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Sadly, all my knitting effort at this point is secret holiday gift that I can't photograph for fear of spoiling the surprise for Jack.

I cast on the 247 (groan) stitches for the knitted edging for the Adara shawl, knitted the first of 5 pattern rows and ended up with 4 extra stitches. (Insert cursing that bears remarkable similarity to pucker) Tried to tink THAT and found another mistake so I not so cheerfully ripped all of it out and cast on again.

At this point my darling Jack revealed my birthday present..an OTT Lite! YAY! I sat in it's otherworldly glow while watching the fight on HBO in utter glee!

RaAnn for whatever reason deleted alot of her groups with no notice. One of these, Shawls and Scarves Etc. has been recreated in Yahoo at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ILoveKandCAlongs/. We will be starting the Icelandic Shawl in January along with other smaller KAL's and CAL's. Come join us!

Mystic Waters KAL

I started this KAL because I love lace and thought it would be a great forum for a 'first leap'. So far that's very true! I also promised myself I would not allow 'keep up' anxiety because even I know the fastest way to muck up lace is to rush madly along. I've done some great mad-rushing in my time and the frogging afterwards is not worth it!

That said, I finished chart A today - it's probably a little less than half the first clue and I'm pretty happy with the results - first laceweight, first chart attempt! The red background is AWFUL but it was the best I could do at work - I pinned it to the door of an overhead cubicle bin.

I think I see a missing loop but it's far enough back that I'll probably just chalk it up to experience and try to block it open later.


I also have several socks going and an absolutely HORRID hot pink/black hat for this gal at work that's clearly palette-challenged (shudder) People look at me on the bus and I say "She picked her own colors" defensively before they even ask. You'll not see pictures of that till it's finished in all it's horrible glory. Bleh.

Knitting about

I haven’t been blogging this week; I’ve been knitting! I finished a hat/scarf in Kochoran for my friend Nancy’s birthday and tried to knit the swatch for the Mystic Waters Mystery KAL a dozen or so times in the Alpaca Cloud from Knit Picks. I kept finding mistakes and ripping back which sort of scared me since the shawl starts today. I’d already swatched once in a laceweight (Shimmer) so I decided that the knitting goddesses would not strike me down if I started in the alpaca. Here it is 15 rows along:

This is my first laceweight project, my first KAL and my first mystery knit. I think it’s pretty fun and I swear I’m not going to necessarily pressure myself to ‘keep up’. Deadlines and knitting combined make me very cranky. Just ask Jack.

I’ve also finally started socks again since lace and the Chicago Transit Authority (aka The Bus) don’t get along well – I decided I was attempting a pattern that was too ambitious and reverted to my nice, neat k2 p2 ribbing. I read on one of my lists where someone did both socks at once in sections to avoid second sock syndrome and I’m trying it. I have one cuff done:


I’m starting the second cuff on my new Knit Picks dpn’s – I’ll be interested to see if my gauge is any different with the metal! I’m also still doing a few stitches here and there on the Adara shawl, I refuse to give up on it!