About last night

7 Small Shawls: T - 145 days and counting down.

Yes, to all of those who kindly asked, that pile of yarn was Celaeno. But, happily, not all of Celaeno. And also in answer to those who asked very kindly: yes, I am absolutely fine. The nice thing about yarn is that you can rip it out and re-knit it and no one will ever be the wiser (unless you are being a brutally honest ripper like I am). It's not like wood where you measure twice (or three or four times), cut once, swear a blue streak and then go out and buy another piece to repeat the process. No...I feel very fortunate indeed.

To explain a bit, or perhaps sum up.... Often, I rip as much as I knit when I am designing something. It's just part of the process that I accept. Things look good on paper; they look good in my head; then they don't do what I expected them to do when knitted up. Knitted fabric has interesting little quirks that vary with fiber and stitch. I know quite a few of them after having knitted for most of my life, but I certainly do not know all of them, and I am learning more of them every day. I enjoy that process, and I take ripping as just another facet of bringing my vision to reality.

That all being said, this is not why I ripped last night. I needed to rip Celaeno because I made a really foolish mistake and didn't notice it until I had gone far past it. The mistake threw off all of my stitch counts and messed with the shaping of the shawl. There was really nothing to do but rip. It's ok; I will have it back together in no time and then it will be off to my test knitters. Meanwhile, I am readying the Maia mitt pattern for testing! The mitts will be one of the extra patterns in my 7 Small Shawls eBook subscription, and will not be available for purchase alone.

I also took out the materials for my next shawl (#4). This lovely yarn is from Zen Yarn Garden. It is an incredible shade of golden yellow. And soft? So soft!

And there are beads.

Several options, actually.

I'm pretty sure which ones I want, but I may be surprised when I knit a swatch with them.

I have been thinking about this one for quite some time, and I think I have finally gotten it right. Some ideas come quickly and some are long in the planning stage. This is one that I dissected over and over again. It started out one way and ended another way entirely. But I will get into more of that later.

I will leave you with the picture of a 16 inch long cucumber that reminded me of "This is Spinal Tap."