Lace and Beads

Look, more snow! Woohoo! Right. For a few days, I thought spring might be right around the corner. Now we have 2 inches of snow on the ground and today's high is only in the 20's. One positive is that it is nice to wake up to a beautiful sight like this. Another positive is the snow does make it easier for me to take pictures of my projects. I really need to work on my indoor photography. Hopefully this is the last of the snow and I'll need to figure out something else for my photos.

I said that I wanted to knit something beaded and geometric. I didn't have to look any further than the winter 07/08 issue of Vogue Knitting. This shawl (#2 in the mag.) caught my eye, but I wanted to use supplies that I had on hand. The yarn is Zephyr in Chanel and it's a dark pink/fuchsia type of color. If I were to knit this shawl again, I would use a smaller needle and knit another repeat of the squares. This shawl is more airy than I usually like. I did think about adding another repeat on this one, but I thought that a large, bright pink shawl with beads might be a bit much. :-P

Details:
Beaded Shawl(#2) from Vogue Knitting Winter 2007/08
Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephr in Chanel (approx. 5 oz used)
Needle: size 3 Knit Picks Harmony
Beads: 8/0 Iris blue
Hook: size 11 (1.05mm)
Start: February 21, 2008
Finished: February 25, 2008

And now I'll introduce Mingus. Isn't it lovely! I do have a lot of socks, but this one is just too pretty to pass. I love the yarn and the pattern and together it's a perfect combination. The yarn is Somoko by Fleece Artist. It is hairy, but that doesn't take away from the bold patterning on this sock.

I did have a cranky moment with this sock. I wont' go into too much detail, but it involved frogging, larger needles, and me muttering about fat ankles. The good news is that this yarn is easy to frog, despite the hairiness. It also didn't suffer much in the frogging and still looks great.

I'm starting another project. It's the Moroccan Days/Arabian Nights stole. I first saw a picture of this stole a few weeks ago and the designer was still working on it. It's so pretty and it has beads! The pattern just became available and I have it. I'm in the process of stringing a million beads onto the yarn. Okay, it's more like 2500, but it feels like a million beads. I prefer the crochet method for adding beads to lace, but the ends of this stole has a beaded looped fringe that can't be added by hook. I'm using some purple yarn that Dwight brought back from China and beads that I had already too. In fact, they're the same beads as those in the Beaded Shawl at the top. I initially bought those for my Seaweed Stole, but ended up using a larger bead.

I'll close with some monsters that I made with the kids on Monday. We were inspired by Craft magazine. From left to right are E's monster, D's monster, and mine. E did everything herself except the sewing. D needed help cutting out his felt for the main part, but he did cut the decorations himself. My monster is made from leftover fleece and I like it much better than felt. If we make more monsters, I'd rather do them in fleece or regular fabric. I'm not a big fan of felt because it looks worn so quickly. These monsters were so quick and easy to make. I can see making a lot of these with E and D. They already want to make more.