Mystery shawl

Well, I joined a mystery shawl knit-along. I may regret this as I have never done any lace knitting before. If you haven't heard of these before, here's how it works, I think. This is my first mystery project. You sign up and receive the pattern in 5 installments. You start knitting without knowing what the finished patttern will look like. This is a triangular shawl pattern. So far that's all I know. It starts in February. Wish me luck.

No photos for this post.

My Norwegian sweater is finished

I started this last July. It's now January, but it is finally finished. I found that while I was in Paris, I didn't have much time to knit on it, but I did work on it some and took it on the flights with me. (note to self: next time I fly out of France: Do not try to take knitting needles--the French security agents don't like them.)

We arrived home Dec. 1 and I managed to get the body of the sweater finished before Christmas. I bound off all the stiches and even washed it before cutting it. I wanted it to felt and shrink just a little. I don't think it did. It is a superwash yarn, so it's not supposed to felt. It looks a little funny before it is cut.

Here is what it looked like cut open. Now it looks more like the body of a sweater.


And finally this is the finished sweater. I took it to my yarn shop and asked what the others there thought about how many clasps. The pattern only called for one, but I wanted more. They said 3 would be right, so I did what they suggested.

I had to take the picture in my bathroom, because it is the only place in the house with enough light and I didn't want to use the flash.

So that's it. It's done and I can wear it now.

Back to my sweater

Well, here's the body up to about 12 inches. At 13 inches I start decreasing for the v-neck, but up to this point it's just been repeating the pattern and trying not to make mistakes. The tension is not as even as I would like still, but I fix it up a bit by pulling stiches that are too small or too big and then steam it and it looks pretty good after that.

I had hoped to finish it before I leave for Paris, but that isn't going to happen, so this sweater which started as a "Tour de France" challenge project is going to go to France to be completed--hopefully. It depends on if I can find a sewing machine in France to use for the stitching. It gets cut down the middle where those checker-board stitches are. It is supposed to be a cardigan.

My Old-lady dolls

I'm still knitting on the sweater and working on my French. The knitting is going slowly, so I thought I'd share some pictures of my dolls. I love these dolls. I acquired the first one Miss Ophelia rose at the Glenshen art fair in 2002.

The next year I bought the second one to keep her company. I named her Miss Lily Pearl. They sit in my diningroom window, where they can keep track of the people walking by, just like my grandmother used to do.

I wanted to get another the following year of the same size. They are about 12" high, but the lady who makes them wasn't making the larger ones anymore. I did buy a pair of smaller ones, which sit in my livingroom window.

Two rosemaled plates

Just to mix things up a bit I am adding some photographs of a couple plates I rosemaled. I painted these in classes, without any idea what I would do with them, but after getting them home realized that they were the right colors for my dining room. The red one is more recent. It is my own design.

The blue one below is older, done in the 2nd year that I was doing rosemaling, I think. It was done in a class and using a pattern by Judy Ritger, who does absolutely beautiful work. Mine doesn't come any where near doing her pattern justice. I changed the colors too. My painting is a bit better than this now and I ususally paint my own designs, but these are the two plates that are hanging in my dining room.

There now I have added some rosemaling to this blog, so the title makes more sense now. :-)

When the sweater reaches a point that is interesting again I'll add new pictures of it. for now I am plugging along on it.

I redid the sleeve hem

Above you see the bottom of the first sleeve after I ripped out the border part and reknit it from the brown rows down. This is the first time I've ever ripped out and reknit in the opposite direction. If you look closely you can see the difference, but you do have to look closely.

Here are the two sleeves finished. You can compare this photo to the one below to see that now they are much closer to the same size--still not identical, but close enough for me.

I'm working on the body now. I've completed about 1 1/2 pattern repeats or 5? inches.

I have finished both sleeves, though I am still going to redo the hem of the first, so I guess I haven't actually finished both. Here is my start on the body. It seems to be the right size. After the first one was way too small, I was worried that this one was coming out too big. The only thing I changed was to go to a larger needle, ( 3 mm instead of 2.5) but I am also knitting looser. I got the correct gauge on the sleeve and did lots of calculations to determine how many stitches I needed for the body to come out right, so it should be right. Getting the gauge right and the size right is the hardest part of knitting.