You Make My Day Award

Do you know what happens when you fall asleep on top of your laptop and wake up with key imprints on your face? You end up deleting parts of your operating system, that's what :-) Now that my brother has flushed my computer and replaced it with a functional operating system, I can present a few awards to people who make my day with their wonderful blogs! Here they are, in no particular order. It's a horizontal priority list :-)


fleegleWe love our fleegle because she is so smart and she shares and her lace is very very pretty. She answers all our questions and solves our knitting problems with easily understood instructions and pictures and never laughs at us. Her solutions to knitting problems are so clever that I have the urge to fall to my knees and chant "I'm not worthy!"She is the keeper of epic knitting tales has friends other than mammals and shares even non knitting gems with us from her creative genius. I am constantly inspired by her. What more could you ask for?


missalicefaye Spectacular eye-candy! That's her blog and her knitting. This woman knits so well and so fast that I think she has a secret clone that knits while she is sleeping. Of course, knitting is not her only craft talent and I've been charmed by her original embroidery, her other lace work as well as quilting skills. Everything she does is beautiful, delicate and often winsome. All this and attending school. Heck, I'm in a coma by comparison.

Laritiza/Yorksett Arts & Crafts Not just a one trick pony, Laritza is a multi-crafter and I love to look at whatever she is working on at the time. I envy her weaving in particular but I would rather watch her do it than take up yet another additiction! She also does not give up. I mean even in the face of disaster she picks herself back up and goes at it again until she get's the result she wants and the results are always spectacular. When I dispaired over a project gone bad she helped me to find a way to turn it into something positive. She makes you want to keep on knitting :-)

Opal/The Akamai Knitter Yes folks. She really is that nice. Most of her beautiful knitting is for others, she is supportive of her knitting group and family and to all of us out here in the blog-o-sphere and she rescues animals and loves them. When I need a knitting fix, I know I can go to her blog and she has posts that will make me happy. Did I mention she is the most prolific sock knitter I've ever seen? I have total sock envy. She also knits many things that I love to look at but don't want to knit myself ! Best of both worlds :-)

Jason/Jason KnitsI love looking at Jasons' blog because he is always sharing not just his love and excitement of knitting but his love of life in general. He is truly a gentle-man. He takes wonderful photographs of places or events he's been to and you feel as if you are also there, enjoying everything. I've knit for such a long time I had forgotten what it's like to be exploring the craft for the first time. With Jason's blog, you get to feel the thrill and wonder all over again as he makes that first hat or sock or shawl. It's thrilling to see his progress and I find myself rooting for him all the time :-)

Criminy Jickets A prolific knitter with a great eye for color and patterns, he is another one of those people destined to knit socks I love to look at and will never knit myself. And he has such very nice taste in yarn. I swoon when looking at his lovely stash and enjoy his discriptions of how each yarn worked out for him. I also enjoy the fact that he often does gift-exchanges so that I can see what other knitters are finding out there. His list of finished projects is impressive!

BadCatDesigns
Super knitting and makes her own lace patterns too? What's not to like? You have to admire a woman who is so dedicated to her craft. Her patterns are beautiful and her choice of yarns outstanding. I have quite a lot of stash envy where she is concerned and it's frightening how many patterns and books on lace we have in common. Her blog is always a pleasure to read and I love watching her knitting progress.

Knitsanity/Lace Maven Lace,Lace,Lace. You know I love it and she does too! Yet another talented designer of lace as well as one who teaches, she is always knitting something wonderful. I can always depend on seeing something inspired or beautiful or clever at her blog. Of course she does other crafts I admire as well including weaving and her recent forays into crochet.

The Panopticon Just plain funny. Franklin lets fly his humor and whimsey into his blog and give me a laugh every time.The man can really write and he knits lace too :-) I also envy the fact that he has a live-in source of wool (though I think Dolores might have something to say about that).

Yarn HarlotAnother blog I read because she's funny and she knits. She knows the good the bad and the downright ugly of knitting and puts it out there for everyone to enjoy.

Thank you all for many wonderful hours of enjoyment!

Books Are Not Stash (Are they?)

My sister and I were in San Francisco today and we fell into the gravitational pull of Kinokuniya Bookstore in Japan Town. No, really. It's like a black hole but with books. Yes, I have lots of books with lace patterns in them. Most are in English. But the pictures in this one are are soooo pretty! Books don't count as stash do they? I think of them as reference materials and pretty pictures really do inspire me. I'm up to row 85 on the International Shawl but fleegle is ahead of me and "hit the wall" ie, she found an error in the pattern. She got to be the "canary in the coal mine" for the rest of us and has warned us about what we need to do to stay out of trouble on row 87. Thank you Susan! We Luv You! I will work on it more tonight. I have forced myself to do at least 5 repeats of edging whenever I pick the darned Sampler Stole up so it does proceed kicking and screaming. I have been listening to the soundtrack for "Hairspray" while I'm doing the edging so it's not all bad. As for the pictures of yarn, I did say I am allowed to buy sock yarn for my sister and I just got some lovely skeins from Black Bunny for her. I don't think my pictures do them justice. 400 yards each and they are soft and lovely wool. Though I don't knit socks myself, as a person who benefits from my sisters knitting of them I have to confess that I'm very partial to bright colors and soft but substantial yarns. This yarn has all the virtues. She promised I can have the louder pair :-) Short post with no pictures of my very boring edging. I'm not showing that sucker again until it's done! However, once I get the second set of leaves done on the International Shawl I will try to get it on longer needles so I can get you a picture. Until then, Good Knitting!

It's not all beer and skittles sweeties. (So bored with edging I could scream)

It's been awhile since you heard from me but I took a little break to catch up on my trash-novel reading and to go through my clothes closet to purge it of things I will never wear again on pain of becoming a hopelessly outdated fossil. Still, I have not been totally idle. See above, the edging that is now half way around the Sampler Stole. It would be further along if I didn't keep looking for something else to do. Did I mention that finishing a project is not always as much fun as starting one? Still, it's good discipline for me to plod on since I have decided that I only get to start back on the Princess Shawl after I finish this stole. Under this you can see one of the things I worked on to distract myself from edging Hell. I had to force myself to stop knitting on the "International Shawl" because the center is a Niebling and it's way too much fun. It's up to row 79 and you can begin to see the next set of leaves starting as well as the base of the first flowers. The ball of fiber is some Polworth that I got at Deep Color when it closed it's retail store front.I loved the colors in it and it is quite soft though not as soft as a merino. It's been wet and cold out here and that always makes me want to stay home and spin so I started in on this using my Schacht single treadle wheel. It looks pretty on the bobbin and I had never tried any of this fiber before. I think I'm just going to ply the Polworth and pray I have enough yardage to make something pretty. I only have 4 ounces of the stuff but it works up nicely and feels sturdy. I got my Estonian Lace book in the mail and it's very interesting. I feel some swatching in my future will be in order to figure out what I want to come after the Myrtle Leaf section in the International Shawl. I also got a magazine on E-bay as you see above. It has only 3 patterns in it that I wanted but it was not very expensive so I was lucky. It's the tablecloth I really fancy and I am spending a little bit of time interviewing my yarn stash for a suitable candidate. I'm going to try to resist buying lots of new fiber and yarn this year and try to knit from my stash. I hope Stitches West 2008 will be focused more on obtaining new patterns, books or tools etc. I am allowed to buy sock yarn for my sister as I'm wearing out my hand knit socks she made for me. Socks That Rock make a particularly nice sock yarn so I hope to get her some of that. Of course if I fail, I will be forced to wear a hair shirt. But at least it will be a lace patterned hair shirt :-)