On the needles

Thought I might talk about what's on the needles at the moment. I'm working on a stole for my sister. I started it at Christmas while we were in Norway. I'd been planning to use this stitch pattern for a while. It's the classis Orenburg Lace strawberry stitch. I charted and don't remember doing much swatching which is quite normal for me. Cast on and knitted away. Did a quite a bit in Norway but then we arrived home and it got put aside. from time to time I'd get it out but I just didn't want to work on it. Something was not quite right. Then one evening last week I got my blocking boards out and pinned it out. And I didn't like what I saw. So made the drastic decision to frog it. I was probably a 1/3 done iwth hte centre panel. I changed to slightly smaller needles. Did some more charting and cast on again. This time I'm much happier. Although I've not gotten around to taking any new pics. Will try to get that one later this week.

Anyway, this is the original: Probably looks okay but I was not happy. Now it's my favorite project and I'm knitting on it as much as Ican. Then on Monday I decided it was time to make a decision about the border and work out how much yarn I'd need to put aside for the border. I had an idea for the border and spent ages looking and charting for just hte right border. Finally found it and swatched in 4ply sock yarn. It looked great. Then I changed to the lace yarn and started knitting it and was not happy at all. What looked good in sock yarn did not look quite so good in lace yarn. BAck to the drawing board. After a lot of work Ifinally found the right border. Pics later in the week.

Last night Emily asked if I could knit her a mobile phone sock with beads. She chose the yarn and beads. The one on the right is hers. The purple yarn with the beads are a lot thicker than the blue yarn and the beads were a bit too small. So I'm not 100% happy with it but Em likes it.

I then decided to knit a mobile phone sock for myself with beads. I quite like mine too.
And to finish, here's a picture of a waistcoat my Mum has knitted. It's design 29 (Ithink) from Noro's Mini Designer Knits book.

A friend is knitting the same design too but in a different colour.

For any Lace Variety Club members who happen to pass by. Parcels have gone out.