Thursday, May 19, 2011

Vogue Early Fall

We're on the cover! Oh my!























Word on the street is that capes are going to be the "it" thing this fall. This one is a super easy knit and takes only 2 or 3 skeins of Shepherd Worsted. There's even a contest to win the yarn to make your own.








































The preview of the whole issue can be found here.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Bride Wore Green

I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Amanda get married on Saturday night.

The bride wore green.

















Her dress was designed and stitched by Annie Modesitt. The shawl was designed my Miriam Felton of Mimknits and knitted by Nathania Apple from Purlescence. What a lucky girl!
















Daniella at Knitique knit socks on her antique sock machine for the groom and all the groomsmen.























We had a fantastic time. It was at the Swedish American Museum in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago. There was good beer, BBQ and macaroni and cheese that might have been almost as tasty as mine.
















Derek and Amanda are off galavanting in Hawaii. Here's to the beginning of a long and happy life together.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

MDS&W

Once again, I find myself in Chicago on the weekend of Maryland Sheep and Wool. This year, it's for a good reason, Amanda is getting married!

For those of you who are lucky enough to be going, you should stop by the Bijou Basin Ranch booth. They're over in Barn 4.






















You might be wondering why Lorna's Laces is pointing you towards the Bijou Basin booth. Well, it's because we dyed up a very limited amount of their Tibetan Dream Sock Yarn. 85% yak and 15% nylon. Who wouldn't like a pair of those socks?
















From the top, the colors are Tannhauser, Tristan, Lohengrin, Parsifal and Siegfried. The day Carl sent over the names, I'd just gotten an email from a friend telling me about the production of Lohengrin they'd seen over the weekend. I might not have known what it was otherwise. Now I am more well versed on the big German operas.

They only have a few skeins of each of the colors so you'd better hurry if you want some.

On a more personal note, Michael and snuck away for a quick trip to NY last weekend. With Amanda heading out for a two week honeymoon tomorrow and market right around the corner, I knew it was now or never.

We saw the Van Cleef and Arpels exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. I was a little concerned that Michael might get bored, but there was enough technical detail that he had fun too.

The other big thing we did was see Good People with Frances McDormand. I'd give it a big thumbs up. It's only running for a couple more days, so you'd have to see it this weekend.

Oh and I can't forget...We ran into the taping of the new Spiderman movie. We didn't see anyone famous, but it was neat to see facade of the Oscorp building.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

First KAL Evening

We had our first Rock Island KAL here at Lorna's Laces last night.
















Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate and instead of sitting out on the roof enjoying a spring evening, we had to move the festivities indoors so we didn't freeze our backsides off. No matter, we had a really nice time.

It was an intimate group of four and in retrospect, I think that was good.* I'm a neophyte lace knitter and I needed to concentrate. If there had been a bigger crowd, my hostess instinct would have probably kicked in and I wouldn't have gotten anything done.

As it was, I only completed two repeats because I had to rip back to my lifeline twice. The pattern really isn't that hard, I was distracted by the conversation and pizza. I'm not complaining, there's nothing wrong with those kinds of distractions!

Three of us are using Helen's Lace and one is using Shepherd Sock. We've all picked the Grand Street Ink color and we're all working on size 6 needles. Not a single one of us swatched...we're all using 6's because they were easy to find on start day. The universal reason for not swatching was because it was a shawl and fit wasn't critical. I think it's interesting that we all shared the same logic along with needle size and color. We're expecting some additional knitters next week and it'll be fun to see their choices.
















The top one is the Shepherd Sock version. It's going to make a big shawl. It'll be nice and cozy too. The other three are all Helen's Lace. I think it interesting that the bottom one is so much looser. I wonder if that has more to do with knitter or because it's being knit on metal needles rather than bamboo.

I do know that I need pointier needles. The bamboo ones I have are too blunt. Time for a trip to the LYS!

*Edited to add: I meant that the small group was good for the first evening. I'm looking forward to as many people who want to join us. The more the merrier!