Some Serious Stuff Some Not So Serious

First the serious stuff. March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month. Tracy sent me the following links to share here.

Colon Cancer Alliance

Colorectal Cancer Network

Colon cancer does not just affect older men, just like breast cancer does not only affect women. So go get checked out.

On to knitting news. I cast on a test run, dolly baby sized Flower Basket Shawl last night. The Cast-On Tutorial over at Get It Knitted was godsent. Thank you Lois. The Collection of Flower Basket Shawl Notes by Becky at Knitting Interrupted was also a huge help. Thank you Becky.

This little, and I mean little, shawl is knitted in the Knit Picks Sock Garden, hydrangea I originally had pegged for socks. I used a 29 inch size 6 plastic circ from the needle stash. Not a substantial needle. I'm thinking that I prefer metal.

Anyway this poor first attempt is riddled with mistakes. It's bad. I just pushed through because I wanted to make it through all three charts. I got the lion's share of the knitting done last night while watching Goblet of Fire and listing to the fan commentary available at The Leaky Cauldron. The commentary was decent, not amazing, but interesting. |

I finished up the edging chart and cast off this afternoon. E helped me soak and pin the shawl. She is getting so good at handling pins. The plan is to unpin tomorrow.

While I do like the Sock Garden yarn the color changes made it really hard to follow what was going on with the pattern. I thought the shawl would make a fun play item for E, it should fit her sleep lovey Mandrak the Penguin really well. So I slogged on only doing three pattern repeats.

I do like variegated yarn. I suppose I'm one of the few people who does not mind a bit of pooling. I happen to like amorphous blobs of ever changing color. I'm going to try to go for that more blob like look when I dye the Color Your Own for the 'official' Flower Basket Shawl.

In the meantime I need to work on the pattern itself. So I'm going big and solid. What is bigger and more solid then Red Hart? I know. The yarn snobs are cringing, or worse yet closing this tab in their browser. Yes it feels like sandpaper but it was gifted to me, it's big, I can see the pattern really well and I'll admit I like the color.

So here is the second attempt at the FBS. It's on 29 inch size 10 1/2 metal circs from the needle stash. The no dyelot color is Burgundy. Who knows how Red Hart is going to block. It might not block at all. The plan is to only do three repeats anyway.

I definitly have a new appreciation for Evelyn A Clark. It's a beautiful pattern. I'd never done that type of cast off before. I'm going to have to try that one again. You knit two, move both stitches to the left needle then knit into the back, knit one move both stitches to the left, knit to the back, etc. Very cool.