Malabrigo yarn and Laminaria shawl

I ordered yarn online for the first time. Always hesitated because I thought I had to feel the yarn first. But then I couldn’t get any lace yarn locally, so I searched online and finally ordered malabrigo lace yarn. For the Laminaria shawl in a green called lettuce and then I couldn’t help but also get some i a colour called cognac.









This yarn is so incredably soft, I could touch it all the time… Even Sweetheart often touches my WIP just to say “ this is SO soft”.
and here it is: the beginning of the Laminaria shawl. Love to knit it so far.


click on this one to enlarge it and see it in all it's beauty - you can tell I am in love with this yarn and project...

Aberlady sweater

Finally I decided to use Regia silk sock yarn for this one. Soft, shiny, thin enough, not too expensive and I even found a colour I really like, a warm dark green.
320 stitches to cast on was not fun, but now I am on round three and the fun starts!
Pattern is from the book "The Celtic collection" from Alice Staremore.

Back again

With new works in progress… more later.
Thank you for your lovely comments on my Cromarty sweater. I really love it, loved to knit it though it took me so long but am very glad that I finally got to the end. I haven’t gotten around to take pictures of me wearing it and posting further details about it.

WIP, FO and decisions

Cromarty is done and blocked. I LOVE it! Pictures with me wearing it to follow!

And this is the curtain in progress, both bands are done, I am just crocheting the loops to hang it up.

And then there is the decision made what yarn I will use for the Aberlady sweater from The Celtic Collection: after swatching with about 4 more yarns I am voting for Regia Silk in a warm green:

I think I haven't upoaded teh picture and deleted it already from the memory card, argh!

Sock in progress

Made for Sweetheart in Regia African Color.

My Kiri shawl

Had this on my old blog yet but I am wearing it a lot right now and I do love it so much! It is made from sock yarn and so not too "girly" for me! Here is the pattern. Also available in French and German now.

Swatch for crochet curtain

It's going to have two parts connected with threads. First part is done, the second halfway.

EDIT: There will be two bands – one with triskelions, one with l’hermine (stout), both symbols of Britanny. 4 of them in a row. Then I will connect them to each other with probabely chain stitches. So one band will be at the top of the window, the other at the bottom, the “threads” inbetween to let more light inside. I got my idea from traditional curtains from Britanny, some are here and from Eibhlin’s curtain that can be seen here! Coucou Eibhlin, ca fait déjà presque une année qu’on c’est rencontrée, uncroyable que le temps passe!!! Oh and you see Cromarty (still to be blocked under the swatch).

The gang

I especially love Josy's coat colour in the warm evening sunlight!

EDIT to answer Leahs questions: I have no idea where the girls were looking, Josy seems to see something not too interesting in the distance, Flavie seems to have spied a bird not too far away and Dingo – daydreaming! Click on the picture to get it bigger.

In general all of them are agility dogs. I started with Dingo in 1997, when agility wasn’t very popular in our region (we had to drive for at least two hours for the nearest competition in the beginning). I found a dog club that was about to start with agility training soon. Was involved in building up the agility group and found myself being a trainer soon after… Dingo was fast but not waiting for my (always late, I know it was my fault never his!!!) directions and I never got him to do the a-frame properly into the contact, and when he nearly killed himself one day in a competition because he flew right over the top of the a-frame and hit into the ground on his breast bone I stopped competing. Had a nice time in practice after that but stopped years ago because I had other focuses and he got old enough to retire and he never got slow, he always gives 200 %, so I have to be the wise one and just stop it! We have fun now with other things that keep him going without braking his bones but still tiring him mentally. There should be some action pic of him on my old blog – see here. There are more dog pitcures over there, click on the dog category at the left and it will bring you there.

When we got Josy, Sweetheart soon started working with her, and they did great. She isn’t as crazy as Dingo is but they worked out to be a great team, she wasn’t as fast as the Border Collies are but a lot tighter in the corners and jumping higher and so often faster in the end and “clean”! One year they qualified for the national championship and did well there but you could clearly see that Josy didn’t like to be in that building, it was a common indoor sports arena, very narrow, very loud, carpet, and she only could go there for practice once before the competiton.*
Then Josy ruptured her cruciate ligament in her left knee which she had surgery on and is doing great but there is some arthrosis left and we chose to stop her agility career. There are also some post surgery pics.
And by the way, Dingo is getting 12 next month, Josy is at least as old as him, maybe even a year older. They are fit and healthy and there are lots of younger dogs that act older but we humans have to be the reasonable ones here!

Flavie will be an agility dog with my Sweetheart (who also is a trainer, still active unlike me) once we are less occupied with house and garden building! She already has started training and seems to have fun and is fast!

*Usually agility is done on lawn, some clubs practice in riding halls with dirt or sand as ground during winter season and some few competitions in the summer are in sand.
In Germany agility is run in three groups based on sizes, and 4 levels in each size.