my new toy...

you know how amazon.com gives you free shipping on books if you go over a certain amount? i was ordering some books for my daughter and came up just short. so naturally i needed to buy the barbara walker treasury, seen above. i pored through it, and after my recent experience with päivi's  22 leaves KAL, i wanted to just experiment a little. i found a little lace design, printed out some graph paper and got to work! well, hardly work. but some fun thinking and calculating and figuring.

i thought i'd try a square and just repeat a simple pattern out to make a lace kerchief, in effect. it's really fun, and i can't wait to finish this one so i can start another! i'm using some autumn colorway sock yarn from joann's called sensations bamboo & ewe pattern, a wool/bamboo/nylon blend. the colorway does not allow for much view of the lace, but it's inexpensive and easy to work with. i think i might use a plainer yarn for my next experiment, but it looks very fall-like, and i like it.  if i figure out how to write an elegant chart that someone besides me, myself, and i can understand, i'll write up the pattern and post it on ravelry.  it's just the repeats and exceptions that i don't know how to express on a chart.  but that will be fun to figure out, too!

finally, i have one last picture of my official french market bag in use -- it's so pretty, so handy, and i can't wait to do another. it's one of my favorite patterns ever.

as always, if you click on a picture, it will pop up much bigger.