Which is it?

August 24, 2008 at 1:37 pm | Posted in Butterfly Fields, lace, pattern design, Reinyarnations, shawls, WIPs | 6 Comments

Did I fail at succeeding? Or did I succeed at failing? Because part of me knew I wouldn’t be able to finish the Ravelympics challenge this year, and true to form, I didn’t.

Bah. Oh well. Regardless, the challenge gave me inspiration, and really, that’s something of the Olympic spirit to start with. So I came away a better person, even if I didn’t have an FO to bring with me.

The stole I’m knitting, though, is coming along decently. It’s almost halfway finished, and I’ve finally found the name. Butterfly Fields.

Though the first stitch pattern I used was called “Checkered Lace”, it reminded me more of butterflies. That put my in the mind of a field of flowers, especially with the light spring green colour of the yarn I’m using. So after five repeats of the butterfly pattern, I switched to Tulip Lace instead, to make the flowers that the butterflies are heading for. Once it’s almost long enough, I’ll switch back and do five more repeats of the butterflies.

A butterfly’s eye view, heading toward the field of flowers.

I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but yes, I’m going to write this all up and release it as a free pattern once it’s all finished up.

In other news, I have successfully learnt to spin! With pencil roving, at least, which I got lucky enough to find in a grab bag at Value Village, and I’ll probably never find any more there, either. Shame, really, since it was fun to spin with. However, it got me some experience using the drop spindle I bought ages ago, and now I feel a little bit more confident about working with the braids of roving I also purchased ages ago. I suspect I’ll spend a lot of time drafting everything out to make it all nice and even before I even go near the spindle, though. It’ll be time-consuming, but I think it’ll be worth it, to not mess up the pretty wool that I have.

But yes, very proud of myself for that. I’ve conquered another hurdle.

Which is one more hurdle than Nick’s conquered. Thus far, he seems to have mastered the power of positive lazing around. But I was good at that years ago!