Miami Beach or Bust!

With the failure of the Damson still fresh in the frog pond, I have fearlessly casted on another lace shawl.  This one is the Miami Beach Shawl and I'm working it with Dashing Dachs Dach Sox yarn, in a colorway appropriately named Jellyfish.  The top picture is the one most true to color.

I'm only 1/2 way through the first lace repeat but I can already tell I'll love it!

I used Betty Balcomb's Short-Tail Long-Tail Cast On from a "pattern" she distributed last year.  I'd post the link to it but it's been pulled off of Ravely and every other site I can find.  It's pretty easy to do and I don't know if you can copy-write a cast-on so tomorrow when I have more time.  I'll post how I do a long tail cast on without having to guess how much yarn to pull.  

Does This Look Thin or is it Just Me?

I am seriously going to have to step back and take a long look at my failed attempts at knitting with lace weight yarn before trying this again. I do a lot of knitting on fingering weight but never any real lace patterns. Therefore, is my latest awful attempt at a lace shawl (done mostly in garter stitch) my inability to get my fingers around the skinny yarn, get my head around a lace pattern or could it possibly be, my lack of any knitting privacy where I can concentrate in more than 3 minute periods? I'd like to blame it on the latter because that would imply it's an outside influence that I have no power over verses my own sadly lacking talent. Damn you Damson! I'll be back!

Magic Ring. Here's Something New to Me

I am by no means an expert knitter and I'm an even less accomplished crocheter.  So when I stumble across something that either makes my hobby more enjoyable and/or makes my projects look that much better, I just have to share.

I was recently put in a position where I had to produce an infant baby hat by the next day.  Of course, the first place I go is Ravelry to do an advanced search for what would be the best pattern for me.  The very first pattern listed was called 30 Minute Baby Hat by Mary Ann Colatuno.  Even the name was perfect.  I immediately cast on and, with the exception of the flower part, was done within 30 minutes.  Now, back to my original thought.

In her directions was a link to a crochetme.com forum post that quickly described this wonderful thing called Magic Ring.  I would give you the link but she has since turned the directions into a pdf and I can't find the post anywhere.  So, today when I wanted to hook a circular project I went looking for it to refresh my memory and since I couldn't click to forum post (typing it in the address bar didn't work either) I searched on YouTube and found it.  I just clicked on the first one listed (you can see it here) and with one simple change, my finished work looks so much neater and was that much easier.

Here's a photo of the finished project.

Photo courtesy of my friend

Sylvia Schultz of

Sylvia Schutz Photography