Ruffled Legwarmers by Sandi Wiseheart - Spin-Off

Ruffled Legwarmers by Sandi Wiseheart - Spin-Off

I've just been on Spin-Off's new website - It's a good one even if you aren't a spinner.

Those Swatches we Love to Hate, or is it Hate to Love

I don't know what I'd do without swatches - nothing ever comes out right without them (sometimes nothing comes out right with them but at least I feel better if I've made one first).


My swatches and samples seem to end up on bulletin boards. I love bulletin boards and love mingling swatches with family photos, notes etc.

Swatches are memories of all the things I've made for someone else. It's like the heart of the project lingers here.

There's the ones I did for Sue's cotton sweater, and Kaffe Fassett's Persian poppies, the fantastic stitch pattern I invented -- oh and the lovely lace bookmark Sue made me too pretty to use is there.

And below in orange tweed is the pattern I used last year for a baby kimono sweater and christmas stocking mini samples.

What do you do with your swatches?

Which end is up? and Which do I Prefer?

Two shawls on the needles got me thinking about shawl construction today.

The blue shawl, Birch, is a Rowan pattern by Sharon Miller in Rowan KidsilkHaze. Construction starts at the bottom with 299 stitches and it travels north becoming smaller by 10 stitches every 8 rows until you bind off the last 3 stitches together.

The Nature Scene shawl from Knitters Mag. Spring '96 starts at the bottom point with 3 stitches and expands at the top to over 449 stitches. I'm working this one in certified Sea Island cotton - a true light cloud of fluff. It is heavenly to work with unless you have to correct mistakes. It is prone to break if you knit and reknit too much. So far I have had just two such occurrences and am being very careful.

Interestingly both shawls start at the bottom but they differ in that the bottom is the long end for one and the short end for the other. Which way do I prefer? Well lets wait 'till I finish them because I haven't decided yet.

Back to Lace

It's been a few years since I suffered from the 'knit lace' bug. Right around New Years Resolutions time it hit so this is the year of knit lace for me.

It all started when I was browsing through the stash one day (in the merry, merry month of May) no, no scratch that, and found two lace pieces I had finished in the 90s. That was when I fell in love wit Herbert Niebling's designs (the white sampler in the photo) and found a couple of Burda lace specials on eBay.

More to follow and certainly not all lace - perhaps even not all knitting.