Finished and Starting

I have to say that I am very glad to have my first big birthday handmade gift finished! I made it for a friend and I did the solomon's knot that I blogged about earlier. Once I figured out how to do it, it crocheted up quite quickly.

The flowers, however, took an enormous amount of time! They were between one to two hours per flower until I found a less exacting pattern and did a combo of the two. You can see the two styles to the right. I added a bit of fringe to the bottom and viola! Done! Fred was instrumental in the design aspect as he said that there were too many in one spot and favored a more narrow span of flowers. He was really cute about it.

My new project is using some of the new yarn I got in Toronto from Romni Wool (see earlier post). This yarn is called Dreadlocks and is 78% kid mohair and 13% wool, 9% nylon (see photo at left).

The color is a bit iffy on this camera (Iphone takes a great photo most of the time, but this isn't one of them!) It is actually a very bitchin' green to blue hand-dyed yarn. It is made by Fleece Artist (http://www.fleeceartist.com/) out of Mineville, Nova Scotia. They have some very interesting yarns. Unfortunately, there isn't a store that carries them in the bay area. Boo.

I have started a shawl using the same solomon's knot that I did the birthday present in (see right). The nice thing is it crochets up really fast. I'm already almost finished. I got three hanks of yarn, but probably will only need two for this shawl. It's so fuzzy that I began to get really warm crocheting with it on my lap!

In addition to crocheting, I finally got my audible account to accept my audiobook purchase (yeah, lost time on the plane crocheting when I could have been crocheting AND reading! GRRRRR). So I've begun listening to The Known World. So far, it is very well written, engaging and interesting, but after a bit I find myself saying, jeez, enough with the who died and what their history was and jumping 40 years in the future and this one lived to be 90 and this one died when she was 88. Are these characters I am going to hear from again, or is this the only time you mention them? Has the story started, or are we at chapter 3 (yes, I know it is the book club and I did just say chapter 3, did you read the sentence above about audible! 8-). Yet, I still find myself engaged and listening.

In food news, we found a great brunch place: The Vinoy in St. Pete. I really do need to remember to wear make-up when I go out! Fred and I are in the foreground, Christy and Eliot in the back. Brunch was heavy on the seafood (crab claws, prawns, all sorts of fish, oysters! woohoo!). And the had a chocolate fountain! I love a chocolate fountain. I need to buy one. I wonder who has the best price?

And BTW, Christy's new house is just the cutest little place. Very nicely decorated, great color choices.