So the other day I was on Ravelry, which I don’t visit nearly as often as I used to, and I noticed that I hadn’t listed my 3 current knitting projects on my project page. Whoops.

I rectified that situation by creating a project info thingy for each project but then I realized that I don’t have pictures to go along with the project info. Whoops again.

That is now fixed and I’m sharing with you.

First up: the Fiori di Sole shawl. This is for a friend who is getting married in just 18 days. I am hauling ass on this and slightly worried about my deadline but since I absolutely have to finish, well, I know I will.

Next up: Que Sera for Hannah. I started this back in July and had hoped to send it off to college with her but then I offered to knit the wedding shawl and the sweater has been set aside. I’m slightly worried about running out of yarn and that doesn’t inspire me to pick it up again but I will once that shawl is done.

Finally: socks. Every knitter needs a little down time and that’s what my picot edge socks are for.

What are you knitting these days?

I had an opportunity on Monday evening to make a quick trip to Cape Cod with Dale. He had a band job and I made plans to meet a college friend for dinner. At the last minute I grabbed my finished and blocked Lady Bertram shawl and my camera and threw both in the car. I’m awfully glad I did. The beach was absolutely picturesque – the light was lovely, and a softly worn fence provided the perfect spot to showcase the shawl. I took a bunch of glamor shots!

The one that shows the whole shawl.

The one that gets a little closer.

The one that looks like it was casually tossed over the fence.

And that one that’s very similar but just different enough that I wanted to use it, too.

Finally, there’s the one that shows a nice close up of the lace. What I really love, though, is the blurry beach in the background.

The pattern, from Wendy Knits, is fantastic and a great first time lace project. The yarn, a blend of merino, cashmere and nylon from Ball and Skein, is wonderful. It’s soft and a fabulous shade of tomato red. I blocked the edges straight across rather than pull out the points and I really like it this way.

It’s the perfect shawl to throw over your shoulders while strolling along a Cape Cod beach.

Things I did this weekend:

Visited Dale’s sister at her campsite. I mostly sat around at the pond. It was good. (picture inspired by Claudia)

Picked up our CSA share. It included peppers, tomatoes, onions, eggplant, celery, leeks, potatoes, blueberries, green beans and these beautiful sunflowers.

Baked blueberry muffins.

Knit on the Cascata shawl. There’s a story behind this one but I’ll tell you later.

You know what I didn’t do at all? Spin. I think I have completely fallen off the Tour De Fleece wagon. Whoops.

Last week my dear friend Blogless Sharon celebrated the birth of a new grandson. I celebrated by knitting him a blanket.

I knew as soon as I saw this blanket on the Knitspot blog that I just had to knit it for someone. I greatly appreciate that Sharon’s daughter Heather provided a baby so readily.

The yarn is gorgeous and comes from another Heather, this being the one that dyes such wonderful yarns and fibers and sells them under the name Sereknity.

It was a fun pattern to knit and I never got bored. The subtle color changes of the yarn go perfectly with the design and it is oh-so-photogenic.

I hope Baby Nathaniel feels wrapped in wool-y love every time his mama uses it.

As I mentioned on Monday, I finally blocked my Morning Surf Scarf this weekend. I won’t be wearing it anytime soon, as we have had record-breaking warmth here, but it’s ready for the cold weather when it comes – a long long time from now, please.

Anyway, I used handspun but I have no idea what it is or where I got it or when I spun it. Nothing like providing you with lots of details, huh?

The pattern is very easy to memorize and it is definitely perfect for handspun – even handspun of the unknown variety.

The colors are soft and pretty and they blend so nicely. I’d recommend you get some of this but – just in case you missed this point – I don’t know what it is.

I do know that I love it, though, and that’s what really counts.

The other day Kathy reminded me that Kim likes to see projects as we knit them, not just after they are finished. And so, here’s what I’m knitting these days:

Socks, of course. The yarn is Colinette Jitterbug and the pattern is my picot edge sock. There are lots of school things and meeting things these days so I expect these socks to be done very soon.

And a baby blanket. The yarn is Sereknity’s Verity in the color “Forest for the Trees” and the blanket is Anne Hanson’s new Cradle Me. I am really really enjoying this project!

How about you? What’s on your needles right now?

I brought my finished Hamamelis Shawl with me to Frank Harlow Day. I thought the scenery might make for an interesting photo shoot.

Turns out, tent ropes are great for displaying shawls.

I loved knitting this shawl. The design, from Kirsten of Through the Loops, is fantastic. I love that the edges of the shawl are straight instead of scalloped as most of my other shawls are.

The yarn is wonderful. Dream in Color Smooshy is just that – smooshy. And the color is a gorgeous shade of blue.

There are lighter bits and darker bits and I think it will be awesome with a white shirt and blue jeans.

It’s also awesome with lilacs. Just sayin’.

I finished the Noro Entrelac Scarf just in time to give it to Hannah as an Easter present. While it’s not the typical chocolate bunny and marshmallow chick in a basket, it was received happily. You see, she had exclaimed over it one day while I was working on it and any of you who have a teenager know that exclamations over hand knits deserve to be rewarded.

Anyway, yesterday was a glorious summer-like day here in Southeastern Massachusetts so I took the scarf with me to work and figured I’d have lunch on the beach near my office and take some photos. Dale joined me and we enjoyed the sun and warm breezes and then I set up the scarf on the lifeguard stand and tried to take a photo. Emphasis on that word tried.

I had the camera but I did not have the memory card. It was about to be an epic fail when I remembered that Gale told me the iphone takes pretty decent photos. I pulled it out and opened the camera app and . . .

Not bad. Not as great as my Canon but definitely acceptable.

And definitely a relief since it’s been way too long since a finished hand knit graced this blog.

I finished my first handspun Baktus Scarf.  I can already tell that it won’t be my last. These things are like potato chips – you can’t have just one.

The wood pile is an excellent model in the absence of the human variety. The yarn and the wood act like velcro – pose and shoot, repose and reshoot.

I took way too many photos, in fact, because the light was right and the colors looked beautiful and I snapped 30 before I even blinked.

I made a vow to use more handspun and this scarf is perfect for handspun. In fact, I adore it in my handspun. It almost looks woven, I think.

I knit it exactly according to the pattern. I weighed my yarn first, knit until it was half gone, and then started decreasing. No waste, no fuss, just a great scarf!

I’m already planning my next one.

I finished the Mondo Cable Pulli just in time to wear it at SPA. And, luckily for me, my favorite photographer in the whole world agreed to do a photo shoot of me and my sweater.  Cheryl, baby Eloise and I headed outside right after lunch on Saturday. The lighting was good and there was a cute little park bench right next to the hotel.

I was instructed to sit down. So I sat.

And I was instructed to laugh. So I laughed.

Okay, so about the sweater. I love it! The color is perfect with black jeans and that’s just what I wanted. It’s a little bigger than I had hoped but I think I can fix that by re-blocking it.  And it’s comfortable! The Beaverslide yarn is soft enough for me for next-to-skin wearing but I do have a pretty good tolerance for scratchy and someone else might want a shirt underneath.

I did make some modifications, which is fairly unusual for me. I repeated the cable twist every 12 rows instead of every 18 rows as the pattern stated.

And I changed the bottom and sleeve edgings to 2×2 ribbing. I tried it first as written but ripped it out and I’m much happier with it this way.

This sweater is an unqualified success. I can see myself wearing it over and over again. A knitter can’t ask for more than that.