Signs of Change

The season (and temperatures) have changed. Some signs of:



Empty outdoor cafes on these chilly days



Pumpkins and gourds for sale





Christmas and Hanukkah displays in stores







No more pale, summery manicures and a handknit scarf



And, best of all, these tee-shirts:



A closer look--

F is for. . .

FICHU.

My winter uniform is black jeans and a black vee neck sweater. I have several of each so everyday, black jeans and a black vee neck sweater.

When it was very cold, I'd wear black wool slacks instead. But, you get the idea. Black slacks, black sweater. Typical urban armour.

To stand out a bit, however, I'd often wear a fichu.

The Shetland Triangle designed by Evelyn Clark and knit by my friend the talented Sonja.



The Forest Canopy Shawl designed by Susan Lawrence and knit by me.



I love these little shawls!

They don't take much time or yarn to knit up. But they provide so much. Warmth. A dash of texture and color. And it's just plain nice to wear something lovely and handmade around my shoulders.

A "Horror" Story

Presenting for the first time in public



the Forest Canopy Shawl.

I took this photo on the fence and bushes belonging to my next door neighbor, a prolific, well-known novelist of creepy stories. As I was snapping pictures, the mailman was delivering the mail and when he came to my neighbor's brownstone, he rang the bell. The novelist came out, spotted me and for a moment there was a look of horror in his eyes. I must have appeared as a stalker or a paparazzo.

Very quickly I called out, "I'm only taking pictures of a shawl I knitted. Your bushes provide an excellent backdrop."

"Oh, OK," he said with a puzzled backward glance.

The mailman, a buddy of mine who knows I get many parcels of yarn and knitting paraphernalia remarked, "I think you scared him."

"Imagine that," says me with a satisfied smile.

Blocking Lesson

How to block the Forest Canopy Shawl:

Take one pile o'blecch fresh off the needles



Soak, blot, place large towel on floor, stretch shawl and apply 80 pins



and a cat.

Tink-Along

Merrily we tink along
Tink along
Tink along
Merrily we tink along
all on a Sunday morn.

I love the tink so much that I did it not once, not twice but
yes, amazingly, three--count 'em-- one, two, three times.

And then I threw the Forest Canopy Shawl out the window.
AAAAARGH!

This is what happens when somebody who has Post-Traumatic-Lace Disorder attempts to knit lace on about three hours of sleep.

My trifecta of insomnia--red wine, coffee, chocolate--kicked in at about 3:30 AM Sunday.

So, I played with Google Earth. Toured the world in eight minutes. Looked up a friend's house in Santa Fe. Tracked my childhood haunts in Albany, NY. Plotted the Starbucks between two relatives' homes in Ohio.

But, that wasn't enough.
I then watched the 5:00 AM NYC traffic.

Collapsed at about 6:30 AM only to wake up at 8:00 AM.

The Voices in My Head must have had good night's sleep, because they told me that I felt like knitting.

You know the rest of the story.

Monday. A new day. Better rested.
Finished the troublesome row. Off by one stitch! AAAARGH!
But was able to fudge the mistake on the purl row.

FCS so far--still looking like a pile o'blecccch.


A sporty snit:



No, no, no! Don't BOO Joe!
It's the curse of Donnie Baseball at work.
Get rid of him now!

Something Tinks Around Here

Sunday morning still life--this is NOT a pretty picture:



Let's see--
Forest Canopy Shawl on the needles
cup of coffee
crochet hook

What does it all mean?

Tiptoeing Thru

Trees are beginning to bloom



and so are the tulips











And I'm still tiptoeing with Forest Canopy Shawl. Soon I'll have to decide whether to keep it a shoulder wrap or to add repeats and make it a larger shawl.



Need more tulip photos? Check out Yarnstorm's truly magnificent pictures.

Post Traumatic Lace Disorder

Lace and I have an uneasy relationship.

This all started during the Summer of Lace. Ambitious me, who'd only made



lace swatches and couple of lace scarves, decided to take on the Kimono Shawl from Folk Shawls.

It's said that knitters should just plunge into projects they feel are too hard for them. Sound advice. If knitters didn't do this, we'd have zillions of knitters who only made garter stitch scarves for their entire lives.

I started Kimono Shawl unable (and refusing) to read charts on Lantern Moon needles. Two big mistakes. I kept breaking the needles and kept getting lost in the word instructions. It was so frustrating that I finally crossed the line where knitting wasn't fun anymore. I wisely cast off and threw the large Kimono swatch into a drawer.



Since then, I've been happy knitting socks, hats and scarves with interesting stitch patterns--but, no lace. Until Victorian Lace Today came out. Each and every shawl in that book is meant to be mine!

Oh, but ----- I don't do lace.

Well, guess who's doing lace. And reading charts.

I'm not tackling Melon or Alpine -- yet. Being that I suffer from PTLD (Post Traumatic Lace Disorder), I needed something that would instruct, be somewhat easy and produce a beautiful and useful item.

Forest Canopy Shawl fits the bill. Yarn being used is Claudia Hand Painted fingering-weight in the Argyle Sock colorway. Stunning yarn! But hard to describe the colors--brown, black, purple, blue all blending into each other.



The shawl so far looks like a pile of blecccch:



Mistakes have been made and mistakes have been figured out and fixed and fudged. But, there's gonna be a lace shawl around here before too long!

And then there'll be more.