Summer knitting

I have been doing some knitting lately. Not nearly as much as I would like, but hopefully things will quiet down soon and I can settle into my summer knitting routine. During the kids' summer break, I focus on lace. I usually have a quiet 1-2 hours every morning before things get crazy around the house and it is a great time to sit and work on lace. This summer I hope to :

1. Finish my Hanami (60% complete):

2. Finish Serendipity Stole (MS4): long way to go on this one, only 15% one...

3. Finish Girasole (25%) complete:

That's a lot of lace. And I am not sure if there will be a Mystery Stole 5, but of course I will want to work on that as well. I will be REALLY happy if I can finish these 3 projects--wish me luck and speedy needles!

Mystery Stole 4--Serendipity Stole

I realized yesterday that I talked about completing MS4 when I had never even talked about the fact that I am doing MS4! I briefly mentioned attempting to resist the temptation at one point, but we know I am weak. So I started MS4, designed by Georgina Bow, last month.

Here is my yarn and my beads. The color is named "Sea Mist"

I love the beads! I just finished clue 2 and I am working both halves at the same time. I know I am a bit behind (4 clues have been released), but I plan on getting caught up over the next week. The last clue will be released on October 10 and I have an event I would like to wear this to on October 13 (probably not possible, but I'm going to try!). Here is a picture of what I have knit so far, but I took the picture at night and you can't see the beads. You really can see them in natural light (but if I were to start over, I would use different beads with a little more contrast):

Knitting news...

Two pieces of exciting knitting news to share!

1. Have you checked out "Twist Collective"? After a couple of months of teasing us, the Premiere issue was released yesterday. It is a quarterly online knitting magazine where each pattern costs $ to download. From the website:

Free pattern sites are wonderful resources for knitters and designers on the web, but Twist Collective is something different. It’s a big world, and we believe there is room in it for many different ideas. Twist Collective believes good design comes from hard work, and such effort should be valued and compensated accordingly.

I totally agree! And they are collaborating with some of the best designers (IMHO). I am very excited about this, love the patterns and articles in the first issue, and hope they are very successful.

2. It's time for Mystery Stole 4 sign ups!! Click here to sign up. And luckily, the first clue will not be released until after the Olympics and once the kids are back in school: Sept 5. The materials list (there are beads!!) and swatch info have already been posted. Since I can't work on most of my knitting projects until the Olympics start, I hope to work on this swatch ASAP.