe is Lucy Neatby's square toe.  It is on one her second sock video available on her website,  Lucy Neatby Designs.   The heel is a garter stitch short row heel which I knit with the sock yarn doubled.  I think the heel is on that same video.  There may be video showing these on youtube but Lucy's are the best and are worth it.  For Christine, yup the yarn is a Meilenweit.

I have still been taking it easy on the knitting front, though I will do more tomorrow as a test to see how my pinky feels.  Today I knit a swatch.

I pulled out the yarn I purchased for Kate Davies Myrtle.  The pattern asks for laceweight, but that is not going to happen.  With all the changes I need to make for fit, changing gauge and yarn is just not that big of a deal.  The most important thing is to know my gauge with the yarn and needles that I want to use.  After that it really is just a bit of math.  

The hard part for me is colour. The pattern asks for four and I have five.

I love all the colours, and I think that with my increased row gauge, having five colours keeps the right scale in comparison with the lace, but I am not sure if the blue is right.

It would make a lovely sweater with just the soft close to natural colours. subdued, elegant and warm, but I am not sure that is what I want here.  I am sort of drawn to the punch of that blue.   

The swatch is blocking now and there is no rush to decide except that I feel like I need to know right now.  Note that the white section, which looks sloppy, is the start of the swatch, done with a different needle size than the rest.  Depending how this looks once it is dry, I may do another  swatch and go down one more needle size.  Harrisville Shetland is a blooming sort of yarn so I think what I have is right, but keeping my mind and my options open is always good.

I don't know bout you but I have had a lovely weekend.  Some ladies came out to knit and I did some spinning and we had a lovely lunch in the little coffee shop here.  It was an F1 weekend so there was a very very exciting race in Hockenheim Germany. It was rainy.  It got weird, but was just wonderful to watch.  And I did much more spinning but I do have to save something for tomorrow.

Have a lovely evening, everyone.  What a great sort of day.

The sum total of a knitting week.

It's not a lot, I know.  It is knitting and that is enough.  

I knit most of this sock two weeks ago during the F1 races.  All I had to do was get it to the end of the heel before this weekend and my knitting is ready to go.

A row here and a row there, a row while baking the cake, a row at the park.  It all adds up.  

It's finally sunny and promises to be a cooker out there.  We have the day marked for the spray park and the after lunch the adventures at grandmas house are over and my kiddies will go home.  

The days between knitting.

I just want to say, wow, what crappy weather.  There.  That is out of my system.  The weather is so bad that I think the things we were planning for high heat afternoons are going to come into play to do something inside like winter.  This afternoon we are going to make some costumes.  We have already established that.  

A ninja costume is on the list.  

You can see Marcus in his brand new pants that gramma made for him.  They fit and they don't fall off!  I had to create a pattern because my pattern only goes down to a size 8.  He is more of a long 4, but it seems to fit just fine.

Over the past few weeks I have been avoiding a certain twirly skirt but it is finally done but for the hemming.  I wanted to leave the hem, till I could measure it on her, though,  if my twirly girly gets her way, I won't.

It is at least 6 inches too long but she loves it and doesn't want to lose even an inch.  It is the dress of her dreams.  Again.  To my mind, she looks a little like Rapunzel with her long hair only Cassie's got this skirt.

Anyway we will do costumes and make some muffins, and if the wind ever quiets down we will go to the school park to play.

Still dreaming

I would probably be knitting but for one thing. My grandkids are here for a sleepover.  I'm tired, but hey...

Look at these and dream.  

Niebling

I have a radio

I have a radio.

I know that this isn't earth shaking for the vast majority of you but it is for me.  My first job after highschool, I bought a fancy stereo and kind of inherited my brother's radio receiver.  That was my radio for years, until my kids fried the whole unit in their teenage years.  We watched tv news in the morning so radio was something we didn't miss and later, we could get radio channels via tv.  We have satellite tv here but the company no longer includes Canadian radio, so I have been without, other than my car.  

But there are times when I really would like to listen to the radio.  Saturday Afternoon at the Opera.  Tom Allen's show, wherever he is on the clock and whatever he is playing.  Sunday morning on CKUA.  

I have that freedom now and it is good.   It doesn't mean anything to anybody, but to me and it is life changing.  My daytime routine is completely different effortlessly.

Last week getting groceries, I crunched my little finger in carts and I think I may have done some damage.  It has ached on moving and been swollen since.  There hasn't been a lot of knitting.  My baby finger isn't an active participant in my knitting, but it does move.  It hurts.

I have been thinking about so many things though.  I have pulled out lace books, and thought about yarns, cruising Ravelry to see what others have done with a particular yarn.  I have thought about what to make with my lovey cotton cones.

I think I know now.  The idea of it makes me smile. It could be rather silly and yet, I want it.

I have been sorting out what to do with my new silk.  

I have been sorting out what to do with my other silk, which is really great, but not that one.  I was thinking of the giant red cone that apparently isn't in my stash and that I have no photo of.  But it is in the stash all 2400 metres of red silk gorgeousness. 

I've also been mulling about my Palette yarn.  It has been close to going in the garage sale, missing both times because of what if.  This year, because it has a really great range of greens and browns and when I knit and embroider my wee garden for my miniature rooms, it may be needed. And with the chance of me having another garage sale being pretty small,  I have to think about what to do with it besides the small stuff.  It was bought for colourwork and it is time to sort out what colourwork I want to do with it. Mittens?  Hats?  Sweaters?

I've been mulling over all the other yarn too.  Don't worry.  It isn't lonely at all.  I wish there were more hours in the day to knit or mull.

I look at my traditional knitting books, and read the of the ways things were done.  I think about adapting techniques and bringing them up to how I do it now, or knitting an entire thing their way and sorting out what yarn I will use to get the result I want.

It's kind of nice to have an enforced break though at this rate my yellow top will be done in September, not July. Oh well. So it goes.  I have always thought I ought to be knitting off season so that my sweaters would be ready for what is upcoming anyway.  Maybe the way to do it is too be so late with summer things that it takes till next year to get them done!  I will be so behind I am ahead!

And that is it for me.  Another cup of coffee and possibly a bit of a dig in the yarn closet.  Or the display cabinet?  I really ought to get a photo of that red cone.  And some inspiration.    

I have a radio. I have yarn.  I have good books.  They may seem like very little things if your idea of a full life is about travel and a constant stream of new places and new things.  Mine isn't.  Mine is smaller.  Closer to home.  Inside my head.  In this moment in time, my life is full.  I am rich in a thousand ways.  These little inconsequential things are very big and and that is pretty darn grand.

 

One step forward

I have been working on my lace Einband Icelandic shawl the last few days.  It has been quiet because it is not going so well.  

I am in the last section of the shawl where there ought to be a small leaf like motif only I am have a very bad time working it.  Each row seems to bring a new sort of miscount trouble and if one section is off in one row, the other is bound to be off in the next.  I am so confused.  And so close to the end.

On the other hand, I want it even more.  

The delicate colour change is everything I dreamed it would be.  I love it completely.  

Except for this last section of lace.  I am hating that section.  A lot.

One step forward.  Two back.

All Mine.

Bobbin replication?  Why yes.  It seems logical for the bottom of a beer can cooler bag, doesn't it?  So summer somehow. 

I still cannot figure out when I spun that fibre.  I thought it might be some that was long missing, but the colours do not match.  I am going to have to wade through this blog and my photo record to see if I can find a hint of what it is.  I know that I have no picture of it before starting and no notes on it as I worked on it.  I only updated my stash to include fibre last winter and that, at least gives me a bit of a timeline.  Sometime more than a year and a half ago.

Today was an errand day for me.  Groceries and mail.  But that is okay.  Just lookie what came in the mail for me.

This is a pure tussah silk DK weight yarn and there is lots of it.  I love Tussah silk.  It has a wonderfully rustic look and has marvelous drape and flow and is comfortable to wear in cold weather and far easier to wear in hot weather than finer silk.  It breathes better. 

I couldn't help working up a quick and dirty swatch. I pronounce it quite marvellous.

And do you know what the best part was?  It was a bargain, a down like bargain acrylics bargain.  All 2500 metres of it cost a measly forty two Canadian dollars plus eight dollars shipping.  It was such a great deal from Colourmart and I could not help myself. 

I need to shop there more.  Not really, but maybe you need to.  I have enough yarn.  I have more than enough yarn.  I have had more than enough yarn for a very long time.  But I wanted it and I could easily afford it and it is mine.

Bwahahahaha

What was in that bag?

When I got home from spinning today, I pulled my spinning bag apart.  It was time.  The bag was so heavy and I wondered what I may have forgotten what I had in it. I suspected books. I have done that before. The results from the cleaning and the photographing were interesting. And mysterious.

This is what I carried in my weighty bag today. 

The colour is so pale here in comparison to the brilliance of this hot red braid from Colour Adventures. Spun a year or so ago, it is still waiting to be finished and then that whole batch of red needs to be plyed.

And then I pulled out this.  This is what I was working on though late winter till recently.  The second bobbin was getting full and the Vic doesn't like to spin on a really full bobbin without some extra braking so I paused that.  I wanted all of the fibre in one photo so I went grabbed the storage bobbin and then I reached to the bottom of my bag and I found...

two bobbins.  I know I only filled two bobbins with that bag of pencil roving.  I only had three bobbins. One red. One this stuff in my bag and the bobbin that I am now using for the pretty blue below.  The fibre from that bobbin is what is on the storage bobbin.  

So what in heavens name fibre is this on the storage bobbin?  Obviously not a third bobbin of that particular top.

And WHY do I suddenly have red still on a bobbin too?  Because between you and me, that is four bobbins. I only had three after I sold the Julia.  I am so confused.

I am going to have to check that the new owner did get three bobbins.  If I only had two ready when I sold it, I have to get the other bobbin off to Julie's new spinner, though I could have sworn I gave her three.  Did I have seven?  I HAVE no idea.

Which brings me to the current spinning

which is a braid of Falkland wool top dyed by Colour Adventures.  I don't think they are doing the fibre anymore, though the new dyer is doing some truly stunning yarns for Colour Adventure.  It is such a beautiful thing.

And then down at the bottom of the bag, was the usual spinners schmutz. 

I toss the bits in my big bag where it settles, but I really ought to collect it in a storage bag instead.  From here, it will go with wool bits and ends to be used for stuffing.   

All this was topped off with my yellow sweater in progress,

with all the balls of yarn in tow.  11 balls in total.  1100 grams. 

Which all together, explains why my bag was so heavy today.  Just a nice heavy bunch of yarn and some pretty spinning which led to very interesting questions that I hope to have answers for tomorrow.

Bright yelow

Afternoons are it, I guess.  

I have been working a lot on my pretty yellow top.  It is really starting to look like a little summer top.  

I sat down and worked on this for three hours this morning.  Not solid hours, but hours with rest periods built in.  And tea.  And a bit of thinking.  

I took out my green sweater, which is my gold standard for things I have ever knit for the way they fit, and looked to see what I had done that made it work so well.  

If you look you can see a couple rows of increases on the backside that started just about the waist.  I have a generous behind (putting it mildly) and there isn't any way to have something fit nice, without taking that difficult art of me into the mix.  The front increases remain the same as they were all through the top, which is just at the sides.

I would like to have a similar fit.  I know the drape will be different on this top than on the green wool and cotton.  I hope for better but if all I get is a decent fit, I am okay with it.  The yarn is going to speak for itself in this cotton hemp blend and I have high hopes that it will sing loud and proud.

Three hours is enough for today, enough of this yarn at least.  I am going to settle down to knit on the Einband and then process a bit more fibre.  I think I will be filling a second bag before long. 

This bag is full now (photo at the start of yesterday's work) .  It seems silly to pack it in when I have lots of bags.  I want t keep it airy to work with.  

I was avoiding it.

I'm writing this at the unheard of time of 3:23 p.m. because I just can't wait to shout it out.

It fits

and it is gorgeous!!!

Yes three exclamation marks worth it.  The yarn is beyond delightful, really perfect for this top.  The lines of the lace are so crisp and clean, which was one of the little details which drew me to the pattern in the first place.

I was starting to get worried that the whole thing was going to be too large.  I was starting to avoid the whole project, I was that worried.  Some days, it is harder to deal with the negative, should the result of the try on be negative and it seems easier to just avoid it all.  Silly I know, but such is the state of what happens in my head.

The lace seemed to have such ease and stretch to it, I was starting to worry that it was going to fall off my shoulders.  You know how some necklines just grow and grow till you can't keep them on?  I was starting to be very worried that is what would happen.  It is a fairly wide neckline and with all that give in the lace...but it really sits just right. 

Instead of my usual try on method of adding one or two more needles to the garment for the try on, I threaded the entire thing on to a long strand of acrylic.  I wanted to see it with the drape it will have at this point so I could tell what to do next.  That doesn't matter on many garments but it did on this one for sure.  The finer yarns and bast fibres won't give you a good idea of what you have unless you do.

So the next step for this day is to see if I can sort out my sewing machine, which has been acting up badly with the changes in weather.  One day the machine was good and the next unusable.  With one success under my belt, it feels like the right time to look for another where I have been avoiding the challenge.

Changing things up.

I just needed to find the right things to work on.  It was a much better day today.

I picked up a sweater that has been sitting far too long waiting for me to work on it.  Do you recall this one?

It is a heavy 3 ply wool, very richly coloured and densely spun from MacAuslands on PEI purchased on my adventure last summer.  The goal is to end up with a good warm outer garment for winter in this rich warm forest green.

I am  pretty sure I have enough yarn for a sweater of the usual proportions, but a car  coat length garment?   I am not so sure.  I have a plan if I have to order more yarn:  colour blocking.  I have seen several sweaters pop up this year that were made with a different colour on the bottoms and it looked really good, so that is the backup plan.  

Because that is a heavy yarn and it is a small circumference needle I am working on, my hands get tired after not too long, so I switched to this.

Which is just unutterably delicious.  You can really see the gentle colour gradation that Einband has with its natural colour yarns.  It is just too good to be true.  

But it is and it is mine.    

The Big Harumph

I tried the lacy panels again, dropping down all the stitches, changing the direction the decreases went in and still not what I am looking for.  The next step it is to find something to do with all the yarn that the lace took up, or reknit the last 10 rows of top.  I'm thinking about it.

So, I put that down and went to try some sewing.  The goofy weather meant my sewing machine tension was all wacky and I have to recalibrate it.  It was working fine last time I sat and sewed.

Then I tried some plain knitting but I put that down in favour of a good book, a real book that I have read before, but have not reread in a number of years.  It was all I could muster today.  The day would have been a complete wash except for one thing.

I combed for a couple hours again this morning.  It is turning out so beautifully

that it is hard to believe that there was nothing I did the rest of the day that went right. 

So I guess I am going to call it a win. It is a win.  I guess.  It isn't me.  It's the weather.  Yeah.  I'm going to blame it all on the weather.

Edited to add:  It is a win.  I put my hand in the bag of combed fibre this morning.  Yes.  a WIN.

Perusing and Pondering: the Days Work

This is going to be quick.  It isn't exceedingly warm out but it is nice enough to go out this morning to comb some more wool.  That seems to win over writing, at least for today.

I thought I would show the lace panel on the blue top.  It's okay, but I'm still not very committed to it. I am changing the direction of the decreases on each set of rows, but I don't really like how that ends up.  There is a large part of me that is telling me to dig for the pattern from that peachy pink sweater I made years ago, and just do that, even if that pattern produces a strong linear design rather than generic evenly placed circles. 

I am also debating about getting out my most reliable old book, The Encylopedia of Stichery, to assist me in finding a design that has little to do with random circles but that will just work better and look more attractive than this.   There is something about that little book, with it's small number of good, basic patterns, that helps me focus in on what I want from a pattern.  

Anyway, my coffee is out in the livingroom getting cold, and the combs and bags of wool are there waiting for me too. Perusing and pondering will commence while I am dealing with both.

Very Interesting!

I think I sorted out the lace issue I was having on the blue top.  I'm not sure I like what its giving me yet, but lace is happening.  I'm going to let that percolate a bit before I decide if I keep it or if it gets further modified.

In other knitting, it was an interesting weekend.  A very interesting weekend.  A so interesting that I could hardly put it down sort of interesting.

I started working on my version of Threipmuir by Ysolda Teague.  I meant only to swatch for it but once I opened up the bag the yarn was in, I found my usual small swatch, washed and blocked, and needles.  I was ready to go, so I cast on and I could not help myself.  I do love colourwork.

I have to say that when I picked up the yarn last summer in New Brunswick, I instantly saw the colourwork possibilities as the yarn sat on the shelf.  The blue and seafoam sat beside each other and the gold was right above and they just worked so well together.  They called to me and I had to have them.  I usually know what I will make with a yarn when I see it together, but not this.   This yarn mix was coming home with me and that was that.

I started looking for sweaters that night in my hotel, but I couldn't see anything that screamed at me right away.  I searched when I got home and it took rather a long time before I decided.  Oddly enough, most of the patterns I had marked as favourites were either two colours, fine gradations of many colours, or had bands of one of the two contrast colours used a little too prominently.  The last was really only a problem because  the gold and the teal are not really great colours with my skin tones.  

Colour isn't usually too much of an issue, because if I want to wear a colour that isn't quite right for me, I will use it with a balance of black or white close to my face and the colour I want but don't show off well, slightly away from my skin.  Threipmuir was one of a very few designs with only three colours, where the main colour made a feature element at the right place in the yoke, mitigating the the power of my gold and teal.   

That my colours are so like Ysolda's is just coincidence.   It may have played part in why I felt so strongly that they would work together, but it certainly wasn't conscious.  It was a bit of a surprise when I saw Threipmuir while searching for just the right thing.  Even once I realized the colours were a close match, it took me a very long time to decide to go ahead with it.  I wasn't planning a Threipmuir.  It wasn't on my radar.

No matter.  What does matter is that I will have a truly lovely sweater when all is said and done and and that knitting it was enjoyable.  And so far, oh my yes.  It was.  

Yesterday I repaired a sweater that I had not worn since last winter.  

The dog sliced the sleeve with sharp paws on a particularly thin section of Noro Silk Garden when I was babysitting kids.

It isn't a good repair.  Not even a fair repair.  I took the yarn from the remaining ball that looked most like it and went with it.  The rips happened cross two rows so one row was easy.  Just knit.  The second row was a graft row and I messed that up because I picked up the stitches to graft with the wrong leg forward.  It looks awful but it is stable and the sweater is wearable again and no one will ever notice it when I am wearing it.  

I was chilly this morning so I grabbed the sweater, seeing as it was close to hnd right by the kitchen.  and you know what? 

I realized how much I like this sweater and how much I missed it while it was out of the rotation.  There just isn't anything like slipping on something that fits you really well.  It was a particular favourite when I knitted it.  It was was a genuine pleasure to fix the bad neckline and I wore it at least three times a week there after and it is an even greater delight now that is back, ready to wear.  

Wool is comfort.  Wool is warmth.  Wool is me.

Combing and Reading

This morning I took my tea coffee out to the deck to do a little wool prep.  I had both tea and coffee this morning and honestly, that was so long ago...

On to wool prep.

I took my big bag of fibre,  the combs and a book out to the deck and I sat down and loaded the combs and combed away.

Each batch of fibre is getting at least four times through the combs to get everything nice and airy like the first time I was combing.  The results of that are shown below and my big bag of ready to spin fibre is slowly growing.

My combs are not the generously sized ones, but are mini combs.  Each batch is fairly small so it doesn't go fast.  There is part of me that wishes I had invested in larger combs when I bought these, but honestly, I have had these for at least 7 years and this is the first time I am really using them.  These will do quite well enough.  I can process about 2 hours with these combs before I have to stop because my hands are giving me that old funky feeling.  Larger combs might mean fewer loads on the combs to get the job done but with a larger combs extra weight, I could do it for less time.  I think it evens out in the end.  

I'm really loving what I am producing right now and am looking forward to spinning it.

As I do the combing, I am listening to an audio book.  A good friend told our email group about a writer he highly admired on that writer's passing.  I had never heard of him before though he wrote very much in the genre of John LeCarre and writers that I loved like Robert Ludlum and Helen MacInnes.  He was writing at the same time as them and it just seems odd that I missed him, but I did.  It's kind of nice though, because now when I most need it, I have a new to me and very good writer to listen to.  His name was Anthony Price and if you are interested, I highly recommend Other Paths to Glory.  It was very highly recommended to me and though it was not his first novel, the best seemed like a good place to start and see if I would enjoy his work. And I do.  I am reading another novel now called The Old Vengeful, also by Price.  Again, very good.  If you like the thinking man's thriller genre as I do.  He wrote some 18 novels so lots to read there.

I kind of like this routine of knit a bit in the morning, then grab a coffee and go out to do some combing.  If the weather holds, I think I will do more.

A recipe for a good day

I knit yesterday.  I knit a lot.  I didn't do anything else.  I knit till my patience was thin and my head was tight with the beginning of a headache.  I could not get that lace to work out how I wanted it to.  It wasn't the sort of knitting I like to do, fun, creative and fruitful, but it sure was a learning experience. I learned that I do not uite have the ability to get there on my own.

Today I will hit the books.  I have a large reference library and somewhere in there is just what I need.  Or want.

In the meantime, I'm going to swatch for upcoming projects, and I will play with lace shawls in delicious Einband and I will comb more wool.  There will be dek sitting and there will be tea.

It sounds like the recipe for a good day.

Top Day

As you can tell if you read this blog every day, I am principally working on three things right now:  The yellow top, the blue top and the shawl.

You saw the shawl yesterday so I guess today is top day.  Yay.  

Or something like that. Project monogamy is rather dull to write about at this stage of the game.  The tops are not dull at all though the writing and reading may be.

I have the yellow one looking like a real top now, not just this circular piece of lovely lace.   And it is a really nice lace. I wouldn't mind knitting more of it at all.  I keep wondering if I could use it at the underarm, as part of the increase section and then I chicken out from giving it a go, and then I wonder all over again.  I worry about the whole fabric becoming just a bit more see through than I would be comfortable with.  It is more of a fingering weight yarn at the moment though it should bloom a bit in time and it isn't see through unless you stretch it.  The lace on top may be a different story. As it settles itself out to what it will be, I fear the lace may be more revealing than I would like it to be. It may be one of those things that I will feel better wearing a camisole with which would make my worry about how much one would see with a side panel of lace moot.  You see how this can go round and around in my brain, don't you?  If not, you are lucky and I envy you.  I am trying to make a firm decision on this but no.  Round and round it goes.  Another inch of knitting and it will be too late to think of adding it but I will then be beset with the worry of 'is it' and 'will I' (Is it long enough and will I run out of yarn.) .

I should be clear here.  It isn't worry really.  Dithering is probably a more appropriate word to use but worry is quicker to type.

And the blue top.  Now the blue top is interesting.

The yarn for the blue top is Elann Sonata from way back and is a nice reliable DK.  It knits faster and its coverage is not in doubt at all.  To put a lace panel at the underarm for this yarn is much more likely.  I would like to add it in as part of the increases and I think I know how it would work, but I really need to put my plan into action to see if what I hope would happen, would happen.  I have a couple rows at the underarm completed.  Now it is time to lay it on the line and actually start.

There are a few tops out and about this summer with lace panels at the underarm, but my constant inspiration is much much closer, coming from a sweater I knit several years ago.  

It was based on Norah Gaughan's Greagle, though I took quite a few liberties with the sweaters construction.  The increases are completely hidden within the lace which I thought was a pretty masterful trick.  This remains one of my favourite things I have ever knitted.  The yarn, Remix is pretty darn fantastic.  I can throw it in the washer and dryer and it comes out looking great plus it is a comfy long sleeve option in summer.  

So wish me luck.  It is time to play lace and play lace I shall.  It may not go anywhere, but the whole point of my knitting is that it is all a state of play disguised as wonderful handmade clothing. 

It's cool and cloudy again today.  My knitting choices are changing with each sip of coffee.  I mean to knit on my two very nicely progressing tops but it feels more like a wool day.  Maybe a swatching day?

I spent most of my knitting time yesterday working on my shawl. 

My goodness how I love Icelandic wools.  I love how they cling.  I had to sort out a bit of a miscount 4 stitches from the edge and those 4 stitches kept falling off the needle they sat on while I was doing the repair.  They just sat, orderly, tidily waiting till I picked them up as I worked and yanked the repair some rows below.  It is a really great yarn.

I am past the first lace motif and am just starting the second motif and have started tge section where the colours change, which in a lot of ways, is the real magic of this shawl.  

The softly changing colours available in the natural shades of this wool is everything that caught my eye a long time ago.  It took time to assemble the book and the yarn and then to find the time to settle in and knit it.  I am so happy that now is the time.

It's Canada Day

Time enough for talking about wool tomorrow.

Today let us just be one of the nicest places on earth.

Happy Canada Day!