Back from holidays

So, before I ran off to the lake, I had mentioned that I had finished clue 1 of my Mystery Stole. So here are the pictures that I didn't have time to post:

The first clue is finished. It's pretty wide because I'm working with DK weight yarn, but I think it's still very usable.
Here's a closer shot:

I'm really loving this pattern. I'm actually thinking about making another one in a lace yarn. Maybe in a pewter colour, something silvery with black beads. This is like a drug. I can't get over how the lace images form.

As I mentioned, I spent the last week at the lake. I actually managed to get some knitting done. Here is my finished clue 2:

Not too shabby. You can see the blue line there. That would be my lifeline. Thankfully there have been no mishaps that would require its use, but I just know that if I hadn't put that in there, I would have been frogging away like mad. So, it will continue to mark my progress. I figure that it will act as the marker in the blog for where the clues begin. Works for me anyway. That lovely bit you can see past the stole? That's the big Rideau Lake. Our cottage is built on a hill so from the deck, you can look down at the water. Don't be too jealous, we came home early because we thought that staying might necessitate the building of an ark.

So now I'm on row 191 and am looking forward to finishing clue 3 in a matter of days. Not sure how long. I am also on page 134 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. So, I'll go back to the wizarding world now, and post about the non knitting things from the cottage sometime in the future. Hopefully, there'll be knitting progress then too :)

Back from Vacation

Wow! It's been almost a month since my last post. I just returned from a fabulous vacation abroad and have been spending the last week remembering why I left :)

I spent a little over two weeks in Europe, starting with a visit with my grandparents who were vacationing in the South of France, then off to London to begin a Contiki bus tour. We did London, Paris and Rome (we being myself and my brother aka Boy) and had an absolute blast. We met lots of new fun people and made total fools of ourself when we discovered the joys and horrors of absinthe. The books make it look very glamorous, but boy does it pack a punch.

Anyway, not a whole lot of knitting got done, though I did take some along. I figure that if I had left it all at home, I would have been bored stiff and have been practically screaming for some pointy sticks and string. So here is the rundown:

I finished my Endpaper Mitts. These are from a pattern by Eunny, and she deserves all credit for anything fabulous about these mitts. I love them, though I discovered that my tension goes all to hell when I do stranded knitting. This was my first attempt, so I won't be too hard on myself, but you can see where the space between my dpns was, and my tension is way too tight. They fit, barely. I won't give up though, I'll just try bigger needles next time, maybe even bigger yarn.

I finished my Baudelaire socks. This pattern is by Cookie and I got it from Knitty. The yarn is Regia 4-ply tweed in colour 70. The flecks of orange mixed in with the green is lost in the pictures, but I love it.

Here's a look at the cable down the sides:

I finished these on the bus from London to Paris, and the photos were taken in my Paris hotel room. Pretty nifty, huh? Anyway, this was a pretty easy knit, the patten chart is simple enough to memorize which made them great for travel, but I have yet to master cabling without a needle so wrestling with 6 dpns on a moving vehicle is not something I would recommend.

This was my first attempt at knitting a sock from the toe up, and I don't think I'll be trying it again soon. I can totally see the appeal in being able to knit until you run out of yarn, and for anyone who hates kitchener stitch, avoiding that would be a blessing, but personally, I have shapely calves and don't like really high socks anyway, plus I am a freak who loves the kitchener stitch, so, I think I will stick with top down for now. Don't hold me to it though.

So here is the next sock on the agenda:

This is another design by Cookie (number 3 for me). These are Monkey socks, again from Knitty. The yarn is ONLine Supersocke 100 in colour 844 which is mostly brown with bits of cream and blueish gray mixed in. It's self-striping, and I hope I can manage to match them. I did it before with my Jaywalkers (which were before the blog. Maybe someday, I'll post a picture), so I should be able to do it again.

Here's a closer shot:

I knit all but an inch and a half on my flight from Rome to Toronto. I might have finished it if I had knit the whole trip (10 hrs), but I had to stop due to hand cramps and imminent food.

Oh well. I suppose that's a pretty respectable amount of knitting for an adventure packed trip. I saw a lot of really fabulous places and if I'd been knitting the whole time, I would have missed an awful lot. The sort of things that I may never see again. Knitting won't go anywhere. So now I'll leave you with a picture from the trip. I think I'll post a couple of pictures each post so as to not overload a knit blog with not knitting content. Here is a picture of the candy I bought at the Confiserie Florian in Pont de Loup, France:

Not enough? Okay, here's the Mediterannean:

That's it for now, I'm off. I won't be gone for a month this time, I promise.