Happy New Year!

Skip, Marion and I had a retro New Year's Eve. I hauled out my electric fondue pot and we had beef fondue for dinner. It was yummy.

I really enjoyed the Lincoln Centre tribute to Marvin Hamlisch on TV. At midnight, we opened our little bottle of sparking wine and toasted in the new year.

2012 was mostly good to us. Skip's health is back to normal. Scooter is well ensconsed at university. I am very content. We are looking forward to what lies ahead for us in 2013.

I didn't do as much knitting in 2012 as I have done in the past as my crafting attention was spread out among knitting, spinning, weaving and stitching. However, knitting is still my No. 1 preferred past-time.

I completed my Lehe Shawl lap blanket on New Year's Day and blocked it yesterday on the floor of Scooter's bedroom.

I love how the garter stitch border just flows into the diamond border and the picked up stitches hardly show as the basis of the lacy border.

I had almost two complete balls of yarn left over so I knit an extra two rows of the border before binding off - just to make it a little bigger.

I used 4mm needles with the DK weight yarn and am very pleased at how open the stitches and lace are after blocking. The finished size is a 56" square.
It's plenty big enough to drape over my knees while at the computer, to snooze under and to fold into a big triangle and wear as a shawl as originally intended.

I also knit a pair of Felted Clogs using grey and multicoloured Sandnes Fritidsgarn. The pattern and yarn have been in my stash for several years. I may have made the wrong size.

I'm hoping they'll felt down so they are at least wearable by me.

 

I have a front-loading washer so it takes about 3 or 4 washes to get them felted enough for the stitch definition to disappear. I have started the process by agitating them in a bucket with a (dedicated-for-felting) toilet plunger alternating hot and cold water. They're in the dryer now so we'll see how things work out. The Ravelry comments about this yarn is that after felting it's very fuzzy so I may or may not give the slippers a haircut. With doing the first couple of feltings in the bucket, I'm hoping to minimize the amount of wool fibre that goes through my washing machine when I actually do throw them in with a load of wash.

On the 'missionary' front, I may have another convert for our happy, fibrey fold. Suzanne was intrigued with my teaching at Continuing Ed. where she is an administrator and taught herself how to knit on the weekend using Knitting Help dot com videos. She's a maniac and knit through two balls of chunky yarn, creating a moss stitch scarf.

She actually likes knitting alternating with purling so yesterday we went to Soper Creek Yarn to find her appropriate yarn for a linen stitch scarf. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out for her. I have my own linen stitch UFO scarf to complete which I've hauled out of the 'closet of shame'.

While at the yarn shop I purchased a skein of Hand Maiden Sea Lace (70% silk/30% sea cell) in the November Sky colourway. This is an approximate depiction of the colourway - although not the correct yarn.

I started the Corydalis shawl and am finding the nupps (rhymes with 'poop') very annoying to do with such thin yarn. I am doing the crochet hook version, however, which is, for me, the easiest way to do them - all on the right side row. Corydalis is a somewhat semi-circular, entrelac, lace shawl. I think it's going to be quite a slog but will keep at it.