Finished Sampler Shawl

I finally finished the Sampler Shawl from Folk Shawls, in Scottish Campion I got on eBay last year. Started the shawl last November... I think I had 2 others going from the same book. I ripped out both of those (the quickest way to reduce your list of Works in Progress!) -- I still plan to make them, but not in the immediate future. My Sampler Shawl still needs blocking, but I'm going to wait for the blocking wires I ordered from Patternworks yesterday. The yarn had no labels with it, so when I realized I didn't have enough to complete the shawl, I had to launch a search. I found out that Jamieson's 2-ply Shetland is the same as Scottish Campion, but didn't know what color I needed. I finally sent a snip of yarn to the Handworks Gallery in Little Rock. They matched the color, Cherry, but didn't have the yarn. So I eventually found the yarn ... somewhere (can't remember right now)... and got 3 more skeins. Turns out I only needed 2. And they're a great match. I do not see any difference in the colors at all.

Now it's back to work on my Lady Eleanor, now that I have a few more skeins of that yarn (Noro Silk Garden #211). Except that I'm using a 40" circular, and I keep having to bat the extra coils of the needle's cable out of my way. I seem to have 2 other projects on the same size needles, so I'm about to go find one of those and swap needles. What did I buy a 40" circular for? No idea....

And in the "reducing the works-in-progress" mode, I frogged my Mosaic socks (yahoo group Six_Sox_Knitalong). I just wasn't thrilled with them. My first ones from that knitalong were the Amble Socks, and I do like those.

I thought about picking up the oldest item on my WIPs list, but .... well, it's a ski sweater I started my freshman year in college, over our long Christmas break -- that would be circa January 1981 (ouch!). Finished the back during that break, and the front is not even half done, and the yarn is acrylic (I think). Maybe it's time for it to go away.

Oh, look here -- I have blog. Seems to have been a by-product of signing up for the Scarf-Style Knit-along here at blogger.com. I'm currently working on the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole, in Noro Silk Garden color #211. I started the thing 4 times; first with Noro Iro color 57 -- I didn't like how the colors were working themselves out; it looked too rustic and reminded me of camo. As an Army wife, I see enough of that -- I don't need it in my knitting. So I tried another color of Noro Iro: color 40, which I thought was blues/greens/grays. Turns out it has brown in it, too, and we had the camo thing going on again. And it felt like I was knitting an army blanket. The picture is of the first attempt. I have not played around with this enough to have figured out formatting, etc.

Then I thought of the Silk Garden I had purchased to make a 2nd Clapotis. [The first one was made in Lorna's Laces Lion & Lamb, Blackwatch, which is a really pretty blue & green combo. I had to make it shorter than the pattern called for, even though I was using the yarn specified in the pattern, and had purchased the amount specified, and was getting gauge!] Realizing that I rarely make any pattern more than once, I decided to try Lady Eleanor with the Silk Garden. Smaller yarn, smaller needles, so I cast on more stitches. After a couple of tiers, it looked way too wide, so I ripped it out and started again on 56 stitches. Now that I'm 3 skeins into it, it has pulled in and is about 19" wide, more like a wide scarf than a stole. But I am going to finish it. It's growing on me as it grows.... I will need to pick up probably 3 more skeins of yarn for it.