When the school holidays started I thought 'I know what I need. I need a nice easy project that I can do with the kids around' and so I dug out some James C. Brett Kool Kotton and began the Vintage Vertical Stripe Blanket.
It is easy, it's so very pretty and I love the muted colours of the Kool Kotton (devastated that it has been discontinued!).
So like I said, this was my easy, do in the holidays project....except...it hasn't quite worked out like that because I then started the Rock Island Shawl by Jared Flood which will look like this when it is finished:
Beautiful right? It is! Buuuuuut, I can't stop knitting it and the lace has been ripped out quite a few times because trying to do that with the kids and a kitten around is fairly stupid of me but never mind I love making this. I have chosen a similar colour to the sample image but I am using Debbie Bliss Rialto Lace weight yarn which is lovely and soft but I am finding it a little fluffly. I am not disappointed though because this is going to be gorgeous when it is finished. I am finally past the lace and onto the top part of the shawl which is just simple garter stitch with a centre decrease. It's going pretty quickly now and I only have 20 more rows to do and due to the decreasing the rows are getting shorter and shorter. I should finish it today but I need to order some lace blocking wires so that I can finish it off.
See all the white lines running through the lace? They are my dental floss lifelines which mean if I make a mistake I can just rip back the knitting and it will stop at the row with the lifelines and I can pick up all those pesky little stitches and yarnovers. They did save my sanity once but I think just the act of putting them there meant I didn't make any mistakes (after the third attempt at the lace!). I used the Addi SOS Cords on my Addi interchangeable circular needles to make adding the lifelines easy and they were great!
I had never used lifelines before and I have been knitting since I was about 6/7 years old. I would thoroughly recommend using lifelines in lace :)
Anyway, I should finish the shawl today and then I really should finish off my Peerie Flooers mittens (one done. One to go)
But then I have this:
...and it is calling me because I am going to use it to make Sweaterbabe's Lush and Lacey Cardigan.
