ishbel II

Ishbel the second. Done in Bendigo's luxury merino in a colour called "sunrise." Perhaps "in the face red" or "fire engine red" would have been a better name. It's not a colour I wear very often at all but I love it. What's more, there's enough for the Ishbel beret too, although I have not really decided if I'll make that. This wool is easy to knit and feels beautiful, very soft. The shawl did not take long and I enjoyed it. I really like the particular cast off. Purl 2 together (it was a purl row) and put the resulting stitch back in the left needle. Purl 2 together and put the stitch back on left needle and so on. It is very elastic and helped the points in blocking. It did take a long time with almost 400 stitches.

The edges of the shawl are not as wavy as they may seem. I pulled them around a bit in an effort to give the wire model a bit of dignity! I've never seen real boobs any where remotely like the ones on the model.

I'm looking forward to some time to devote to knitting and to being able to leave it where I want. I usually try to tidy stuff up and not leave it downstairs all over the place. Yesterday, at the unearthly hour of 4:00 am, my son and DIL left for three weeks in Europe. They had to be at the airport at 5:00 am. He's doing some videoing and sound and producing a documentary for a choir while they travel, mostly through Germany, although they have three days in Paris. While they have both travelled fairly extensively, England is the closest they have come to the continent. USA several times, many times to Sri Lanka where they also own land, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and large parts of Africa and more of Asia. But not the continent. She's going as his assistant. All his expenses were paid, meals, travel and accommodation. They'll be away till mid -July and I'll be by myself after the owner here flies back to NZ on Tuesday. They have two days in Seoul to begin, then Paris and then Germany.

So I'll be here by myself with little Sweetpea who is missing DIL quite badly. However, last winter she used to sleep on my bed a lot during the day. She's rediscovered it again today, possibly because I've been in here most of the day.