50 Shades of White.  My stepdaughter, Jennifer is getting married next year and finally picked out her wedding dress.  It's gorgeous and of course, she looks beautiful in it.

So, now that we have the dress, we MUST have a wedding shawl or shrug.  I've been dreaming of something lacy since she announced her engagement, but I have to admit, the dress has a lot going on and I don't want the shawl to detract from that. Here are a few idea:

 

I had Jen look through Ravelry last week and of course, she was totally overwhelmed.  She said that she's on Pinterest and that I should open an account so we can share pictures and see what each other likes. I've been dreading doing Pinterest, only because it's just one more thing to keep up with.  I mean, Ravelry is such a time sucker as it is.  I need to be knitting or dyeing, not looking at other patterns and putting more things in my queue.  Now, I'm stuck on Pinterest and looking at designs and pinning things to my boards. Visit my wedding shawl board and let me know if there is anything else out there.  Here's the link to my boards: http://pinterest.com/woolbearers/.

If I don't get to do lace for the wedding, I can get my lace fix now. I just started yet, another new project. This one, I have to get done in a hurry.  My son is graduating from college in a few weeks and I will be staying with my dear friend Pat, who is like a second mother to me.  Mind you, I've been thinking about knitting something for her for this occasion for four years now and finally realized that if I don't start, it will never get done.  So, looking through Ravelry for hours on end, I found a simple, but elegant lace pattern from Pam Allen called the Little Arrowhead Shawl.  It's DK weight and only 260 yards -- I can get that done in no time.  I will get it done, even if I have to let my daughter drive all the way to Rochester so I can knit! Here it is so far.

I decided to use Blue Sky Alpaca Silk and let me tell you, this is a pleasure to knit.  Two skeins is all it will take.  Wish me luck.

We started getting in our new Karbonz needles. The larger sizes and new interchangeables will be here very soon.  So far, we have sizes 0-4 in 10" straights and 24" circs.  These lightweight needles are composed of carbon fiber bodies and sharp brass tips.  I have a set of dpn's if you want to try them out. (Buy them on the online store soon!)

Here's another finished afghan from Barbara Walker's Learn to Knit Afghan book.  Sarah started this one in my class about 2 1/2 years ago.  Mind you, there are 63 squares in the afghan, but Sarah felt that she needed to do another row, so she added 9 more squares. I love her color selection and the way she put them all together.  Now onto new projects. 

Dagmar saw my Color Affection shawl and was inspired to knit one too.  She decided to use my hand dyed Woolie Bears SockYarn with Cashmere and the results are stunning.

 Here's some of the yarn. It is available on my online store!  Come into the shop if you can't wait.