On the Edge

Lucy's mirror is completed, and I'm not totally happy with the results.

Here is a photo of it.




Can you see the issue? The problem is the abalone I used on the edges is a lot thinner than the stained glass, and was too thin to get the grout in between, it's nearly flush with the wood. So I can just touch-up the white paint in the spaces, re-grout and cover the abalone, or start fresh. Thoughts? How bad does it actually look?


Make sure you click the photo to see the detail of what I'm talking about, and tell me the truth!


Also, the Moose is done. In order to keep it for her for Christmas, I'm not going to grout it for a while. Otherwise, as soon as it's done, I won't be able to not give it to her!



In other, knitting news, I am working away trying to finish Ben's sleeves for the Big Digger Sweater. I am knitting both sleeves at the same time, and it is taking ages. I have about 130 stitches on the needles now, and am doing St. st, with increases every 4 rows, which is some kind of knitting boredom torture. I have realized I hate knitting sleeves. Really hate it. Don't mind them in the round, don't mind if there is cables, or some kind of stitch, but knit a row, purl a row just bores the hell out of me!

WIP Wednesday

Here is progress on Jemima...I have the front and back and one sleeve done. I wanted to bring it to the seaming class, but didn't have the sleeve completed yesterday.



What I did bring was the Big Digger Sweater, by Lucinda Guy. I seamed the shoulders in the class, and I think it came out really well.



And here is a detail of the seam...



And finally another Pinwheel in Progress, using Nature Cotton





And now some Mosaic work. This is, perhaps obviously, for the Moose.



And this is for my sister-in-law, a small mirror I'll be bringing over.




Here is a detail. I think one of the pieces looks a bit like a dolphin.


So that's it for the moment. The Moose herself is on her way up to visit me, and we're going to have a nice couple of girly, sister, bonding days. Which shall commence this evening, when we get pissed and watch "Snakes on a Plane."

Rock.

Digging In

I am still knitting along on Jemima. I've also ordered a bit more yarn, in the same dyelot,to finish Moose's sweater. In the meantime, I've been working on the "Big Digger Sweater" from Lucinda Guy's "Handknits for Kids"

I obviously need to do some practicing with intarsia, but I don't think it looks awful, and hopefully blocking will smooth it out.
The instructions for this sweater are a bit more ambiguous than I'd like. But I'm a needy knitter. I like things really spelled out. And there are no "finished measurements" which makes me kind of wonder how to best go about blocking this sucker. But we'll see.

Here are a couple of pics. The digger in the book has a "scoop" in a different color, but I decided to do it all in yellow. There will be some embroidery (wheel, tires, accents, etc) to come.


This is the front.


The stripes are light blue, but because it's late and I needed to use the flash, they look white. Actually, they look a bit lighter than I'd like without the flash, but "light blue" is Ben's favorite color, so I had to nip some in, someplace!

Here is the back-





And here is a real close up, so you can see how lousy my knitting looks, up close!



I've finished the earth toned Lady E. I need to do the crochet edge (need to learn crochet) and figure out the fiddly fringe, but she's all bound off. Interestingly, when blocking it, I realised there was a dropped stitch in the middle of one of the squares. Based on where it is, I'm guessing this was about the time of the trial, but my solution was to pull the stitches back up and through. Then I took some yarn in a similar color and just wove it through the back end, as if it were an end piece. I wove my way over to the dropped stitch, looped it tightly through that stitch and continued weaving. Not ideal, but hopefully it'll work. I'm sure as hell not going to rip back all that entrelac! If you have any other ideas/ suggestions as to how to fasten off that errant stitch, I'd love to hear them.

So that's all for now, more pics of Jemima and other knits soon.