Lace, lace and lace

Remember the small doily I made not so long ago? That I decided was too small for my coffee table and became a lace doily for my lamp in stead. Well, now I'm proud to present the biggest lace doily I have ever made:

Pattern: Mantilla Doily

Yarn: Marks & Kattens Anemone

Hook: 3

It did take a while to finish crotcheting this one. I have to admit I almost felt like quiting when I came to the last few rows that were so long it felt they would never end. And at that point it also seemed like I somehow had managed to add too many stiches on the go, since it didn't turn flat agains the table, no matter how I tried. I also used much thicker yarn and a bigger hook than suggested, so I was afraid that was a problem too. But fortunately it turned out ok once I blocked it!

But in the end I'm very happy I managed to motivate myself to continue and finish this. Even though it gives me more of those granny points, it looks great on my coffee table. And just the right size! Not too big nor too small. And it's just the right colour. Good thing I already "happened" to have exactly the right kind of yarn, this way I once again used up a tiny bit of that huge stash of mine... ;) Perhaps I will some day be able to allow myself to buy some more yarn again...

Before the summer is over...

...here's a few pictures to help you remember how it's been :)

 

Package from the US

Sometime during last spring I joined a group in Ravelry called International Yarn and Candy Swap. In June I participated in the first swap. My swapmate was from the US, more exactly from Oregon, and here's what she sent me:

The package had soooo much candy in it! Wow! Don't know when I'll manage to eat all of it! But so far, as for the candy I've already tasted, they taste really, really good! Yummy!

Although the candy was great, the best part is still the one skein of yarn I got. Madelinetosh! Hand dyed yarn, colour Iris. Really beautiful! The colour shifts from dark blue to dark violet. I bet it'll look great when knitted! This is actually my first yarn by Madelinetosh so I really look forward to trying it. Perhaps I'll never want to knit anything else after this ;) (although I hope not, since I really don't think I could afford it in the long run...)

Then I also got this wonderful card that she had made out of fabric used in a Shakespeare play. Nice, isn't it? :)

It by the way feels like this summer has passed so, so quickly... I had a lot of half-finished projects lying around and I had planned to finish all of them already in the beginning of the summer. That way I thought I'd have a lot of time left to start new, wonderful projects. But here I am, in the middle of August, still with a tiny mountain of small projects yet to be finished. The biggest problem is perhaps that there keeps coming new, small but high-priority projects all the time! Almost feel stressed! ...but only almost... Fortunately knitting itself is so relaxing... :)