Blocking, who needs it?

Soft, white, and fluffy like a cloud.


This is how I like my lace to look.

The Large Rectangle in Leaf and Trellis pattern, from Victorian Lace Today, in a scarf version. I am working on the edging at the moment. This project is renewing my love for Misti Baby Alpaca Lace yarn! It's so wonderful!

And it does come in 22 gorgeous colors...

Maybe I will have to flatten the project a tiny, tiny, little bit at the finishing stage. But not too much!

Meanwhile, though I love the white alpaca, I am hankering after colors... Who knows what will come out of this?

Local yarn and fabric store closing

I am so bummed. For those who live in South-Eastern Mass, the Randolph location of Fabric Place is closing. Everything is on sale. They have yarn as well as fabrics, and in fact they were the biggest MA yarn shop south of Boston. I just discovered them last spring, and was really happy to find such a great big store reasonably close to my area. It was too good to last, of course.

Their selection includes Classic Elite, Berrocco, Brown Sheep, Malabrigo, Fleece Artist, Karabella, and lots of other goodies. And their fabrics are awesome. They also have their Pfaff sewing machines on sale... This always happens when I am on a budget.

This is the second time this has happened in a year here... I plan to take good care of the remaining smaller shops.

Their Warwick, RI, location is also closing.

Well, I just thought I would pass on the word about the sale, if anybody lives in the area, and is in need of yarn. :)

A Pine Tree Sock

Pattern: Pine Tree Socks by Katherine Misegades, free pattern here

Yarn: Dale Heilo, 3 skeins of 50g

Needles: 3 mm

The Katherine Misegades sock is made with a special heel, which is very cool. There are no short rows, and no picking up stitches. There are no special heel stitches and this allows the patterning to flow all the way down the back.


They are super comfortable. I love that they are nice and long. Also, the way the sock is angled gives it a shape that fits my foot very nicely. Now I am almost looking forward to the cold so that I can wear my Pine Tree Socks. As soon as I finish the other one, of course.
Thank you, Katherine!

Also, my user name on Ravelry is mohairkid. Or The Mo-hair Kid as we like to say it 'round these parts.

Lace Knitting

We liken lace knitting to making a souffle: To the uninitiated, it exudes an aura of mystery and difficulty; but when the work is done, you realize it is mostly air and no trick at all.

Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen, Vogue Knitting, Winter 92-93.

Mostly air

I love this quote. Elizabeth Zimmermann had the gift of expressing things succinctly!

In between working on the Pine Tree Sock, my little wall quilt, and my Brocade Leaves sweater, I cast on for another lace project. Resistance was futile.

The pattern is again from Victorian Lace Today, the Large Rectangle in Leaf and Trellis Pattern (p 52). Though I am only doing one repeat across, instead of two, so that I will have a scarf instead of a shawl. See gorgeous full size versions of it here and here.

For the yarn, I am again using Misti Baby Alpaca Lace, in natural. I love this yarn. Very nice and extremely generous with the yardage. So generous that I have tons left of the red from my last scarf.

The pattern is bothering me slightly, though. If you look at the picture, you can see that the stockinette section is larger on the left side than the right side. It has two extra stockinette stitches, so the pattern is not completely centered. It's a tiny error in the chart. I have already done six repeats, so I don't have the heart to frog it. It will be one of those imperfections that shows it was handmade. Handmade with love :)

On a Lace related topic, I have good news for North American lovers of Japanese knitting books. They are now available here, at the Needle Arts Book Shop. The lace sweater at the top of the page is spectacular. I can see this becoming a new obsession for me... Lace knitting, finally in Japanese!
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Pine Tree Socks

Thanks to Anni, I have discovered some wonderful socks. They are the Pine Tree Socks from Katherine Misegades. Her name may be familiar to you from her beautiful collection The Tongue River Farm Sock Collection.

The Pine Tree Socks feature knit and purl trees along the front and back and a small cable decorating the sides. Aren't they sleek and pretty? Don't they look warm? I think they will be perfect for living at Pine Cone Lodge this winter. And not just because of the name, though that's a bonus. Pine Cone Lodge can be pretty chilly!

Like Katherine, we also have tall spruces around our house, and I can see why she would not want to take hers down. They add so much character and atmosphere.

Katherine Misegades' blog features many beautiful designs for both socks, sweaters, hats, and scarves, along with thoughtful, inspiring quotes. This awesome sweater reminds me of a traditional Norwegian pullover called a "vams". She also has several free sock patterns.

My last pair of socks had some lace, and maybe it's not so practical to have wool socks with holes in them... doesn't that defeat the purpose of staying warm? I think it might be a good time for me to start on some socks again. :)

Photo from Katherine's blog.

Lipstick red lace

This was so much fun!

Pattern: Scarf with No. 20 border, Victorian Lace Today
Yarn: Misti Alpaca Lace, in color Lipstick, 2 skeins
Needles: 3 mm Addi turbo

Width: 29 cm
Length: 142 cm
Pattern repeats: 22

I did twenty-two repeats of the lace pattern, which is exactly the same as the much larger stole in the book. I thought I would have to knit more than that because my yarn is thinner than what they used in the book, but that's just how it worked out. Check out the picture at the end. If I had made a narrower scarf I could have easily gotten by with just one skein of this yarn. Good to know!

I tried modeling on the pretty one:

Is this my color?

She ran away into her safe corner, but I followed. Just as well, the wood makes a nicer background. See how her right ear leans in? It does that when she in insecure. Poor thing, the tortures she has to suffer through.

Outside was better. As a bonus we got a better representation of the color as well.

This is taking forever...

I am not sure it was worth modeling it on her. I spent half an hour trying to pose her, which was impossible. Every time I tried to move so I could get her from the side, she followed and wanted to face me. And then I spent half an hour afterwards picking out white dog hairs with tweezers. They worked themselves in really well!

I love the way the second border is knitted on. And look how far I got with the first skein of yarn! Ten cm short of the end! So about 97 percent of this scarf from one skein...


I really learned a lot from this project. The knitted on border was definitely cool, and I found that a crochet bind off works better for lace. For me at least. The book recommends suspended bind off, but it worked out tight for me. I tried a few different ones, but none of the others worked. Lace is addictive, I think it's the most fun knitting there is. I had to force myself to put it down.

One amazing thing about the book, is that the author, Jane Sowerby, knitted every single shawl herself. There are forty items, most of them quite large!

Thank you, Jacqueline and Stephanie, for the fun knit-along!

I love rock'n roll

Put another dime in the jukebox, baby! Rockin' girl Agnes kindly nominated me as a Rockin' Girl Blogger, so now I am pretending to be Joan Jett.


I know I am silly, but I can't help myself. It seems Joan Jett immediately springs to mind for a lot of people my age when you say Rockin' Girl. Though Joan probably wouldn't be showing you pictures of quilts and lace.

Now I am supposed to nominate five others. I nominate Meg - for all the fascinating topics she writes about, Blossom - for her beautiful sewing and style, Liz - for her beautiful art works and photos, Mel - for her beautiful spinning, Marina - for her gorgeous fair isles, and Marianne - for her caring and thoughtfulness. Of course all in addition to beautiful knitting. Okay, maybe that was six. I must do two more: Katy and Brooke, who both share their lives with lots of beautiful greyhounds and have so much fun with it. Pippi and I get our daily must-read greyhound news from them.

I would really like to nominate all the bloggers I read. I want to say something like "You all rock!" but honestly, I am too old. I can't use an expression like that with a straight face. So let me just say that all of your blogs are an endless source of inspiration to me, and I get a lot of joy from reading them.

I am picking up some UFO's:

The first is this wall hanging. It represents the four seasons, and there are some autumn leaves still to applique. I won't tell you how old this ufo is. Well, ok, ten years. Blossom came to visit me a few years ago. I was showing her my projects, and I couldn't find the book for this. I have since turned the house upside down several times, and it has never appeared!

Every time I thought about starting this again, I would feel compelled to search for the book, thus keeping myself from actually working on it. I can hardly believe that I would have owned a book and forgotten its' name. It was a Japanese quilting book, and I think I bought it in Copenhagen at Quilter's Paradise. I have the pattern sheet, but I wish I had the picture so I could see how they did their quilting and surface embellishments. I now have decided to face the fact that I will never find it, and I will have to improvise. How scary.

Putting something on your blog causes it to get finished, right?

November, 2007, edited to add: A very kind reader sent me a sweet email and the name of the book! I was able to find it here. I really enjoyed seeing it again. I know I would never have been able to think of such a nice frame for the picture, so I am really happy. Thank you very much, M.C.!


The second thing I have picked up again is the "Scarf with No. 20 Edging" from Victorian Lace Today. This has hibernated for about six months. The funny thing about this is that many people have done the same scarf as part of the KAL, and all except one have done it in red! And no, the picture in the book is not of a red scarf, it's yellow! This is a scarf that just wants to be red.

Plus, there is still the Brocade Leaves sweater, Poetry In Stitches p124.
Nordic Fiber Arts has a "one per customer" notice for this book and for Norsk Strikkedesign on their page now.

One of our rhododendrons which is blooming at the moment. I think it may be a 'Rosebay' rhododendron, and it blooms well after the other rhodies. The weather has been misty for a few days and I feel like I am in Oregon or Seattle. It's so nice! After the drought, this is better for the plants. Tourists are not happy, though.