Flint Knits

And the winner, randomly selected by my favorite random number generator, Scraps-N-Hat, is …

BRAINYLADY/Alison, whose blog I only recently (and happily) discovered, and who also showed up on the list of most awesomest summer projects (her adorable first quilt was recommended by Jodi).

Alison is the lucky winner of this supersoft skein of handspun merino from Green Apple Yarn, to which photographs cannot do justice.

Alison, send me your address and I’ll ship it off to you toot sweet.

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions and links and heartfelt “welcome home”s. I’m still sifting through all the links, but will post a best-of list very soon, with my Top Ten Favorite Most Awesomest Summer Creations.

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I finally finished and blocked the Summer Lace Shawlette for my friend to wear (or maybe just keep on hand in case of chill — no pressure, A) for her Sept 15 wedding. (That’s right, Sept 15. I am SO ahead of schedule!)

Although the pattern was fairly straightforward, Interweave (as far as I can tell) hasn’t provided any photographs of the front. Although I could guess from the pattern, I didn’t know for sure until the very end what it would look like.

It never ceases to thrill me what blocking can do for lace, as a rumply crumply ball of fiber and empty space is transformed into a fancy finished piece.

The Henry’s Attic — a brand that some of your favorite indie dyers probably use as a base — was lovely to knit with. Super soft, with a slight halo and only a tiny bit of silk smell. (Please ignore the lumpy sleeves of my dress mucking up the lines in the above photo. The drape really is perfect.)

I realize it’s probably supertacky to model a shawl you made for someone else’s wedding, but the hanger shots were not doing the thing justice, and I couldn’t wait to show it off.

I do promise to share photos from the actual wedding, where it will be worn properly by the bride with a 40s-style dress of ivory silk, instead of my lumpy brown cotton and (speaking of supertacky) mint green asphalt siding.

Wow, you guys are cluing me in so much fabulous craftiness that I missed while away — keep it up! I’ll post a list of my favorites after the contest is over on Sunday night.

And see if you can sneak in before the end of Nova’s Blogiversary contest — she needs pattern ideas for her 550 yards of Wollmeise Poison Nr 5.

I’ve added another single sock to my pile, along with Tiffany and Zokni — I finally found a use for the Koigu from my Dead Baudelaire:

I did 6 repeats instead of 7, because I was short on yarn. I used an eye of partridge heel, because I felt like it. The shell pattern is easy to memorize, and perfect for road-knitting.

Less appropriate for road-knitting is Sandi Wiseheart’s Summer Lace Shawlette, which I’m making for a friend to wear in her September wedding. I may have to break down and buy a longer needle to finish this one out.

The yarn is Henry’s Attic undyed silk/merino blend, and is lovely to work with … except I’m a massive klutz, and am thus totally paranoid that I’m going to muck it up with sticky fingers or grape juice or something. I took it on tour, but was too afraid to bring it out of its freezer bag. So I’m plugging away at it now, on account of the upcoming deadline, but am already getting distracted by Fall sweater lust.

And remember my stunted Elizabeth Zimmerman baby jacket? The one where I couldn’t find the second skein of yarn, and which was almost certainly going to get frogged or become some sort of bizarre Baby Bolero?

I finally decided to just buy another skein of the yarn, alternate rows between the two skeins, and hope the lots weren’t too different (yes, I know, this is no minor risk when it comes to hand dyed yarns).

But then I had a minor crisis regarding the colorway — I had lost the ball band. Was it Lipstick Lava? In Vino Veritas? Cool Fire? Ruby Road?

So I sent an email to Dream in Color, and within the hour they sent a response — Veronica had looked at the photos of my half-finished sweater, and informed me that I was without a doubt using Cool Fire.

Oh, and if you haven’t knit with Dream in Color, you should. Their Smooshy sock yarn is heaven to knit with, totally squeezable and beautifully dyed.