Swallowtail Shawl

I just finished knitting The Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark for my Chris' Gram. I am in love with this pattern.

I knit it in Lion Brand Wool-Ease and it took just a tiny bit over two balls of yarn on size 10 needles. I mostly make toys so I'm like the opposite of a yarn snob. I love a good multi-use, work-horse sort of yarn and Lion Brand Wool-Ease (and Vanna's Choice) are my favorite picks for this. It's only about $3 a ball with a great range of colors and great continuity between dye lots. So for under $10 I've got this gorgeous shawl that's big, comfy and super soft and almost an entire ball left over that I'm thinking might become a pig or maybe some baby clothes for my new niece.


I was nervous when I started the section above with the lily of the valley nubbs because it seemed from the comments like other knitters ran into some trouble with this section. It did take a little while to get the hang of but I think it's so pretty. This section really sets the pattern apart from more basic shawls.

I definitely want to make this again although I might have to try a few different ways to wear it. I tried the shawl on for Chris in the typical over the shoulders shawl way and he said, "wow, that's just added 10 years to you." So I need to find a shawl that doesn't scream grandma. Any ideas?

Photo of the day

I took an art history class one summer in college. One of my fellow students was taking a painting class and asked to draw me in profile. She said I had a very distinctive nose. The professor overheard the discussion after class and told me that I should be proud of my nose. He said that Napoleon would only promote people who had prominant noses because he thought it was a sign of strength of character. It's entirely possible that my professor was making that up. He was pretty weird. Even if he wasn't Napoleon was pretty weird but it did make me look at myself a little differently.

Photo of the Day

A&N Wedding

Two of my friends were married recently and I signed up for the momentous task of photographing it. I always find wedding photography to be insanely stressful. A million things are happening at once and if a shot gets missed then it's just gone and that's it. Plus I loathe shooting formals. They are so dull and always insanely rushed since everyone is waiting to get the bride and groom back. Anyway, my rant aside, they had a really beautiful wedding in Staten Island and I've been looking through the photos over the last week and really liking a lot of them. The Bride looked beautiful in this birdcage veil.

The groom and groomsmen rocked some Reservoir Dogs style.

As well as some very cool specially designed ties.

And they had an awesome old-school poloraid setup for all of the guests. Here's the photographer and his assistant setting up. They even brought a chest of costumes like top hats, canes and capes for people to get styled up for the shot. It was awesome to see how creative some people were. The best item was totally aviator goggles and a helmet.

Make Something Every Day in October

So last year Dabbled led the challenge for bloggers to create something new everyday for a month. I had high hopes to rise to that challenge but I totally sucked. But now it's October and I'm full of Halloween spirit and the weather is turning to that crisp, cool temp that just begs for knitting so this challenge came to mind. This time I hope to embrace it a little more fully. Especially since my mother-in-law just taught me to sew and bought me my very first sewing machine! I've already tasked Chris with sketching a monster for me to plushify.

I definitely have a backlog of crafted items that I've got to catch up on so I'll do the roundup here. First, there's a couple of items for my sister-in-law's new baby. A simple earflap hat

and a flowered headband.
I have plans still for a bunny like the one that I made my sister and maybe a few store bought things to round out the box.

Next, I've just finished a very late bachelorette present for a friend that just got married.
She wanted to avoid the overtly sexual presents that usually surround bachelorette parties so I made her a cute little hat and fingerless gloves. I love the robot motif and I hope that she likes it to. I have plans to line the hat tonight so that it looks a little more polished.

So that covers days one and two. For day three I'm thinking I'll knock out the bunny and then try moving into that scary new realm of sewing.