Verily Vintage

I finished my Bitterroot shawl, although it did take me nearly two weeks to get round to blocking it, am a bit lazy when it comes to blocking.




It took up nearly the whole of my bed to block, I really must get some of those foam squares so I can block on the floor, would love some blocking wires too, but definitely cannot afford at the mo.


I've already started on my second shawl, which is the India Stole by Sylvie Beez, I'm nearly halfway and it looks like it's going to be super long, ah well more soggy bed blocking.

I never make resolutions as I know that I would be really really bad at sticking to them, but this year I decided to make some craft based resolutions, firstly I will try real hard not to buy more yarn, secondly I am going to attempt a bit more designing, I have sketches everywhere so my plan is 1 new knitting design every month of the year. I am already behind on this (not a good start!) but I have ideas in the pot! And thirdly to get out in the garden and get on with it, never going to grow anything if I keep putting off clearing the mess. So hopefully I'll have a new knitting pattern available soon, possibly a cowl if all goes well.

As previously mentioned I've joined the 10 shawls in 2010 KAL, I'm well into my first shawl which is Bitterroot and am already thinking about my other 9. I think I may do the Heartland Lace Shawl by Evelyn Clark and also the aolian shawl from Knitty and possibly also a vernal equinox from the Lankakomero blog which I love.

I was lucky this christmas, my lovely partner bought me some fyberspates lace, in lilacs and blossom (you can see in pic with my new set of knitpro interchangeables) so I have some great yarn to use for my shawls. I've also set myself the challenge of designing a shawl of my own, I've got lots of sketches already, so here's hoping that it works out!

For many reasons 2009 has not been the best of years that I've ever had, my brain seems to have been awash with problems and nothing seemed to get done. But that was last year and 2010 is going to be better I am positive of that! This blog somewhat ground to a halt but that is to be rectified this year too. On the plus side I did manage to finish all of my christmas projects.

My mum loved her Tree of Life Afghan, it was hard to believe just how huge and heavy it was once finished. And everyone got a pair of socks too. I've decided to join a KAL on Ravelry: 10 shawls for 2010, the idea is that you knit 10 shawls throughout 2010 with the minimum meterage being 250 metres for 8 shawls,and 2 must use at least 500 meters of yarn. It sounds like quite a challenge, but I love the idea. I'm thinking possibly Bitterroot as my first shawl, I'm going to cast on tonight after perusing more patterns!

Sometimes it feels like the days go past so quickly without my realising it, it's only in the garden that it becomes obvious that I have been rather lazy! I spent the whole morning pulling weeds and mourning the loss of 2 of my bigger pumpkins which have gone soggy and horrible, I now only have 2 left so there'll definitely be fewer pumpkin pies this year! But on the plus side I've got more tomatoes and cucumbers than I know what to do with, tonight I will be trying out a very tomatoey pasta sauce and thinking about what to do with all the rest of them!