A Gothic Rose and a Surprise

I still seem to have lace on the brain. I'm currently working on two different shawls/stoles. This is clues 1-3 of the Spring Surprise Stole. I'm knitting it out of Colourmart's 2/28 cashmere yarn on size 2 (2.75mm) Knit Picks circular needles. Lul said that this would be a challenging stole and it is. Those circles along the border are very different than what I've seen in lace patterns. Then there is the bird's eye section inside the large circle in the center. That requires a lot of attention. I've finally gotten the hang of it and clue 3 went by rather quickly. This stole will have 12 clues and that leaves me plenty of time to work on other things.

The cashmere yarn is coned and oiled. Coming off of the cone, it doesn't feel anything like cashmere should feel. This is what it looks like after a hot bath with a lot of soap. It fluffs up a lot and becomes really airy and soft. This little swatch is just about weightless. I can't wait to see how the stole feels after it's been washed and blocked. I should have measured the swatch before I washed it, but I didn't. It did shrink a little, but I'm not 100% sure how much.

Since the Spring Surprise Stole will be a drawn out knitalong, I've picked out another shawl to do. This will be Irtfa'a, another Knitspot pattern. So far, the pattern is a quick knit. I've already done the neck edge and the first 28 rows and I just started on yesterday. I'm on the second set of 28 rows. This is another well done pattern by Anne. I'm so amazed that she can crank out these patterns so quickly and get all of these stitches to flow together so nicely.

I'm knitting this out of Dream in Color's baby yarn in the Gothic Rose color. Gothic Rose is a pain in the *** to photograph. It's a deep reddish, brownish, dark color that looks different under certain lights. The yarn is a heavier type of laceweight. I usually use a size 3 needle with typical lace weight yarn, but I'm using a size 4 needle for this shawl. This yarn looks huge compared to the 2/28 yarn that I'm using for the Spring Surprise Stole.

After Irtfa'a is done, I have some sewing projects that I want to do. I have all of the fabric that I need for E and D's quilts. I just need to decide on a layout and size. That is going to be a huge project. I'm not really looking forward to it because I'm going to have to clear out a lot of stuff to sew those. But they will be so cute when they're done.

Lessons have been going well with E. She started cursive today and wasn't too thrilled with the letter practice. She's been fascinated by cursive whenever I write it and has asked about learning it. When trying it out today, she said that it was a lot harder than she thought. ;-) I had to remind her that she didn't learn how to print the alphabet neatly on the first day. I don't think she's going to like the repetition of practicing her letters again. I'll have to think of interesting to make it fun for her.