Glanalaw - delighting in pure song

I finished this shawl a couple weeks ago and now that it has been recieved by its new owner, I can blog about it!  This was a request from someone I've worked with before (I made these mitts for her last year) and I was thrilled to have an excuse to buy a couple issues of the Jane Austen Knits magazine which I've been eyeing for some time! The pattern is " A Sensible Shawl " (Ravelry link) by Celeste Young and it was really, really easy.  Once I figured out the first couple stitches of the border pattern, anyway.  This shawl has tabs and ties - it's intended to wrap around the body and tie so that it stays on by itself for hands-free wearing.  You start with one of the i-cord ties, which moves right into the first tab, which flows into the body and border (knitted simultaneously) and then back to the second tab and tie.  And then you're done!  No seaming, and since I used 100% wool I could splice the yarn together as I added in new skeins, so I onl...

I am at a point where nothing is finished but many things are started.  And that's okay, except I have so many other things I want to start!  But for now you can have pictures of some works in progress. A shawl, and a book.  A couple weeks ago I petitioned Facebook for some reading recommendations and ended up with about fifty titles.  This is the first! The fall planting of peas is coming up.  (There are tiny lettuces and the beginnings of some carrots, too, but they are not very photogenic yet.) Three tote bags cut out and ready for sewing.  These are all destined for the shop. Apple jelly, with fruit from our own tree.  This batch is finished, but the work of harvesting and preserving all the fruit has just begun!

Full cast The Pirates of Penzance closed on Sunday and I have been suffering slight withdrawals since then.  I truly loved this show, the directors, and the entire cast, not to mention the pretty clothes I got to wear and the delight of singing such gorgeous music over and over!  On the other hand it's also been nice to have time to catch up the gardening and do some serious knitting and not have to be out until 11 every night. We had a little bit of fun ;-) And if it must be over, at least I have loads of pretty pictures to look at!  These are a few (and by a few I mean dozens, but I narrowed them down from over a thousand!) of my favourites from the show (and I'll point out the costume pieces I made as they show up, too.)  All the photos are by Richard Lim (and under his copyright) and we were fortunate to have a photo CD from the show!  He is fabulous, even if he does think I "glare" at the camera when I know it's around ;-) Pour, oh pour th...

Some weeks you are so busy creating blog-worthy things that you run out of time to take photos and blog about them!  That's what happened to me the last few weeks, as I spent all my time working on costumes for The Pirates of Penzance and never got a chance to show you any of them!  I didn't even get any pictures as I worked, and they're all living in people's dressing rooms at the theatre now.  I'm going to try to get some action shots this week at rehearsals though, so I can show them off here. In the meantime, I did finish something for myself!  For a while now I've been wanting a bag for my knitting which has no velcro on which to snag things, and finally decided to make one myself.  I rummaged in the stash and came up with nearly everything I needed.  The only materials I bought specifically for this project were the interfacing and the magnetic snap. I learned how to insert a zippered pocket!  The stitching is a little uneven but n...