Adonienieroschen Shawl

I've finally blocked my Adonienieroschen shawl. I adapted the pattern from Gloria Penning's Old World Treasures. I am really happy with the way it turned out. It was an easy knit, and I actually used stitch markers, which I rarely do (I only used 1 on the whole Maple Garland shawl, and that was for the beginning of the round!). I unraveled the front of a sweater that I was never going to finish or wear, and then used two of the remaining three balls. I think I'll send whatever I have left to my friend. She is having some health problems, and I hope that this will be a long distance hug. When I told B that it was for a friend who was sick, she wanted to get into our car and drive to see her to give her a hug to make her feel better! She is such a sympathetic little girlie! So I hope that the shawl is well received!
Pattern: Adonienieroschen from Gloria Penning's Old World Treasures
Yarn: between 600 - 650 yards Adriafil Sound, a mohair/acrylic blend in eggplant purple
Needles: US 9 and 10 circulars
Size: 50" diameter

Happy Birthday A!

Today is A's first birthday. We don't do big parties when they are so young since we don't have a lot of our families around. We had company last night and sang "Happy Birthday." And one of my husband's cousin's live about an hour away and had a meeting a few towns over, so stopped by for breakfast. A showed off by rubbing his plate on his head, and now sports a maple-syrup-gel hairdo! Here is B feeding her brother some of her applesauce a few days ago. Here is A trying to figure out how to ride on his new tricycle.


B and A are in great spirits today, and even let me take quite a few pictures of them.


A started to walk 3-5 steps a few weeks ago. He is so proud of himself when he stands that he starts laughing and bouncing. It is too cute!


I have a shawl that I knit for a friend blocking at the moment and plan to have pictures of it up tomorrow.

Some Sock Spinning

After finishing my Maple Garland Shawl last week, I decided to do some spinning. These are some luxury sock batts from Abby at Franquemont Fibers. They were very easy and a joy to spin. The batts are 68% superwash merino, 30% silk, and 2% firestar. The sparkle is very hard to photograph, but it is subtle.

I spun a fairly fine single and then chain-plied the singles to preserve the three color gradations. The color is called Orchid, but I think it looks like a sunrise, with the blue/purple, red/purple, and the yellow/pink. I ended up with 212 yards and 2.5 oz. three-ply yarn. I need to find/dye a complimentary colored fiber to spin for some heels and/or toes. I really prefer ankle socks, so I can get by with a little less yarn that average. And I will knit these toe-up to make the best use of the yarn that I have. This will probably be my project for our trip to Nashville for graduation in the beginning of May.

Maple Garland Pictures

Well here are two pictures of the blocked Maple Garland Shawl. Please excuse the poor quality. The shawl is too big (56" square) to photograph well inside, and we are having gusty wind and generally nasty weather, so these were the best I could manage. I hope that you can get an idea of the size and pattern though.
Vital statistics:
Pattern: Maple Garland Shawl from Marianne Kinzel's Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting
Yarn: approximately 2000 yards (~7 oz) of Jaggerspun Superfine Merino in cream
Needles: 3.5 mm dpns and circulars, and a size 5 steel crochet hook for the crochet edging
Size: 56" square

I plan to enter this in the garment competition at MDSW (Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival). I really don't expect to win anything since it is such a huge event, but I still think that it will be a good experience.

Maple Garland is Finished!!!!!

My Maple Garland shawl is finally finished!!!!!!! I thought this day would never come. I spent about a month on it before taking an extended break from it. It got packed away during the move, and resurfaced while unpacking here. When I picked it up again, I started just after the first row of leaves. Here is the shawl after the final row, before the edging.

I have worked solely on this for the past two months, and I only had 62 of the 220 rows left. I knit at least 2 rows per day. The edging took about 2 days. While using my great-grandmother's steel crochet hook for the edging, I was reminded of how much I dislike Boye hooks and needles. The hook is just too shallow to get a good grip on the yarn, and my yarn had a tendency to split, which made for slow going. I had my husband do some advanced mathematical calculations for me the other evening, and he concluded that there are over 100,000 stitches in this shawl! Here is my unblocked picture. I am getting ready to block it now, and should have some good pictures of it tomorrow!

Easter Pictures

Here are two pictures of the munchkins on Easter. B loves her pretty purple dress! She also loves having her Auntie S here with us for the weekend. On Monday, she kept saying that she didn't want her Auntie to back to school, that she wanted her to "stay here and keep me company." They didn't want to pose together, and A didn't want to sit still at all. So daddy caught him examining this egg. He was so engrossed with these! But here is his all dressed up in a little suit. He had a tie, but the collar was a bit too snug on his shirt for it to fit.


Here are the two of them playing the piano, one of their favorite activities! They take after their daddy and his love for music!

Maple Garland Shawl

So Eve asked for a picture of the Maple Garland Shawl. Here it is, looking like a crumpled ball of yarn. Only because the center is visible, is it even recognizable as the Maple Garland shawl from Marianne Kinzel's Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting

I am using Jaggerspun's Superfine Merino in cream, on 3.5mm knitting needles. I've used over 1800yds thus far, and still have 14 rows left, so I figure that I will use a couple hundered yards more. I'll post a picture when I have it all dressed out.

More Sewing, Still Knitting

I'm still knitting my never-ending shawl. It should be done in another week or two. Plenty of time to get packed up and mailed off to the nice people at MDSW. I'm also knitting a top-secret surprise project too. I really want to finish the Maple Garland shawl because I have aome sumer knitting that I want to get done for the kids.

But I did sew a bit last week. I made another sheet for A, and I made this apron from Simplicity 4282, View E


The apron was actually really easy, and the only finishing was the binding around the edges. I am not the neatest cook, and I decided that I'd rather wear an apron than change my clothes to cook, or ruin them. I though the daisies were fun. I think I'll make a few more over the course of the summer.