Project 20 is a lace scarf I made for my wonderful Mother-In-Law. Nellie's Kernel

The trickiest part of this pattern for me, was the grafting, but as I did a mistake on the first edge I did and I had to do two lots of grafting, I must say I feel pretty confident about it now.
The beads were added with a crochet stitch to a stitch before it is knitted, so that was the way I was used to adding beads. I also think this method is better than pre-threading the beads on the yarn, mainly because it is less wear and tear on the yarn and when the bead is placed it is over a whole stitch which is double thread, which makes the garment sturdier and longer lasting.

The yarn used was spun by me, it was a beautiful hand painted merino top, which made beautiful 2 ply light fingering weight yarn.
This scarf was so beautiful so and delicious, if I wasn't so fond of my MIL I would have kept it for myself! :D

Making Yummy Yarn

Well it's not perfect, but my laceweight yarn has improved heaps! plus it was a lot quicker to knit. Took some yummy pics this morning before I cast on the project planned for this merino: Harry Clarke

I love this colour, it is such a perfect sky blue and with the beads is going to look beautiful.

How Many Bags Does One Need?

Title brings us to Project 19, I've called it the Tattoo Bag because the swallow is a popular tattoo image. I don't have one yet, but have plans to.... :)

It is knitting as a long rectangle and sewn up the sides before felting, and a super long icord. I actually remembered to measure it this time before fulling, and it went from 16" x 19" to 13" x 12" so yes shrinks a lot more length wise and width.

The embroidery was done by printing the image out on regular printing paper, and laying over the bag. I then embroidered the outline, using DMC Black Perle #5 and stem stitch. The paper is carfully torn away and using DMC embroidery floss, colour red (666) and blue (995)2 strands, I shadowed the outline with a stem stitch close by.

Lace Flyer Kit

Just thought I’d share a pic of my lace flyer kit I got for my single drive Ashford Traveller. I like spinning fine fine stuff, so was getting a little frustrated with my dear spinning wheel’s slowness. So after looking into purchasing another wheel, I decided to just update the old one I have. It’s funny because the wheel cost me $200 and the flyer kit $250 (incl p&h), but for $450 I have a wonderful wheel that can pretty much spin anything I’m every going to want to spin. Happy button (1)
Now I can spin up to a ratio of 30:1 where I could only do 10:1 before. But what's good the largest ratio on the lace flyer is 11:1, which is slow enough to spin the larger WPI yarn I occasionally want to do. (I have some Merino/Silk that I'm planning to do a good single).
Ashford puts in 50g of 22micron merino, my favourite for spinning, so I'm getting some good practice before I get back into some pale blue merino that I have a nice beaded shawl planned for :)

More Twilight Addiction

Well I do love to combine my love of the Twilight Saga and knitting :D
Project 18 Team Swiss Bag
I'm really starting to get addicted to felting, it's so fun not knowing what is going to come out of the washing machine. With this bag, I did dk weight with 6mm needles and did the pocket front patch and the icord handle separately, but felted them all the same time. After a few goes I was happy with the felting, which was nearly half the size I started. I sewed on the Swiss patch and pushed through holes to thread the handle through which I then sewed the ends together. For those not up to date with twilight, the Swiss flag refers to the main character being in love with sworn enemies, a vampire and a werewolf. A chapter in Eclipse is called "Switzerland" where she announces to both of them, that whatever their conflict she is staying neutral because she is not taking sides in the age old war.


Another project which I am not actually counting in my 52 in 52 attempt is some stitch markers I made. They too are representative of a component of the Twilight saga; the crystal hearts stand for the vampires stone hearts and the each marker stands for a different member of the Cullen family - hey I did say I was obsessed :)

Entrelac

Well I did purchase some Noro Silk Garden to do a vest (keep your eyes open for future projects) but I have had a pair of fingerless gloves (or wrist warmers if you prefer) in my rav queue that uses yarn I couldn't find, and thought this Noro would be perfect. So after a quick phone call to the LYS to get them to put the last 2 balls of the brown/black/grey Silk Garden for me, I jumped in. Here's the result and I love them:
Project 17 Noro Entre Deux Saisons

Pompa

I must say I have adore Anne Hanson and her beautiful designs, now I have finally done one. Introducing:
Project 15 Pompa

It's a short little scarf, but I have nothing to wear it with yet - so once that is sorted I will do a photo of in on moi.

My ex-SIL is having a baby boy in early february, and although that is a really really really hot time of the year, I couldn't not make booties! Enter the magic slippers, they don't go up the leg and are just made in sock yarn, so should suit bubs feet to avoid a chill from the air condiditioning.
Project 16 Magic Slippers