Earth and Sky

I finished the Westknits mystery KAL "Earth and Sky" a few days ago.  After a good blocking, I decided that it needed a really nice background for the photo shoot. 

I drive past these two great historic cemeteries every morning when I take my children to school.  Each is surrounded by beautiful old dry wall fences and are filled with old head stones belonging to people who were born and/or died in the 1800's.

There are many Civil War soldiers buried here also.   In fact, the newest resident to be intered here was a Civil War soldier who's bones were found in 2009 during road construction near the Franklin battlefield.  Along with the bones were several Union buttons and a mini ball.

A monument was erected at the Unknown Soldier burial site using column and pediment pieces that were from the State Capital in Nashville.   We really enjoyed walking around the cemetery and reading many of the old headstones.

 

Oh, yes, and back to the shawl.  I love it.  It's nice and big and will keep me warm this fall and winter.

 

  

 I decided to make a matching shawl pin from polymer clay.

I mixed some colors to match and then used techniques found in Julie Picarello's new book Patterns in Color.  For the pin, I used one of my favorite Knit Picks size US0 double pointed knitting needles that one of my children sat on and broke!  At least it has been put to good use.

Gwen

I finished Gwen last week.   Gwen is the second of the two mystery shawls that I knit from designer She-Knits. 

I think it turned out really well.  I usually follow the charts on lace knitting but this chart was really big and very complicated with many unusual symbols and would have needed to be printed off and then enlarged to make it readable so, I chose to follow the written instructions as I did with Donna.  This worked out just fine but it made me "follow blindly" rather then "read my knitting" like I would have done with a chart.  So, it was not as enjoyable because of that.  But I do love a mystery and I really enjoyed getting the next clue each week and making sure that I finished each clue before the next clue was up.

The only thing that I would have changed if I had seen the pattern ahead of time, is that I would have chosen a contrasting color for the flower beads.  As it is, the beads show up only when the light hits the silver lining in the beads.  But that's part of the fun of the mystery. 

I am almost finished with my third and final mystery shawl of the summer.  I have just started the bind off of the nearly 500 stitches of the Earth and Sky Westknits Mystery KAL.  I will block it tomorrow and get some good photos.

It's a Mystery

I love joining Mystery Knit a Longs and this summer I found myself doing three.  One is finished and I'm currently working on two more.  All three are shawls.  All three have four clues sent out weekly.  The rules of the mystery knit a long prevent the participants from posting progress pictures on their blogs or as the first picture on their Ravelry project page to keep from spoiling the surprise for others.  So I can only post the finished shawl but will link to my project page for a peek of the other two.

The first two I signed up for are the She-Knits Mystery 8 Donna & Gwen. 

Donna began June 23rd and was a lot of fun.  I knit mine with Araucania Lonco which is a fingering weight cotton.  A great yarn for summer. 

There was an unusual weaving technique in this one.  I love how the red and green look together.

The second She-Knits shawl  Gwen began July 20th and I have finished clue three and am looking forward to the final clue to come out on Wednesday.  Gwen is a beaded shawl.

The third Mystery KAL is Westknits Mystery Shawl KAL 2011: Earth and Sky.  I love Stephen West's patterns and knew it would be a great pattern.  I jumped on the band wagon when there were about 300 people signed up and now there are over 2200 people signed up!!!  The first clue was August 1 and the second clue came out this morning.  Both of these first two clues are small and we were told in today's clue that next week will be the heavy knitting clue.  I can't wait to see how it comes out.  I chose three colors of Knit Picks Stroll Tonal sock yarn - which I love. 

I'll post the finished shawls soon.

Here is a look back at some of the other She-Knits KALs that I have done - all felted bags.

She-Knits Mystery KAL #5 - Samantha & Kimmy Together

She Knits Mystery KAL #2 - Autumn

She-Knits Mystery KAL (the first) - Emma