Projects--a collection

Blocking lace.  I love the effect of blocking pieces of knit lace.  The yarn over holes open up and the stockingette stitch areas become smooth...  I love it!

 Fixing mistakes.  Sooner or later I usually fix my mistakes.  It wasn't until I began to weave that I finally understood that if I could see a mistake then I would always be able to see the mistake.  More often then not, there is no effective cover-up for a mistake.  This one was a denting error, ten threads in from the edge on a warp that had already given me fits.  I tried to brush it off..."It will never show with the thick weft..."  It showed.  So, I stopped weaving, pulled out the weft, fixed the denting error and began to weave again.  It looks much better without the error!

Sewing.  My daughter decided that she needed a new dress.  She did some shopping and came home empty handed.  She went through my pattern books and found a dress design she liked.  I slowly began to work on it.  This pattern is from a collection by "The Golden Rule".  Each pattern is printed in miniature and the seamstress enlarges it based on the measurements of the wearer.  So I measured.  I drafted.  I made a muslin (I knew I would need it!  The pattern was older and I was sure the fit would be different from my daughter's preferred style....) I modified the pattern and finally made the dress.  I had to promise to not put her head in the final picture, but here it is.  The collar is gathered at the neck and comes down to a point at the center front and back.  The purple is amazing with her reddish-blond hair!

Knitting, frogging, and knitting again.  I would like to knit shawls.  I have a little "shawlette" that is wonderful to wear around the house.  It's just enough to warm my back and shoulders, but not enough to get in the way of doing things.  I have a new shawl book, so I found a pattern I liked and cast on.  Of course I modified it...and in the end, I didn't like it.  This is a traditional triangle shawl with a point at the center back.  I'm not fond of the style (why did I cast on?) and I didn't like how stiff the finished fabric felt.  I kept going, hoping that things would get better, but they didn't.  In this photo, the shawl is off the needles and on a string so I could wrap it around me and see how it worked.  It didn't.  It got to sit on the table for a few hours while I did some research and chose a new shawl design.  Then it got frogged.

This was one of the reasons I frogged the shawl.  I knit a sample with an extra ball of the same batch of yarn on bigger needles.  It was so much softer and had much better drape.  I tried one more needle size after this picture.  Swatching is really helpful!

In my research to save my shawl, I discovered a new webpage:  Laylock Knitwear Design.  The shawls are fun, but scroll down and look on the right hand side for the "Shawl Knitting Cheat Sheet".  Wow!  It's a single page pdf with instructions for make five different shapes of shawls all from the same three stitch cast-on!  I've decided to make a "heart-shaped" or crescent shawl because it will have longer ends for tying.  And, I made some swatches:

Neither of these have been blocked, but they are here anyway!  On the right is the pattern as written by Laylock Knitwear.  On the left is my modified version--no yarn-over holes and a three stitch garter edge.  The knitting is progressing.  I hope there will be another shawlette in my drawer soon!