Seasons of Lace

I finished my Christmas Lace Dishcloth this afternoon making it my final finished project

Another pair of socks  into the finished category :)  Once I had time to work on thses they knit up fairly quickly. I really like the way the pattern forms a zig zag around the leg.

Here’s my last update post, with yardage, which obviously does not really matter as far as the competition goes, but I’m feeling pretty happy with how much I’ve accomplished. I am homeschooling the older two of my four young children and working on top of that, so the idea that any knitting at all got done is a great source of pleasure, and that I finished two gifts and a project for myself is really terrific. Here’s what I did:

Goddess Knits Anniversary Shawl, 1410 yards

Coveted Lace Skirt, my design: 900 yards

Goddess Knits Mystery Shawl #9  1050 yards

Bad Cat Designs Summer Sampler Study: 1400 yards

and a pathetic photo of four works in progress that have about 500 yards in them:

Storyteller Socks, Veil of Isis, Anniversary Shawl, and Mystery Stole 4:

So, I count 5,260 yards total.

I want to thank everyone for sharing their projects. I have gotten so many great ideas from so many of you. I have about a hundred pages to finish working on tonight, but I’m hoping to get a chance tomorrow to review more projects so as to nominate my favorites for special prizes–there are so many great projects! Hope to see you all again in the winter!

And thanks so much to the moderators and sponsors for making this happen!

Logging in another 800yds after completing Atlantis.

It’s me again.

Time for one last round of Random Joy before the end of the Season.

This time, we thought we’d get extravagant and award FOUR prizes.  I thought I’d take you through the process so you can see exactly what we do when we award prizes (since we’ll be doing the same thing for the Raffles in a few short weeks).

First, I go through my magic list of members, and I make sure that I’ve identified everyone who has posted, ever, on the blog.  These people qualify for the raffle. (As of today, only about half of the people who registered at the beginning of the season have actually posted.)  I also make sure that everyone who has donated a prize is listed twice…. since the prize donors were promised an extra chance at the raffles.

This means that I have 128 possible entries.

then, I choose the prizes that will be raffled off.

Firing up the Random Number Generator, I select between the three categories of prizes that I’m keeping track of:  Yarn, Patterns, and Other.

In round one today, the Random number generator (choosing a number between 1 & 3), gave me a 1 for the first prize.  That prize will be yarn!

Then, I went to the Yarn list, and noted that we have 32 yarn prizes to give away.  I asked the random number generator to pick me a number between 1 & 32 … and it chose 15.  The 15th yarn in my list is:

Three skeins of FF Lace Weight Merino from Fearless Fibers has agreed to send three skeins of her delicious FF Laceweight Merino in the winner’s choice of color from those that are available … well… now.

Then, I turn to the list of members awaiting a prize. I sort the list of ALL members so that those who have posted are at the top.  This lets me readily see who qualifies for the raffle.  I set the random number generator to give me a number between 1 and 128 (the number of folks who’ve posted, plus the extra chances for those who have donated.  For the purposes of this exercise, once a donor has won, we eliminate one of those extra chances until the end of the season.)  This round’s winner is number 125 — Aubrey K!  She’s one of our prize donors (but it didn’t land on her bonus entry).

Aubrey … contact me with your snail mail address so that I can have Fearless Fibers send you some yarn!

Redoing these steps, I got — another 1!!

Now, of course, I only have 31 yarn choices left.  The random number generator picks number 13…

which turns out to be three skeins of Knit Picks Shimmer donated by escr !

For this prize winner, we’ll be seeking a number between 1 and 127.  Even if we were to start over with each new round, it’d be unfair to leave Aubrey in for the second prize of this one, don’t you think?  The number generator gives me a 124  —  Banshee (another of our prize donors!).  Hey Banshee!  give me a shout with your snail mail address so that we can get this yarn to you!

Spinning the number generator again yields a 2, which leads me to the Pattern collection.  We have 18 such prizes left,  so I run the 1-18 generator again to yield a 7 — A lovely booklet of Elegant Scarves donated by E.J.Slayton of Joyknits .

(I’m jealous! I love this booklet).

But who will get it?  We’re down to numbers between 1 and 126…..  and we get 61…..

Knitflea

With one left to go, I spin the 1-3 again and get a 3…. which leads me to the Other collection, where we have 7 prizes available for this raffle.  My result:  2…. which leads to a $25.00 gift certificate from Goodies Unlimited .

I find this delightful, since Aubrey won something at the beginning of this adventure.  Anyway, spinning the last time, for 1-125, we get…  The number generator gives me a 103, which turns out to be…..kelbel
kelbel, give me a shout with your snail mail address so that we can get this yarn to you!

Okay, I just had to cast on one more pair of socks :) 

The name of this pattern is Maizy Lace by Cathy Hannigan and the yarn is TOFUtsies.

Another Christmas gift ready to wrap

I LOVED knitting these socks.  The Panda Silk yarn is sooo soft  and shows the pattern off very nicely. The pattern is also quite well written and the 16 row repeat keeps it interesting. I think I will knit this again in a solid color from the Panda Silk line.

I finished the Summer Sampler Study from Bad Cat Designs yesterday, and it’s blocking today. I’ll get a photo of it draped on someone or something later for my final summary blog, but here are closer photos of the twelve patterns and the edging. This was a lot of fun to knit. I used this project as an opportunity to learn a few new techniques and to experiment with my tension. I am ending the summer very happy with my work and with all that I have learned.

The yarn is DMC “Baroque” mercerized crochet cotton #10, the needles are size 1 straights. I have to weigh this one to determine exact yardage, since I used two full and several partial skeins, but it’s at least 1200 yards. I’m glad it’s done, so I can go on to other things without the weight of an almost finished object

I’m finding myself moving into winter mode already–thinking more of weaving and knitting plain old mittens, socks, and hats for the children, and of processing all of that food out in the garden for the winter. But I still have three shawls on the needles–four if you count the summer sampler. I’m going to finish that one tonight–I’m determined! so I’ll still be knitting lace. I can’t believe there are only nine days left. I have to find someone with a scale so I can weigh some unfinished projects. Maybe the local grocery ?  I am so grateful for the jumpstart this knitalong gave to my knitting. I had missed lace, and have so enjoyed getting into it again. And I have so many projects and patterns lined up. What fun! I’m going to miss checking in all of your projects when this is over–it has really been a bright spot in my life this summer. Thanks to all of you!

I finally decided on a pair of socks for my daughter after purchasing some Panda silk. The name of this pattern is Come Dancing.

These should knit up quickly since she prefers anklets.