I took a step towards something more complicated yesterday when I went and bought the yarn for a shawl, it will be my first attempt at lace knitting, and hopefully will work out since I plan on knitting at least two shawls for Christmas and hope to knit myself a shawl for my wedding one day. The wedding one should be awesome since I'll have plenty of time to practice until then.
Here is a picture of the yarn and needles I bought yesterday. The yarn, which I keep wanting to call wool and it isn't, is Diamond brand spun in Peru 100% baby alpaca in ecru and avocado. This is the softest yarn that I have ever worked with and it is amazing if not a little like knitting with super soft dental floss. Also this is a lot cheaper than I expected lace weight to be. I think I have this misconception that lace weight yarn will be more expensive because in each hank there is 400 metres of yarn. So in this picture there is 1200 metres of yarn, more than enough to make the shawl that I want. The shawl is called the Mt Vernon Shawl designed by Tanis Grey and will be features once I manage to get past the first couple rows. You can find the pattern here. Just so you know my obseessiveness with perfection has led me to pull it out twice now and I'm sure this is just the beginning. The first time I dropped a stitch and couldn't figure out how to ladder back up because of the infinite number of yarn overs that are features in this pattern. The second time I managed to have six extra stitches at the end and again because of the infinite number of stitches I couldn't tink back to find out what my problem was. Also along with this purchase I splurged and got a set of Addi Turbo Lace needles, size seven. The only reason that I purchased these, though I may have to again now, was because I finally spent the wonderfully useful gift card that I recieved for Christmas.
Just so you understand exactly how much of a splurge this purchase was. It was nearly the same price as the yarn. But they work amazingly.
Asides from my multiple attempts at starting this shawl I have grown in another way. I have begun, or tried again depending on how you look at it, to eat salad. And so far I have succeeded in eating three salads in two days, each time with home made dressing and croutons. I also made myself a semi-nutritional dinner this evening, proving that even when I am on my own I can indeed cook myself a meal that does not consist of premade food that I shove in the oven. So here is a gratuitous picture of my dinner. Just to make you jealous of course.
This consisted of a salad with a balsamic, lemon, EVOO dressing, and home made croutons of course with mixed greens, red onion, and orange peppers. I had asparagus cooked in garlic butter, and pork chops that were pan seared and then cooked in an orange juice/ginger sauce. It tasted fairly amazing though the sauce would have been better if I had actually measured everything and hadn't nearly burnt it as soon as I poured it into the frying pan.
Last but not least, do not worry that the sweater has been abandoned, it is still my favorite project for working on while I watch tv. I have six more inches to complete before I start to shape the arm holes. One more gratutious picture:
Can you believe this is eighteen inches long! It's crazy. So anyways my plans for tonight are to continue with the sweater, hopefully either working six more inches or until teh end of the skein of yarn (you can't see it but its about half a ball) continue my Harry Potter marathon and work on my last essay of the year. The Harry Potter marathon has just entered the third movie which is my least favorite so this is most likely the movie where I will do the most work on my essay and the least on my sweater, the next three will involve more work on the sweater. Wish me luck.
Lady Polly
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