One step forward, two steps back..

First off, thanks & a big hug go out to all of you who sent me happy birthday wishes. It was really lovely to read them all. :-)
I had a fab day with my family - including my nephew James. As you can see, he's doing really well. :-)
My girls went home with nanny & grandad at 8pm so that DH could take me out for a yummy meal at a local pub - The Seven Stars at Seisdon. I had Romano Chicken - the homemade sauce was heavenly.

I've just realised that I haven't revealed my latest project; how very lackadaisical of me (fab word)! It's a lacy bolero I'm making up in the Morocco linen/acrylic blend yarn from my stash. Let me just repeat that - it's stash yarn. Just in case you didn't hear first time. ;-)

Rose summed the colour up beautifully as a mixture of raspberry & strawberry. It feels a bit harsh, but I'm hoping that a good dose of fabric conditioner will sort that out once it's finished. If it does get finished that is; I'm a little worried that I may run out of yarn as I only have 200g of the stuff. Oh well, if I do I'll just have to frog the back and fronts and re-work them shorter (but let's just hope we don't go there eh?!)

Oh-so-long-ago when I first had ideas about this bolero, Francoise asked if I'd be making it the same shape as my Peachy Bolero. It's basically the same (and again designed using my Knitware software), but the sleeves are shorter. It may be a little different as I've lent my Peachy Bolero charts to a friend, so I'll have to draw the front shaping onto these charts from memory. ;-)

I'm using the Lace Wing stitch pattern from my Vogue Dictionary of Knitting Stitches. It's a very easy 4 row repeat, with 2 of those being purl rows. Not that you'd know it, from my antics yesterday..

Yesterday was the Tuesday Fix - the Knit Chat club. I had a lovely time happily knitting away on my lace wing shrug (up to the armholes on the back!), chatting, and drinking my favourite latte for an hour. Just about 10 minutes from the end, I suddenly realised that I been increasing instead of decreasing. On the armholes. That's too much for a Homer Simpson "Doh!"; it's more of a Bart Simpson "Arrggghhh!" Talk about lights on and nobody home.

So last night, I gritted my teeth and frogged said increase rows. Why does frogging take so much longer than knitting? Maybe if you practise often enough it doesn't. No, I don't think I'll try that. So I got back to where I'd started at lunchtime. I knitted 2 rows. I counted the stitches. There was 1 short!. Double aaaarrrggghhhh!!! I'd forgotten one of the yarn overs and of course it had to be right at the start of the first row I'd re-knitted. What did I say about frogging practise?

Anyway my brain must have warmed up at some point as I'm now on the straight part of the armhole, racing up towards the neckline & shoulders. Did I mention that I've already done one short sleeve? It was good practise for the pattern. I do love the stitch pattern, and the colour of the yarn. Not so sure about the feel of the linen/acrylic mix though.

My birthday present from my girls arrived yesterday courtesy of Amazon - it's the lovely book "Lavish Lace : Knitting with Handpainted Yarns". I've started reading it from cover to cover; it's very interesting. It includes lots of gorgeous lacy scarf/shawl patterns and it also describes how the handpainted yarns were created, plus how the pattern looks and behaves in the same colourway but different fibre yarns. Fab. And yes I now have almost all the projects on my To-Do List!

Finally, look what DH made me for dinner after work today! A very delicious beef salad. There are advantages to marrying a guy who part-trained as a chef! ;-)