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in all those over air-conditioned places:

The Shetland Stole is complete!

Why wait until fall to use this? This will become my summertime back-of-the-chair wrap for those days when someone in my office thinks that we're running a meat locker. I have an energy-saving idea for every office: turn the thermostat up by five degrees in the summer, and down by five degrees in the winter. But, until that happens, my shoulders will be nice and warm in my Shetland Stole.

The details:

Yarn: Yarn All Over handdye, 1.5 hanks, colorway Moss. (The link is here for a reason. Go and buy some of this yarn! It's fabulous.)

Needles: US8s, with US9s for casting on and binding off.

Pattern: ten repeats of the Fir Cone pattern in A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara Walker (scroll down to buy from the publisher).

Finished size: 45 by 22 inches, after blocking. Perfect!

Here I am pondering the next project. I need something for subway knitting. Stay tuned.

Up bright and early this morning because it's too hot to sleep (yeah, not a big fan of the A/C) and I had to block my Shetland Stole.

This project flew, I tell you. Flew! It was only last weekend that I joined this second ball of rescue yarn from Melissa. The rythym of this stitch pattern was so relaxing, and I found myself grabbing for my needles constantly. I used Fir Cone from Barbara Walker's A Treasury of Knitting Patterns, you can order directly from the publisher at that site by simply scrolling down the page.

In between sips of coffee (yes, I must have my morning java even on the hottest of days) this was my view this morning:

It's good to know that my table is part of Drexel's "Today's Living" series. It came to me via aout six months' worth of browsing on Craigslist.

Blocking the stole under the table made sense. I got a large expanse of rug, and there was little chance that a careless foot would step on a pin.

If I continue to knit and to block lace, then I must invest in some blocking wires (Don't you love how we write things like "invest in blocking wires" when all we really should write is "spend money and buy yet more knitting crap"? It's not like the blocking wires wil appreciate in value over time. I'm not going to be able to retire on my blocking-wire income.) All those pins!

I did something pretty clever here. I didn't bind off the end stitches just yet. My thinking was that if I were to bind off after blocking, the edge created would be more true to the actual stole size. As with the cast-on edge, I plan to bind off in a larger needle size.

Golly: not too long until Knitsmiths. Two weeks in a row, people! Yay!

Thank you to everyone who chimed in with a comment to Wednesday's post. All that bumper needed was a vintage "Don't Blame Me, I'm From Massachusetts" sticker.

WIth the return of the Shetland Stole comes the return of the egg crates.

[I'll have you know that I 'shopped that photo to within an inch of its life. Colors are better than the original photo, but not as accurate as I would like.]

This stole is flying. Can I tell you how much I love the rhythm of this lace pattern? Love. It.

At first, I thought that this extra half skein of Yarn All Over would be just sufficient for lengthening the stole to shoulder-covering length. But, it's more than enough to make a suitable stole, and perhaps a short scarf.

Thanks again, Melissa!

Last week contained minimal subway knitting, and did I ever miss it. I futzed around with a swatch of some wonderful novelty cotton (it's nubly, but hardly what I would term a novelty yarn). You might remember that I was trying to knit a summer sun hat. One version failed, and then I tried it again.

This project has failed completely.

The yarn is too limp to take the shape that I want the hat to have. Remember this? My second version looked no different, despite a fundamental design change. So, do you know what happened? To the frog pond it went. I can buy myself a sun hat--there's a hat shop near my office--I don't have to knit it.

Still, I like this yarn. It's simply wrong for what I want it to do, and I'm just not sure what will become of the 400 yards of it that I own. Could it be a stockinette tank? That seems so "eh" to me this year. Is anyone interested? Let me know. Maybe we can arrange for a swap.

Meanwhile, this left me room to pick up the Shetland Stole. I reattached my needle, wound up Melissa's yarn, and was ready to go.

With the warm, dry weather we've been having in New England the Shetland Stole took very little time to dry.

Wowza:

When I saw Carolyn's finished stole and compared it to the appearance of my WIP I had doubts that we were both working the same pattern.

I love how the wavy circles combine with the straight lines of this pattern. It's directionless--a quality I love in lace patterns.

Now, I need to decide if I should bind off or wait on the yarn situation. It's definitely not stole weather; perhaps waiting isn't a bad idea.