Ishbel+flare: captured by my kid, originally uploaded by earthchick.

Let’s pretend it hasn’t been nearly two months since my last entry, shall we?

And let’s pretend I haven’t failed miserably at responding to my awesome reader comments on my last few entries, okay?

Let’s also pretend I still have readers at this point, all right?

All righty, then. Here we are: the first thing I knitted in 2010. An Ishbel, for my mom. The photo above was taken by Little Buddha, age 5 1/2. Pretty good, huh?

yarn: Handmaiden Sea Silk, 1.5 skeins, Ivory
needles: size 3 (this is what I’ve knit Sea Silk on before, and I like how it looks, but I wondered later if I should’ve gone up much bigger to get the shawl significantly larger without so much extra knitting)
beads: silver-lined crystal megatamas from Earth Faire (just on the border)
time: December 25 – January 20
mods: repeated charts A and B two extra times
notes: totally failed on the border points. I need to always remember that I must MUST use a Russian bind-off for any lace, especially if I want it to have points. I bound off loosely, using the bind-off in the pattern, and I blocked it with points, but the points were not sharp in blocking, and didn’t really remain post-blocking
raveled

I have never knit anything for my mother before. She has very particular tastes (as I do), and she doesn’t really need anything (at least not the kind of things knitters make). I knew there was no point in making her something unless I knew for sure it was something she would want or need.

Last summer, she asked if I would knit her a shawl. My mother is a paraplegic and uses a wheelchair. She wanted something large enough to wrap around the back of the wheelchair and still cover her arms.

In the end, though I made a pretty shawl, I failed on the largeness count. I had thought to make a rectangular stole, but she wanted a triangle, and I had a hard time judging the size. I took multiple measurements of her chair, etc., but still failed. It does go around the back of her chair, and it goes all the way to her wrists, but the part that covers her arms doesn’t really cover her arms. She really needs more of a cape than a shawl.

Still, she liked it, and she plans to wear it with the point in front.

Well now. That didn’t take so long to write. Maybe I’ll keep this blogging thing up! I have multiple unblogged items from the last couple of months. Let’s see if I can get them blogged before June, eh?

(seriously, y’all, I apologize not so much for my blogging silence as for my utter lack of response to your comments. I realize it takes time and effort to leave a comment on a blog, and I appreciate every single one. I am sorry I haven’t been great about writing back lately.)