Knitting Inspiration

Kathleen-
Did you see the beautiful pictures on Stephanie's blog of her wedding shawl? I'm honestly in awe. It's amazingly beautiful, and I like what she wrote about discounting our skills too. I was in Borealis Yarn yesterday (how I love that store!!) to pick up some yarn for my mother, and I was wearing the hat I made that combined elements of Coronet and Shedir from Knitty. Now I love this hat, I've actually made it twice, once for me and once for my mother, with the same pattern modifications. When complimented by the saleslady, I said "oh, it was easy, I just melded two patterns together." It really wasn't easy. There was lots of math, and ripping out, and experimenting, and learning lots about knitting from charts. But I did it, and I'm proud! I don't think my hat holds a candle to the wedding shawl of course, but it makes me ever so happy.

Now if I had only thought to take a picture of the hat so that you could see what I'm proud of!

Naked Needles Progress:
I'm taking a dual approach to Naked Needles. I'm trying to finish small projects as my take along knitting (note the wristwarmers and socks), and then concentrate on one big project at a time at home. So far so good. Tomorrow I think I'll start working on the Broad Street Mittens as my take along project....once I get the stitches picked up for the flap, it should be mindless traveling knitting.

For my big project, last night I worked on Eris, which I love more every day. I'm finally at the point to start the second sleeve cuff, so I'm pretty close. Then just to rip and reknit the other cuff and weave in lots of ends. I'm contemplating having a seamstress install the zipper. I feel no great confidence in my ability to do so without messing up all that work! First I need to find a suitable zipper though, something that I think may require online ordering. Also, I adore this designer (Jenna from Girl from Auntie). She designed the Shedir cap from the Knitty Breast Cancer Awareness issue, Eris, and Rogue, which I also have in my pattern library. Rogue is the intended pattern for the Silky Tweed I bought back in August.

Tonight my agenda is to clean my apartment. If I get everything picked up and put away, my reward is spinning. If not, there's no fiber for me tonight!

If there are any Ikea curtains (can't beat for cheap and fun patterns!) that you're interested in, I would be willing to brave Ikea this weekend to get them, just let me know.