Bird's Eye Lace-Video Tutorial

Persy!

Maya said goodbye to single digits today! All she wanted to celebrate her 10 years was another kitty....so we surprised her with this little ginger cutie!
He comes from the home of Kristin Nichols no less! Kristin had blogged about these kittens a few weeks ago and I contacted her to get first dibs on a ginger one. We kept his given name....Persimmon, or Persy for short.

It was so adorable to see the absolute pleasure and surprise on Maya's face! It was also wonderful to meet Kristin and see her beautiful and colourful home in person!

Life is good!

Aestlight Available For Purchase

Aestlight is all ready to go.....thanks to the wonderful test knitters for all their improvements of the pattern! I decided to add a slightly smaller version of the shawl that would only use 1 skein of the Malabrigo Sock Yarn (shown in the brown below).



See some more versions here, here and here

DETAILS:
This shawl is knit using a traditional Shetland construction. It begins with a garter stitch triangle increasing from the point outwards. Stitches are then easily picked up from the very visible yarn over loops along the edges and the border is worked outwards from the triangle. The shawl is finished with an edging that is knitted sideways and attached to the live stitches of the border as it is being worked.

Two sizes are given. The brown shawl is the smaller of the two. Written and charted instructions are provided.

Make it in your favorite fingering weight yarn (shown in Malabrigo Sock) and enjoy the garter stitch goodness draped around your neck!
‘Aestlight’ means ‘east light’ in Shetland dialect.

Finished size:
Approximately 45 inches/114 cm (52 inches/132 cm wide) and 17 inches/43 cm (21 inches/53 cm) long.
There is a generous amount of give in this shawl at the blocking stage.

Materials:
• US #6/4mm 32 inch or 24 inch circular needle
• 440 (550) yrds fingering weight yarn
• Stitch markers
• Row counter

Gauge:
24 sts and 42 rows= 4 inches in garter stitch using US #6/4mm needle.

$5.00

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy Jig!!

We made it!

All very happy to be back ....almost as if we haven't been away..........there is however work to be done to make it our home again.....the painting has already begun!

The kids have been off in the woods exploring .....snakes, salamanders and frogs have been found and many mosquito bites have been made!

.........that's all for now......I'll be back to more regular internet interactions when we get our online stuff sorted (no high speed here in the woods)!

PS:Hoping to get Aestlight up for purchase tomorrow!

Countdown.......

Our POD arrived yesterday at a bright and breezy 7am (yes we were still in bed)......

.......and we decided to take the day off from packing and head to the river one last time!

I got to have a wee practice with my new camera and the boys braved the water....which was painfully cold!

Now it's back to packing ..........

....for some of us at least!

Test Knitters!

Just to say I now have all the test knitters I need for the shawl but I really appreciate all the offers! Hope to have the pattern out by the end of the month!

Aestlight Shawl

We interrupt this silence to bring you some gartery goodness!

Along with all the preparation for transporting ourselves some 3000 miles (which happens in 10 days) I've been fervently knitting.....some secret...and some, like this shawl, not!

I was inspired to come up with my own design for the Eastward facing aspect of Project Spectrum........and as we'll be turning ourselves to head to Massachusetts soon I thought the name "Aestlight" (East Light in Shetland dialect) was appropriate.

This shawl is all based on garter stitch and is therefore incredibly squishy and bouncy!

It is constructed using one of the traditional Shetland Shawl making methods. In this case that means starting with the garter stitch triangle and making increases at the end of every row with a yarn over. These yarn overs are then easily picked up and the borders are worked out from here. The edging is then knit sideways and attached to the live sts of the border at the end of every right side row.

Sounds complicated?.....I assure you it's not at all ....in fact it's rather a lot of fun watching this evolve!

The pattern is mostly written up but I'm in need of some test knitters (ETA: actually I'm all set now)!! So if this tickles your knitting fancy please let me know! It requires approx 550 yards of fingering weight yarn and is worked on US #6 needles.
Finished dimensions are approx 56" wide and 24" long.

These are some of the very first shots taken with my new Canon Digital Rebel XTi......which I'm mostly enjoying so far....with a few minor annoyances (like no live view and only a 10 sec delay timer)!

A few more photos on flickr

...and now back to packing!