Seasons of Lace

I hope you all had a great weekend while I was frolicking about with my family on a bit of a sneak long weekend.

It’s great to see these prize winners posts of their goodies — especially the ones that I haven’t seen in person yet.

Meanwhile, we have the voting in from all but one of our judges, so I’m hoping that we can announce Judged Competition winners soon.

In the interim…I think it’s about time for Round Two of the Raffles, except that I do want to explain how we’re doing this, because not all of the events will have multiple rounds of prizes. You may have noticed that for each of the first round raffles, I identified how many “entries” there were (posts that qualified as entries either designated that something was cast on, or finished), and how many knitters there were. We decided that for categories with fewer than ten players, we’d do a single raffle; for those with between 10 and 17 players, we’d run two rounds of raffles; for those with 18- 25 players we’d do three rounds, and the one with over 30 players would get a fourth raffle. We considered doing 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, and 30+, but one category with 18 knitters had over 50 entries… and we just “had” to reward that.

So, for Round Two, we have some duplicate prizes, sort of.  The second round Raffle Prize For Newbie Lace Knitters, and for Small Lace is a KnitPicks Lace sampler.   We have two colors left — and our winners will get to choose!  There’s one sampler pack in “Sea View” (blues), and two in “Sunset Picnic”.  Whichever winner contacts me first gets first choice.

And our Newbie prize winner is……… Melfina!! who will also be enjoying a $10.00 gift certificate from

And our Small Lace prize winner is ……. nolaboard!, who will also be receiving a Hearts & Hugs sock pattern from JoyKnits

Congratulations!

But wait… that’s not all!!!

We also have another gorgeous shawl pin  from Designs by Romi to raffle off for the Second Round prize in Self Designed Lace!

thislittlepiggyknits will be receiving this pin as soon as Romi can arrange it!  She’ll also be receiving a sock pattern from the Knit Foundry

And finally ( … well, for today anyway)

We’ve raffled off another $25.00 Gift certificate from

as the Second Round Raffle Prize for Wee Lace

alittlefuzzy will be receiving this… and will enjoy free shipping on her goodies if she’s in the U.S.!  She also has a $10.00 gift certificate from KnitSpot

Tomorrow??

More Round Two Raffle Prizes!!!

Here are a few more of the Round One Raffle Prizes:

For the Self-Designed Lace Raffle, we had 24 entries from 11 knitters.  I had hopes here, and got Whichy to do the drawing, but NightlyKnitter won the first round.  She’ll be receiving 8 ounces of hand dyed lace weight from

I’m not sure what the colorway is… and hope that Nightly Knitter will show us what she receives!

Nightly knitter will also be getting a pdf pattern of her choice from Baxterknits

Also receiving an eight ounce skein from A Colorful Yarn will be … the winner of our First Round Raffle for Large Lace (who is one of 6 knitters, who between them made 9 entries to this raffle). Our winner? tinker!

Along with her yarn, she’ll be receiving a pdf pattern from Bad Cat Designs

I can’t wait to see the pictures. (Okay, I’ve seen some of her dye work — and I’m totally biased).

In the First Round Raffle for Beaded Lace (for which we had 28 entries from 14 knitters), sligo was our Winner.

She’ll be choosing her favorite of the newly dyed lace-weight yarn from

And of course, sligo will need a pattern to knit, so we’ll be sending her one from Fiber Dancers’ Design Studio

Tomorrow, we should be able to finish up the first round winners…. Are you ready?

So, this Season of Lace is drawing to a close. We’ve got two more days to finish things up so that they can earn more raffle tickets.  I’m pretty sure that unless I abandon all other activities between now and midnight on Tuesday, this will be the last thing I finishing for THIS Season of Lace.  (I’ll be working on the other stuff in the interim, and plotting others to START for Winter of Lace though).

I designed this hat for my friend.

It’s got lace and cables.

I’ve been told that the lace looks like sky scrapers in the decreasing sections.

Perhaps they’re to remind us to reach, always, for the sky — because the sky is the limit.

I like the way the cables continue on and on, even as they get smaller at the crown..

Like hope, they never quite die, and at their smallest, they gain strength from joining with one another.

It’s made of soft yarn — yet sturdy yarn.  A bit of acrylic, and a bit of silk.  So that man’s tinkering and nature’s strength and beauty combine. … rather like chemo therapy and a patient.  I know her strength and beauty will hold out…. and I look forward to the day when her hair has returned to the thick luxurious tresses that would make this a tad snug.  Until then, may it keep her warm.

I’ll work on something airier for her for when she doesn’t need it anymore.

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!

I’m going to squeeze in one last wee little project.

I had this lone ball of Hayfield Kimono lying about the house with nowhere to go.

It’s perfect for a little something for a dear friend of mine who is suffering from cancer.  I’m pleased at finding the perfect project for this yarn.  I’m pleased at having found something good to knit for my friend. I’m not so pleased that she’s going to need it…. but I’m trying to look on the bright side.

Today I spent a bit too much time in the ER for a test that was, well, just an over abundance of caution for some paranoid parents… but at least I’ve made progress…

Yeah, I know that looks like cables.
But the other stuff that’s not stretched out yet?  That’s lace.

I didn’t quite get this finished for the Ravelympics deadline, and it took me even longer to block it, but my stole, inspired by the sheen of the yarn and the ideas of water and the sea, is finally finished.

Pattern: My own, composed of motifs from the Barbara Walker stich dictionaries
Yarn: Briar Rose Fibers Sea Pearl (merino/tencel) - very nice to work with and lovely sheen.
Needle: 3.5 mm/ U.S. 4
New techniques: Russian join, sewn bind off
Yards knit: 815
More pictures are at my blog and on Ravelry .

Do you know what this is?

This is the last bead.  When this bead goes on, Daedelus will have all of its beads.  All of them.

And here is that bead in place….

Yes…. tonight, I finished knitting Daedelus..

Before the bath, she stretched out on the living room floor…

Then she nested in to his/har bath… (I’m still conflicted.  I think of Daedelus as a masculine name, but shawls feel female — especially pink ones! with pinkish beads — and after all this intense time together "it" just doesn’t cut it).

And then, she stretched out on the new puzzle block mats I bought to be SURE I’d have enough space to block a full size shawl….(I used 25 squares (though one of them could have been omitted — and in this configuration, that means that the shawl is more than six feet from wing tip to wing tip).

After I took this, I noticed that the sides weren’t even.  So….I grabbed Mr. Spray, and re-stretched the left side to let him stretch his wing just a tad more.

Glamour shots when Daedulus is dry….. (after all, even newborn flies wait until their wings are dry, we can hardly ask more from someone as lovely as this).

THANK YOU JOAN!  for making Daedelus possible!

Started going through & entering my stash in Ravelry (don’t even ask…it’s scary, really scary…I think they’ll have to bury me with yarn & needles…) and I couldn’t resist starting this to see what the SWS would do with it.

I’ve also knit up another quickie on Size 13s with a very simple lace pattern, an oddly shaped item that when finished, turns into a shrug! Haven’t photo-ed that yet though. I so love the feel of Moda-Dea Dream (a friend who commented on it this past weekend called it “sensuous” and I have to agree!), I can almost forget the fact that it’s acrylic & nylon!

Here’s the budding vest:

Knit ON!

Diane

P.S. I MUST MUST MUST finish my vest.

I MUST MUST MUST finish my vest.

I MUST MUST MUST finish my vest.  Only 20? days to go!!!

I finished the first of the Lacy Mitts for I’m designing for my daughter.

I also have the pattern all written out for the left mitt, and have worked out just what needs to be done to reverse it for the right mitt.  (I’ve also made great progress in a non-lace design and some simple socks for DH.

But that stops now.  All this progress will come to a screeching halt.

Because this came in the mail today.

At last, Daedelus can be finished!!  THANK YOU Aboca Beads .

I’m on the home stretch on an afghan  for a friend of mine.  I had the 4 white strips done before seasons of lace and have completed the yellow and half of the green now.  I’m using Debbie Bliss cotton cashmere (furnished by my friend) and hate it!!  It’s got a wonderful feel, but it splits like an Olympic gymnist!!  I haven’t used a Debbie Bliss that I’ve liked because of just that.  I know that lots of folks love this yarn, I just don’t!!  I use about 1 1/2 skiens for the green strips and 4-5 skiens for the yellow, so I’ve got about 2000 yards done since SOL started.

  This picture doesn’t even start to get the colors right, but I guess you can get the drift.  I’ve got 4 more green strips to do then it gets pieced together!! 

Carla