Another Different Lines

I said I'd miss it - my fingers were itching to start another Different Lines shawl.
So I did.

This one in Dream in Color also, but I've gone to their worsted weight, Classy. And gone up just one needle size, to #10.

Colors are Spring Tickle and Gray Tabby. The latter is almost a solid gray, but there are subtle tonal variations.

It's a perfect autumn day  to be knitting a shawl - rainy, chilly, hinting at the promise of the winter's turning inward.
I love the view from my Big Chair, tea, pocket Tarot, wheel and dozy Lily.

The tea in that cup is gift tea from my son Ian and dil Lisa.
It is JinJaa Citrus Twist Green Tea from Teavana.   Orange, lemon, ginger...mmmm.

Lisa and I spent a lovely hour  at Teavana when I visited Boston last spring.
It's wonderful that their tea is available online, but you miss the experience of having an eager Teavana worker open a giant tin and use the lid to waft the scent of it your way. An olfactory tasting.

This tea was made for wafting.  And drinking with just a bit of honey on a perfect autumn day.

Reading: 
Oct. 17 New Yorker
Learning to Breathe by Priscilla Warner

Get Well, Channing!!!

I have lots of things to post, but today I want to post a big get well wish to my 11 year old niece in North Carolina, Channing, who had a tummy ache on Wednesday and an appendectomy on Thursday!

I spoke to her pre-op and she was her dear sweet self and sounded brave and confident that all would go well. My heart was warmed when my sister told me they had brought with them the shawls I made for them and found great comfort. I'm making a shawl for someone else (more on that one later) and my sister told me to make sure I tell her that a shawl is a hug.

Channing was just here two weeks ago and we had a lovely time and that's when I gave her the shawl I made for her. I wish I had pictures of her wearing it, but I only have Zelda wearing it:


This is the Bloom shawl from Knitty.com and the second one I've made. For the first one I followed the pattern exactly and blocked the shawl mercilessly. Even so, it is still quite a bit shorter than I like for a shawl. When I set out to make a shawl for Channing (a barter for the dozens of cookies she made for me to take to my friend Stephanie's 50th birthday party), I thought that an unblocked and slightly longer Bloom might be perfect for a petite 11 year old. And I also have this wild idea that she can stretch and block it in the future as she grows!

Construction details:
Needles: #15 Denise circular
Yarn: Noro Blossom #20
Here is how I diverged from the pattern directions:

-Bloom is a pie-wedge type short row shawl, with the rows progressing in 3-stitch increments. I added 6 stitches, so my cast-on was 39 stitches. The original pattern calls for 5 skeins of Noro Blossom and those added 6 stitches caused me to use 7 skeins. I also decided to do a bit of crochet at the neck edge which took a little bit from an 8th skein.

-I did not like the crochet cast-on suggested in the first pattern and used the provisional cast-on I usually use.

-I wanted a nicer and firmer neck edge, so I did one row of single crochet, turned and went back across the row with a slip stitch in the back loop of each sc.

If you're interested in my blogging about the first one I made, see these two entries from 2005.