white lace black hap

 meadow lace

shetland triangle lace

it seems as if it's been one extreme to the other here, we've had dense fog (when i had time for photos, haha, oh well) and then cloudless sunshiny days. when i look at my recent knitting it looks about the same. from black to white, or, the other way around. i made two smallish shawls, out of two hanks of jade sapphire cashmere, in a very pretty natural cream colour, ivory. the shetland triangle lace shawl in the fir cone pattern i shared before, and now here is it's sister shawl, meadow lace, both patterns by evelyn clark. the fir cone lace took approximately five hundred yards, and meadow about three. the jade sapphire had 400 yards per skein, so it worked perfect! the meadow lace is such an interesting knit, it's made to have extra long ties, for staying on. in order for that to work, it is made using six or seven different charts (i just counted, it's six charts, seven pages) and binding off in places, knitting on in others. it is a simple knit, but when it came with several pages of directions for such a tiny shawl, i said eeps! the picot edge is my favorite part. and the garter stitch. and the tiny little flowers. oh it's all my favorite, i love it! raverly notes:

shetland lace triangle

meadow lace scarf

the very opposite from white, my all black hap shawl is growing. stitch by every single stitch, this is so far, on a scale of one to ten, ten being most enjoyable, a ten plus! i was fearful of the black. having knit with it before and saying, never again! two things have contributed to making this a positive experience. first this wool is extraordinary. oh my goodness. if you would like to try the softest, springiest, woolliest organic shetland wool, visit lorraine at cottage craft angora. you will find along with the shetland, luxury fibers such as angora, cashmere, qiviut (musk ox) and blends of all these. and the second reason to not fear black anymore... 

knit with a headlamp! yay! i've knit for years using one, camping, night driving, chuck, not me ;) when traveling and light is poor (or non existent like in africa when the generator lights are turned off after a designated hour). but at home, knitting with black, why didn't i think of it before? it's fantastic. haha, chuck cannot resist making comments. i guess it is pretty funny. but i can see. yes.

outside, everything is in bloom! our wedding roses (a very favorite post), and hollyhocks, seeds i planted last year, remind of my grandma rose. i rescued a flat of plants at the nursery, they were so sad looking, marked down to a dollar apiece. hopefully they'll like it here. i bought a strawberry plant and it's already producing berries. which the raccoons already ate off. these all need to be in the ground soon. and the sweetest pink roses from my love, i said eeps again. :)

thank you for always leaving such kind comments, they are so appreciated. 
happy almost weekend! xxx lori