The Workbasket

Truth be told, there's not been much in the way of creativity going on around here lately.  Summer has been very busy so far...ridiculously so.  I feel like I've barely had a chance to breath in the last month or so, much less take the time to actually MAKE something.

 

Which tends to make Kristin a cranky, cranky girl.

 

Ah well...it is what it is.

 

The only thing I've really been working on is the Spider Queen Shawl. 

 

After a fantastic beginning (That center portion sung!), I had a really rocky start to the border.  The problem?  The yarn.  Blackberry Ridge Thistledown is a single ply, somewhat rustic laceweight with a bit of a thick and thin consistency.  Ordinarily, none of this is a problem.  When you wind up with a couple of bad skeins...holy crumb, it got ugly.  I'll spare you the details...but I will say that after an email conversation with Blackberry Ridge they sent me a new skein for free. 

 

To my intense relief, the new skein was every bit as lovely as the yarn used to make the center.  Even having fixed that problem, though, it's been a slow knit every since.  I'm now about 3/4 of the way through the wide border, and I'm only managing a row or two/day.  It feels like it's taking FOREVER.  For sure, this is not my normal pace when knitting lace.  I think the problems I had with that bad yarn put a major damper on the project. 

 

My goal for this week is to start moving a LOT faster. I would like to finish this piece ASAP.

 

Because....

 

Last Monday the yarn for Sean's sweater shipped from the UK!