Strings 'n Things

This, so far, has been a great weekend. John picked me up from work on Friday and asked if there was anything I had to do at the apartment. After a negative response from me (that is, I said no, nothing), he said that was a good thing because we weren't going home. Instead, we picked up a bottle of wine, ordered a pizza and went to our favourite spot in Kelowna, the Sibell Maude-Roxby sanctuary. We ate pizza and drank wine out of to-go mugs at the very spot where we were married almost four years ago (June 28). (click here to see the pics)

The wind was really whipping up the water and it almost felt as if we were in the prow of a boat. As we wandered through the sanctuary marvelling at how high the water is and how serene the inner sanctuary was compared to the wildness of the lake, I realized that it was for the little things like this that I so love this man. Neither of us is perfect and I'm sure he gets as frustrated with me at times as I do with him, but no one can deny that this man is a romantic at heart and I love him for it.

Then yesterday, he went to work for a few hours and I had plenty of time to putter around, doing some cleaning and lots of knitting. The Heartland Shawl (in the grey yarn) has been frogged; well, at least as much of it as I could frog. When the yarn became a tangle, I simply tossed it. It was not going well. The grey of the yarn and the "stick" of the yarn, combined with a pattern that needs constant diligence finally did me in. Even in frogging back to the lifeline, I somehow ended up one stitch out.

I went stash diving and came up with another yarn, restarted and am now farther along than I was just that morning. Here's how it's looking now...

The yarn I'm using now is Louet Gems Pearl, a fingering weight 100% merino wool in a colour called Ginger; I'm still using the 4.0 mm needles. This is knitting up much better and it's still an earthy colour, which is what I wanted for this pattern. The pattern is made up of two lace patterns, the bison track pattern and the river of life edging. I think the ginger colour is just right. At the moment, like most lace, it doesn't look like much at all, but, once blocked, it will be very nice.

Apparently my mom reads my blog when she visits my sister, so I won't be showing the completed, blocked shawl until Mom's got it in hand. She should be the first to see it complete, don't you think?

Because the Heartland Shawl demands concentration, I couldn't work on it with John home, so I've been alternating between Icarus and the second Swallowtail shawl. Icarus is in the last repeat of the first (striped) section and I'll be starting the edging next. At least, I think I will. When I stretch the shawl out to see approximately what size it is, from the center of the neck to the outer edge is more than half my "wingspan", so I'm pretty sure it's big enough. There's no need for me to skimp on yarn as I still have the leftovers from the previous incarnation of Icarus. I haven't taken any pictures of Icarus at this point because it is, in all honesty, a boring piece of work right now. There's nothing interesting to take pictures of, just a mass of stripes.

I've also been working on the green Swallowtail. I do have pictures of this one, if only to show you the colour. The pictures in my last post did absolutely no justice to the colour. These pictures show the colour much better.

I will have to work quite a few more increases of the budding lace pattern to make this shawl a decent size. At this point, I've worked 13 repeats of the pattern and the pattern calls for 14 repeats. It's tiny. Really tiny.

Thank goodness for Ravelry. I've been doing some researching and reading about how others have increased the size of this shawl and, thanks to the work of others, I now know that, in order for the edging to work out correctly, I need to work increments of five repeats of the budding lace pattern. Others who've made the shawl larger have also added more repeats of the lily of the valley section, but I don't think I'll do that. I don't think it will be necessary; the edging, as is, is large enough for the shawl.

The one concern I do have is that the beads I'm planning to replace the nupps with may be too heavy for the shawl. I think I'll have to swatch (ack, the dreaded swatch!) the lily of the valley section with beads to see how it will turn out. Thankfully, I bought three skeins of this yarn (I love KnitPicks!), so I do have plenty.

On a final note, today is Father's Day. Though he'll never read this, Happy Father's Day, Dad. I love you and I miss you, the man you were.