While we were traveling I had a bit of time to work on the lace for Eve's Leaves. Now I just have 28 inches of the lace to go! That's me holding it up in front of the window of the car on the rather long trip home (two hours longer than it ought to have been).


Last week, though, before we went on the trip, I finally sewed all the cloud borders down on Nejat's Starry, Starry Night. As I suspected, Nejat wanted it right away, so there was no washing or blocking of it before she took possession of it and it went to her bed with her. I also swatched for Matrimony, a cable and texture vest for Rich in honor of our 20th wedding anniversary. It's probably going to take the whole year for me to make it. We discussed my writing the pattern up and pitching the design to a print or online magazine, but I think I want to keep it as his, and modify it a bit for a general men's pattern.


Another thing finished before we left last week was another size of Ziyad, which won the designer challenge, by the way. If you think you can knit a child sized version of this hat in the next day or two, please contact me or leave a comment with your contact information. I'm looking for one more project in the child size. The pattern is back from the tech editor and it's knit with an aran to bulky weight yarn. More details for the preview knit can be found on my Ravelry group.


For those of you who were knitting Amira for me, my tech editors are working on the neckline as I write, and I'm hoping to have the edited and corrected pattern to you in the next two to three weeks. Thank you for your extreme patience. I started the back of my own while on our trip as well. My goal is to have the back finished, and then go back to the front when I have the new math on the pattern so I will have it ready as soon as possible. I'd really like to publish it on Amira's birthday, which only gives me a month and a half from today.

Since my yarn diet excludes souvenir yarn, I was looking forward to a little yarn shopping while we were gone. The hotel Rich booked for his work trip was just around the corner from Canvas Works in Olympia. I knew this, but when we got to our room, this was the view:


Can he pick a hotel or what? I was able to visit and only picked up yarn that I didn't have for a design I am publishing with a third party at the end of this year. Even though there were two shades of Shibui Maai I really wanted to get (tango and poppy).


The past couple weeks have been pretty good for reading around here. I read Dress Shop of Dreams, which was almost entirely predictable, and I really didn't like a lot of things about some key characters. However, it was a quick fluff read, and there was enough in there that was interesting. I wouldn't read it again, and I wouldn't recommend it, and I probably won't be reading anything else by this author. Also, I hated that either she or the editor used they and their for the singular pronoun, especially when they were used in direct reference to a woman, when if she wanted to avoid saying him/his as the singular, she/hers could have been used perfectly accurately. I've been doing a steady, simple, study in Sirach with this study and journal book. Rich and I picked up Hillbilly Elegy again, and I started Pardonable Lies.


My stack of books for this month.



Also posting to Keep Calm and Craft On.

Labels: Books, Crochet, Design, Family, FOs, Giftalong, Homemaking, Knitting, Yarn, Yarn Along