Purple Frost!

Sitting in a chair next to a sickbed is an excellent way to get lots of knitting done. That's exactly where I spent Saturday, which enabled me to finish up the Faux Russian Stole on Sunday - also spent at home with Sick Child, who was sick enough to stay home, but not too sick to pass a pleasant day as the Ruling Couch Potato, complete with books, knitting, stuffed animals, and live dog.

The shawl got washed in preparation for blocking...

then photographed...

and will shortly be shipped to an undisclosed location in Pella, Iowa.

Once I finished the shawl, I set to work on some socks with a vengeance. I am truly a 'one project at a time' knitter (not counting travelling vs. home projects. One simply MUST have knitting appropriate to the occasion at all times). The socks got finished, and even prewashed. They ended up being HUGE after handwashing. I'm going to toss them in the washer and dryer, see if that helps, and amputate the toes if not.

Finishing the socks left me with an as-yet unphotographed Brioche Stitch Scarf. My thoughts turned to dainty lace bread cloths for communion, and I was actually in the very middle of charting out a row-by-row pattern from the DMC Encyclopaedia of Needlework when my e-mail beeped at me. It was from the future recipient of my Frost Flowers and Leaves shawl. We've been talking yarns for over a week, and although we started out with a definite Iris Alpaca Cloud, that drifted over into a royal purple, settled on a laceweight Cashmere until I realized that this particular laceweight wasn't 3600 yds/lb, but 7000 yds/lb, drifted back to something thicker than a spiderweb, and landed - with that e-mail - on Purple Palette. Which I just happen to have in my stash.

Next came the needle decision. The pattern called for size 6, but that's with laceweight yarn. And I knit tight. But I don't like lace that is so holey in stockinette that one can't see the intended holes. I considered using size 7s, and might have, but for the fact that I have a) a set of four, and b) metal dpns. One thing I know about lace is that one does NOT want to begin by working a square shawl with a cast on of 8 with slippery, heavy needles in a triangle formation. I do have size 8s, 5 of them, in plastic (ick.) So size 8 it was -- and I still had my Boye Needlemaster size 8s handy from finishing off the Russian Stole.

Without further ado, I used my handy dandy copier to make a working copy of the pattern, popped it into a page protector, slapped on the magnetic strip to keep my place, flipped to the back of the book which showed 'Circular Cast-ons' and began.

Bliss. Sheer bliss.

According to the spreadsheet from the Knitalong, I'm closing in on 2% of the shawl done. Hooray!