Wearable Niebling

I decided to work on this from an Anna magazine. If you look at the bottom corner, that's what a square would look like. It is in fact a Niebling tablecloth. Well, half a Niebling tablecloth. Instead of working on 4 sections for the square, you only work on 2 sections.

My complaint?! Yes. I have to purl the wrong side. Durnit! That's why I've been loving Nieblings. You don't have to purl.

What's even worse is that this pattern has you PURL on the front side too!

What yarn am I using? Colourmart got in a 4-ply alpaca cashmere. *

In a lovely grey. And it's lovely to knit with, even unwashed. I'm using a US3 needle (addi lace)
Reading the instructions, I was unclear as to how to start it the way they explained it. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they got the number of stitches they got. I then battled, yes, battled the pattern and ripped it probably around 6 times trying to figure out how they got from 10 stitches to 24 stitches. I was ready to 'improvise' the start when I actually read the stitch legend that actually started on the page you see here while the rest (including square=k ) was on the next page.

Anyway, the 10 stitch row had ooo, which is a triple YO. Now, being the educated person I am, I figured that the next row must mean k,p,k into that YO? Right? Well. Had I read the pattern for the tablecloth, I would have noticed that ooo=knit&purl 10 times into the triple YO. duh. Read the pattern.

So, anyway, I'm now on row 77 and it's going pretty well. I'm hoping the color isn't too 'mousy'. Whatever.

start date: November 21




2/18NM fine 4ply weight 51% baby alpaca 49% cashmere (1450yds/150g)These yarns were spun in Scotland by Todd & Duncan, and have the nuttiness of high quality Baby Alpaca combined with the softness of the best cashmere. They are balanced yarns with a great thickness for hand or machine knitting.

Continuation of my Ebay rant

Okay, I've got to say this. There's a Burda E903 up on Ebay right now where the bidding is up to $78. I guess folks get swept up in the Ebay hype. If you searched for Niebling and scrolled down to the bottom, you could have used the 'buy it now' option for the same book for only $29.99

oy.

Holy Lyrabunga!

Altho' I've hit NABLE* status, I still check ebay once in awhile to see if there's something I haven't seen.

And oh, my goodness. A German copy of Anna with Herbert Niebling's amazing Lyra pattern in it is selling right now for $150 plus shipping! uhmmm. For one pattern. In German. And the auction isn't over yet. And it's over $150! Did I mention it's for a magazine? An old magazine. Okay, it's got the most awesome pattern.


Hey, I will sell my English version of Anna (I believe it's much more rare) with the Lyra pattern in it for that price and I'll include shipping and insurance if in the US. Hee. Not that any of my readers would be interested because you all have your own copies already.



Okay, I've got to get back to xmas knitting and another Niebling...I'm also a bit tired since I got up at 3:45am to hit the Black Friday sales. Unfortunately, they ran out of mp3 players 4 people ahead of me in line at Old Navy, oh well. But I did get a couple of nice presents for the family, so all's good...


*NABLE-Niebling Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy

Happy Thanksgiving

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

Lotus Flower

I've finished Lotus Flower. Yes. Another Neibling. I probably should have been making my Christmas ornaments for a swap I joined, or Christmas presents, but instead, worked on this.

Stats:
yarn: Royale crochet thread #20-less than 3 balls in white
needles: 0 dpn and 0 circs (2mm)
start: November 1, 2007
finish: November 17, 2007

Observations:
As Nieblings go, this was pretty easy. I really like the way it turned out. Pinning it out was a pain. I really need to get this more exact. The size? there's a copy of Goodnight Moon next to the top picture.

For blocking, I had to 'borrow' my children's foam letter floor mat. Okay, borrow forever. I originally purchased it 4 years ago for my my son, but he and the cat decided they like to chew on the foamy material. The cat loved it to chew on and to scratch. He (that would be the human boy, not the cat boy) took off an inch chunk before we realized it. So, we packed it up and didn't even think about taking it out for A when she was starting to walk (we bought it so Z would have a cushion if he fell).

This works very well. And yes, I could have gone to Article Pract (or any other LYS) and purchased their $48 blocking mat, but hey, I had this and it works wonderfully. Now I can finally block out Frosted Fern.

Here's another shot of Lotus.


Oh, I think I'm going to rip Campanile. What?! Well, I was looking at the pattern, and it looks very similar to Lotus Flower. I think I'll use the cashmere/silk for something else.

What next? I started knitting for the ornament swap and I'm knitting my xmas presents (finally). As for Nieblings, I think I'm going to do Filigree or Lyra next.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yep, it was my birthday.

What did I do? Well, I started the day going to the gym, only to find that the roads were flooded and I couldn't actually get there. Okay, I ended up finally getting there after taking a detour through the local jr. college and did my Sunday morning spin class w/ Jean-Claude.

Then it was off w/ the family to a lovely brunch (my choice) where we had dim sum. And on the way back, I asked to be dropped off at a yarn shop (that was open only for this weekend for a sale for charity) where I spent the afternoon looking and purchasing some yarn. Uhmm...did I mention I was already there yesterday too?!

And I got to knit. And my children are lovely (except the baby is a tad sick).

It was a good day. The only thing is that I didn't get a cake. Oh, well. That would have negated the gym workout (and then some).

Pictures coming later.

I'm inspired

Today was another lace knitting group at Lacis. As usual, it was inspiring.

There was the most soft cashmere stole being finished -- from VLT. It was absolutely scrumptious. And then there was the shawl from GoL being knit by L in a gorgeous silk, for his wife, how lucky is she?! There were two other lovely shawls and then there were two Nieblings (mine being one).

I brought Lotus Flower (a beautiful Niebling). I'm working on it using #20 crochet cotton with 2mm needles. I'm presently at row 49. This is a lovely pattern that I purchased from doilyhead. (This is the picture from the front page of the pattern).

I first saw this pattern at Lacis (Mary Francis had a copy) and I knew I just had to knit it.

I'm going to knit this as a tablecloth first, and if the pattern is not too bad, I'm going to make it in zephyr as a shawl.

Lyra? I cannot believe I haven't cast on for that yet. But one thing I'm figuring out is that I can only work on ONE Niebling pattern at a time -- I can have multiple projects to work on (right now, there are about 10 projects), but only 1 Niebling. Why? well, switching from a Niebling to another Niebling doesn't make much sense, but switching from a Niebling to a single pattern scarf or a stockinette sweater is great.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Here are two of the awesome pumpkins z&a's dad carved. Cool.



Anyway, I managed to finish this doily tonight after the kids went to bed.



Specs:
Pattern: Burda (unknown for now) #32
yarn: lilac linen laceweight
needles: US2 Crystal Palace circs and dpns
time started: October 27, 2007
time finished: October 31, 2007

Modifications: I feared (correctly) that I would run out of the linen yarn. So I opted to modify the pattern substantially so that 14 rows were deleted. I played with the pattern and cannot replicate it again. During crochet cast-off, I had to rip it several times because it was looking too tight. I chained 10, bundled 5 st for leaves, and 3 or 3-5-3 stitches for the spots between leaves. Turned out nicely, I think.



Here's a closeup the the modification and the pattern. There's only three leaves. The original pattern had an additional layer of leaves.













Now, I've just got to block out Frosted Fern completely...