"One for you, nineteen for me ... yeah, yeah, I'm the tax man ...."

Those of you who remember those lines may smile nostalgically. Those of you not old enough to remember can Google for "Beatles lyrics."

After spending the greater part of the first two days of my Easter weekend doing my penance with the prodigious task of seeing how much we can legally avoid rendering unto Caesar, I get to spend Easter Sunday doing exactly as I please, which involves indulging in both chocolate and knitting.

It's a lovely day, about 60 degrees a little after midday, breezy, with flowers exploding everywhere here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We are fortunate enough to have an elderly house with a whole-house attic fan. Delightful for knitting with the windows open. After a sunny morning, it looks like rain, which is also delightful.

I am about halfway through the handpainted lace shawl and I am quite pleased with the results so far. Not being naturally inclined toward daintiness, I do not like frothy, frilly, girly lace to wear or use for myself, but I very much like simple, well-structured openwork which shows off a good yarn.

This will be a good pattern for a beginning lace knitter to follow, because incorporating the pattern into the increases will be quite simple. It is a four-row lace pattern, so for every two repeats vertically, the shawl grows enough in width to incorporate two new repeats horizontally, one on each end of the center section of lace. The chart should be simple to follow.

Since I don't like to post if I don't have much else to say, I'll get back to the shawl-in-progress.

Mambocat

The random blogger posts again.

One of my New Year's resolutions was: update my blog more often. This is my first post this year. Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, so at least I am doing better than I did last year.

If I were not so damn superstitious ("watch out what you ask for, you just might get it,") I would wish for more leisure time in which to knit and blog and take photos with our first-ever digital camera.

Instead, I will briefly post today, and at a later date I will figure out how to upload pictures and all that good stuff.

Finished Objects since my last post include:

• a calf-length ruana done predominantly in Lane Borgosesia "Spectrum," which has been aging in my stash since 1994 ...
• a large, partly-cabled Poncho-For-Me done in double-stranded sock yarn from a five-pound cone of anonymous salsa-red Italian wool I puchased at a New Orleans yarn store closeout sale several years ago, and, even after knitting a fingertip-length poncho, I still have almost half the yarn left over, which is now telling me it wants to be a Cables After Whiskey sweater ...
• a feather-and-fan pattern lace poncho in red cotton, sized to fit a young teen or petite adult...
• a brown, grey, cream, and teal poncho for my husband, done in Lion Brand Thick'n'Quick in a stranded pattern imitating his favorite Mexican blanket, which, being a very manly poncho, has been dubbed the "Go Ahead, Make My Poncho." The finished poncho looks way ethnic - he could go herd llamas in the Andes with this thing, and fit right in, at least until somebody got up close and realized he's of Scots-Cajun ancestry..
• half a dozen wild Christmas scarves
• as many socks, mostly in Opal
• one purse
• one set of fingerless mittens
• and ... one beret

On the needles:

• a lace shawl of my own design in handspun, handpainted sock-weight yarn in shades of emerald, midnight, ruby and burgundy ... I should point out that although I do handspin, this particular yarn was handspun and dyed by a close friend and not by me. NO color pooling so far. I am making careful notes on this pattern as I design it as I do believe this will be a winner to show off handpainted yarns.
• a traditional fisherman's gansey. It is traditional in that the top half of the body and sleeves are heavily cabled and texture-patterned, while the bottom part carries a simple, all-over texture pattern. It also has traditional underarm gussets, and a cable grows out of each side of the neck, runs across the shoulder and down the arm. It is un-traditional in that is is made of Inca Alpaca in a fantastic shade of cat-eye-green, and the cable running down shoulder and arm shall be June Oshiro's DNA cable pattern ...
• a wool beret, 90% done, a state in which it must languish until I can find even a partial ball of Lang "Vera" Stretch Yarn in navy blue ...
• an oddball scarf that will suit someone next Christmas ...
• and, two pair of socks.

So, I've caught up enough to say that I have posted today. Now, to find something green to wear tomorrow for St. Patrick's Day -- hopefully it will stay chilly enough so I can wear my favorite old green sweater.

Mambocat