Peacock Scarf du Jour

Pop Quiz!

Knitting lace with tiny mohair blend is a good way to (choose one):
      (a)   Drive yourself insane.
      (b)   Discover colorful new vocabulary you didn't know you possessed.
      (c)   Go blind.
      (d)   All of the above, especially with the brilliant "add beads" idea on top of it.

As you may have guessed, I've been doing some lace knitting over the weekend. Quite a bit, in fact, on the Peacock Scarf, and yet nothing on Secret of the Stole Hint #1. (Being a history buff, I got the first clue pretty fast. Not sure I'm going to play the game for prizes, though.)

First, the Peacock Scarf:

The first several rows of this got done on Friday at lunch in a little park hidden behind the mall. (I wish I could knit at my desk without anyone noticing; I'd rather do that than pretending to do filing, which I'm totally saving up until I get back from vacation. Right now, everything is on my desk where people can find it!)

Using the size 14 metal crochet hook for these beads. I got this hook in a $5.00 bag of Stuff from an estate sale up the street at the start of the summer; it is, hands down, the most useful thing I got from that sale thus far. Mind you, the two BAGS of crochet thread will turn into some lovely things eventually. Did I mention I'm a charter member of the SABLE club? (That's Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy, if you didn't know. Evidently, the lovely woman who previously owned the several bags of goodies I purchased from her family had verifiable SABLE. Hopefully, the items I got from her estate won't wind up in mine...)

[KnitStuff/PeacockScarf2.jpg]
The long shot
and

[KnitStuff/PeacockScarf2a.jpg] close up this way

[KnitStuff/Peacockscarf2b.jpg] close up that way

Not too bad. Got several hours in on Saturday, wherein I got almost to the end of the second "feather bit" and decided that (a) I'd missed a stitch about twelve rows back and (b) Ithe "feather bits" didn't really show up as much as I'd like. Fortunately, mohair silk blend isn't quite complete hell to unravel. Got everything I did Saturday back in on Sunday, this time With Beads. I like it much better this way.

Next, the Secret of the Stole:

Friday at lunch, I hit Joy of Beading and found, of all things, sort of pale copper PEARL beads. Much bigger than the seed beads, size-wise, but I'll still need the size 14 crochet hook to get them on the shawl. I got four scoops; that has to be at least 150 beads, right?

I am completely flummoxed by having to knit in two directions at once - er, from two ends of my ball of yarn at once. I think I'll survive... once I start. I wish I could've found my row counters, I'd feel better. Or, rather, I wish I could have found BOTH of my row counters... I had one, and it would've been nice to have one for each end, because this going-back-and-forth thing is going to be quite enough of a challenge for me, thank you!

(That would be a "no, I haven't started it yet".)

I still have no idea how I'm going to be able to update from home while I'm on vacation. I can get everything *ready* at home (set up the photos, write the entries)... but uploading to PhotoBucket and Blogspot can take waaaaaay too long. Like two hours to do what I can do at work in two minutes (off the clock, of course).

*Addendum, many, many years later: it's 2020, and Photobucket has moved away from free photo hosting PERIOD. For about a year, it sent me emails that my photos (all 2G) were over the 25G limit; then it started telling me I could only have 250 photos... and no hosting. So, it's mid-June, and last week I pulled all my photos off (not deleted, just backed up elsewhere), and when I started spiking, got hit with a "pay or else". So, for $6, I have a few weeks to go through this blog and remove EVERY SINGLE PHOTOBUCKET LINK. This is a photo-heavy blog; I'm not pleased. I'll then have to go re-upload everything (assuming I can find it).

Needless to say, I 100% do NOT recommend Photobucket any more.