It's My Birthday!

Now, I’m not telling you that to receive any extra birthday wishes – I’ve already been spoiled. I’m telling you this because, on this day of me, one of the things I get to do is write a blog post. Hallelujah! Another great reason to get a year older! Actually, I think any day that offers you cake (in my case, double chocolate cheesecake. With Bailey’s. A là my husband. Can you say YUM?!? It’s one of the reasons why I married him. That whole ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ is completely gender biased as far as I’m concerned) and presents is one to take note of. I doubt I’ll ever be embarrassed about my age (37 for enquiring minds) as I wouldn’t want to miss out on any cake and pressie opportunities!

Iain is currently sleeping in DH’s arms and I am typing in our very messy guest room with two of three animals, of the non-human variety, keeping me company. Checkers is on the prowl apparently. Ah, bliss!

I am going to digress from knitting a little further for another moment. One of the reasons I’ve been finding it hard to get computer time is due to the fact that we hired a painter to complete the painting we wanted done on our main floor. DH is working VERY long hours and, with the little time we have with him in the evenings and on weekends, we did not like sharing him with painting. Therefore, in a couple of weeks, we should have that aspect of moving completed and then I can concentrate on really getting the main and upper floors settled. Yeah! This is also the reason why I’m either sitting in a very messy guest room, kitchen or living room as those are the rooms holding the furniture and other assorted items from the den, bathroom and dining room.

Back to knitting. I am about to show you the FO that started me back into knitting a few falls ago.

It is Fiddlesticks Knitting’s Easy Lace Mesh Stole pattern in a gorgeous variegated Australian Merino (Made in Italy? Go figure). When I find a ball band, I will share the fibre details with you because I really enjoyed using it. I was totally entranced by the shots of colour – bright yellows, reds, oranges, purples and bright blue woven into a deep blue yarn – flowing through my fingers.

My sister, the recipient, is modelling the shawl.

Isn’t she gorgeous?

Prior to knitting this shawl, I had never tried knitting lace before. I am not exaggerating when I say that I went up to my then LYS, Yarn Forward, every single day for three weeks to get help on it. I couldn’t remember how to take back my knitting to fix mistakes and I had great difficulty learning how to both read a lace pattern and to recognise the lace pattern in knitted form so that I could identify mistakes. For my first foray back into knitting, this was a great project to get my creative juices flowing again. Thanks so much, Louise, for all of your help on that project!

My next photos are of my newest WIP – it is a sweater for Iain from a pattern in Louise Harding’s book Natural Knits for Mom’s and Babies that I had mentioned a few posts ago.

I’m using that terrific hand dyed wonder fibre from the Fleece Artist. Here’s how it’s knitting up. I’m slow and have frogged many, many stitches. Well, frogging has slowed me down and the fact that I also do things like take two naked needles out of my knitting bag and then sit there wondering where the heck my project went. There really ought to be warning label on those things when you’re a little sleep deprived.

This is only the front. I’m knitting the 12 month size but, I have to warn you, Iain weighed 17 lbs 10 ounces on Thursday. The child is four and a half months old. He only eats breast milk. Yikes! The sweater might not fit by the time I’ve finished it. I’ve already decided that I’m comfortable with that as the fibre is just so darn nice, I have a Plan B project picked out just in case. Now that’s a commitment to fibre!

To tantalise you further, I hope to blog later this week about my gorgeous new hand knit birthday socks (thanks, Mudder!) which are currently on my grateful wee feet, and my (gasp!) wonderful new ball winder (thanks, MIL and FIL!).

PS Happy 100th post, Fibreholic!