Unilateral Sheep

Almost forgot...here is the sheep scarf. It is missing one sheep. The pattern is written so that at the end of the first ball of yarn the stitches are held while the pattern is repeated for the second half. When the second half is done, the halves are grafted together to make the scarf with 2 sheep ends. When I reached the end of ball 1, I decided I was happy to keep going with the pattern and see how it would look with one sheep. I think it looks rather sophisticated, especially with how the border pattern transitioned from the main pattern.

This is an extreme example of how $4 worth of yarn can become something really cool.

Mystery Shawlette Part 2

It is so exciting to see this develop.

Getting help with Girasole

After cruising through charts A-C and starting D, I decided to unravel to the middle of C because I had made a mistake there. I saw it a few rows before C was finished, but decided it wasn't very noticeable...but it really was once I got into chart D, so back I went. The cat was kind enough to offer his help.

This pattern is fun--not too difficult and as the rows get longer and longer, I find the repetition very relaxing. It is a nice break from the mystery shawlette, which I believe is rather more difficult (but still fun!).

Mystery of Lace Knitting

When I have time (when the grades are in) I will post a bit about dopamine and the anticipation of rewards. For now, you can see that I have agreed to an official knit-a-long, to make a shawlette. Care to join me and Oogyknitter and hundreds of other lace hounds? See the pattern at WendyKnits' site here.

I had some Malabrigo lace weight yarn, aptly named "purple mystery", left over from another project. The pattern is for fingering weight, but lace is forgiving, and I'm using a size 4 needle. It looks great so far!

flat sheep

Funny story: I started the sheep scarf and noticed that in the instructions it states that a blank box is "knit every stitch", which I interpreted as "knit every right side stitch, purl every wrong side stitch". I paused ever so slightly when both edge stitches were supposed to be "slip one purl-wise", which I thought was odd because on one side that made a big mess. So, I proceeded to knit (and purl) through the sheep pattern, and I liked what I saw. Then I saw oogyknitter's version (see her blog) and realized that I was doing it wrong. Well, actually, I initially assumed oogy was doing it wrong, but then I looked at the instructions again.

Anyway, I am quite happy with my version and plan to continue to do it wrong!

finished cat's paw

I'm including an actual cat for scale. He's about 15 inches long in this position.

I've been wearing the scarf every few days this past week--it's perfect for the chilly mornings.

Now on to Sheep Scarf!

Interactive brain site

One of my students alerted me to an interactive site that features parts of the body, including the brain. It's really quite remarkable. Check it out here: healthline body site