White Roses and Snow Lace

I’m sorry about the lack of posts this week.  No, I haven’t been buried in a pile of garbage, although the husband and I are thinking about heading downtown tonight for dinner and goodness knows what the situation is like there now. And to quickly answer some of the questions about the strike all we know is that the union says the strike will go on all summer because they won’t back down.  And yes, they did strike a few years ago but they were legislated back to work partly because the Pope was coming.  All we have this year is Beyonce and Lil’ Wayne.  Yeah…

So, what have I been up to then?  Well, taking Baby Man to the park (where he has some trouble holding his own against the older kids), reading (I highly recommend The Idle Parent by Tom Hodgkinson), knitting, and cross stitching.

On my knitting needles right now is Ribbed Lace Bolero from Kelly at 10 feet high.  I’m knitting it using Lion Brand’s Cotton-Ease in colour Snow, which is a really nice cotton/acrylic blend.  I would most likely use it again if I came across a project it would work for.  Here’s where I am on the project so far, just three more rows of lace left and then the finally 3″ of ribbing.  I’m planning on wearing this to a wedding in two weeks, so I am ahead of schedule.

ribbedlace-july11,2009

I also finally finished up my latest crochet project, Market Tote from the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of Knit 1.  I used Universal Yarn’s Summer Linen in colour Sky Blue, a cotton/linen blend.  Again, this is a nice yarn. I think I would use it again for a light summer tank.  As for the bag… well, it is much smaller than I expected and looks a little home-made, and not really in a good way.  Maybe it will look better with use.

Market Bag, folded, July 2009Market Bag folded into bottom

Market Bag, July 2009Market Bag unfolded

As for cross stitch, I haven’t been working on Baby Man’s stocking.  But, I have still been working on one of my July goals: his birth sampler.  I’ve made some good progress on Victoria Sampler’s Heirloom Birth Sampler over the past couple of days.  I’m using the ribbon thread kit, DMC perle cotton and floss and 32ct Platinum Belfast. (The fabric was originally intended for Ink Circle’s Growth Rings, but this was more important.  And I’ve just reassigned Growth Rings to the fabric that was for Quaker Seasons from TGOS and that has been reassigned to some random unlabelled fabric.  So, it all works out.  Am I the only one who does this?)

birthsampler-july11,2009

In the original version of the piece, those three sided stitches at the bottom are pulled very tightly.  I decided that I didn’t want to do that.  I was also a little free in the placement of my leaves and beads, but I was very careful about where the roses when since I knew they would provide me with a base to work from.

I hope to finish up the bolero this weekend and maybe get a couple more rows done on the birth sampler.  One thing I am upset about, though, is that the strike caused the HazMat pick-up scheduled at our building for today to be cancelled.  And they were going to be giving out Air Miles points!  Now the strike really has hit home!

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