Laced With Love

I'm weak. I should be saving up for RenFaires and such, but I needed a book. Needed. Yes. I needed a lace book. It was vital to my existence. You understand, I'm sure.

I swatched the "Meadow Flowers Shawl" from Knitter's Stash. It would be gorgeous in fingering-weight mohair. What I have is lightweight alpaca, which makes garter stitch look kind of heavy. The Meadow Flowers Shawl? Mostly garter stitch. I needed a new shawl pattern.

The local library has maybe a dozen knitting books. I've already been through the four good ones. Rather than try my luck at other libraries (with limited hours on a Sunday,) I went to the LYS. The whole world, it seemed, was at Creative Fibers on Sunday. I happened to show up between classes, so everyone was milling about, talking about what they'd just learned or were about to learn. I carefully snaked my way through the crowd to the bookshelf.

As I worked my way from top to bottom, reading titles and flipping through a few things that looked promising, I caught snippets of conversations. There was the bear-like guy whose boyfriend had taken to leaving "hints" about yarn he wanted tucked into whatever pattern the bear-like guy was working on that week. There was a woman who was so happy with the class she'd just taken that she took the instructor by the hand and tried to drag him to her car. I did my best not to burst out laughing... people might wonder what I found funny about shawl patterns.

On the second shelf from the bottom, I found it. Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby. It has the most gorgeous lace patterns I've ever seen, with clear notes on the required yardage, needles, yarn type, and blocked dimensions. I clutched it to my chest, ran the gauntlet past the classrom, and presented my selection to the cashier. It was mine. All mine! MUAHAHAHAAAAAA!

*ahem*

So yeah, I have this beautiful new knitting book and a beautiful new shawl pattern for the orange alpaca. If I can figure out where I lost a stitch (somewhere in the last two rows, I think) and fix it, I'll hook up my scanner and show you what the first few inches look like. It's going to be gorgeous.

And I have a new book. Did I mention that? Hee!