Decision Made

Yesterday I put away MS4 and picked up Whispering Pines (eventually - there was a slightly panicked search when I could not find the ziplock it was in, but the SO came to the rescue, finding it in the craft room before I had time to work up into a real fit about it).

I'm on Chart C on Whispering Pines and when I looked at the picture and mapped where I was to the picture of the finished shawls - I have kind of a lot of work to do. It was definitely the right decision to pick it up.

I have to say in the interests of full blog disclosure - the last couple charts of MS4 made it not so hard to put it down. There's nothing wrong with them, per se...I'm just not sure I want to knit them as is. The designer's theme, now revealed, is "Serendipity" and it seems that the stole does not represent anything in particular, so much as the element of surprise, which...seems to me to be kind of redundant in a mystery stole. I'm a little disappointed - I love to knit things with a story, which is one of the reason I like so many of Pink Lemon Twist's patterns, they are always well thought out and representative of the story she is trying to tell, and that appeals to my romantic English major self. (also, my pedantic nature wants to point out that 'serendipity' and 'surprise' do not mean the same thing, but that is petty and I will not give in to it)

However, I do really like the pattern up through chart 5 - to me it looks like campfires in the woods with mountains in the background, and I really love it. But, I'm thinking about changing the last couple of charts to fit with my idea. I think this would basically consist of taking out the diamonds. I think I can convince myself that the flower-type motif in the very center of the shawl is the sun (I need to look at a few more knitted pictures), but the diamonds just don't really work for me. I'm considering leaving the small ones on chart 5, but the big ones in the middle just don't quite do it for me.

I bought two skeins of KP Gloss lace in Sterling and the KnitSpot pattern Tudor Grace to make a scarf for my mom for Christmas. I want a pattern I can memorize and carry around (so that it won't compete for knitting time with Whispering Pines) and that one seems like it will fit the bill. The pattern is written for sock weight yarn, but I want it to be small and filmy, since I'm intending it more for an accent with clothing than for warmth or anything like that, so I bought laceweight yarn. My mom lives in Texas and doesn't generally have to wear a scarf for warmth anymore, but she likes them with clothes. I'm hoping the grey will go with some of her things. And if it's not done by December, it can be my airplane knitting!