New Stash! And already a project for it.

I am still slugging away on the Fisherman's Wife shawl. 14 rows to go on Clue 4, then onto Clue 5. I have suffered from clinical depression since 1984 and when I get an episode concentration is the first thing to go. Well I normally don't get it in the winter. No Seasonal Affective Disorder for me. Nor do I rarely get bummed out just for the sake of it. And if I do, I usually get over it fairly quickly. I allow myself no more than 5 minutes on the pity pot. I can blame my mother's side of the family for it; most of her brothers and sisters suffered from it as did my grandmother. But my physician gave me a new medication to deal with my breathing problems (and I don't even smoke) and the corticosteroid in the inhaler set off an episode. So doing complicated lace work is slow going for me. I can only concentrate on it for short periods of time. So each night before I go to sleep I knit one pattern row and one purl row. But I've been dealing with this for 24 years, so am used to the ups and downs. Besides, I am deep down one of those stoic (maybe stubborn?) Germans and thus, I told my depression long ago, you can attack me, but you won't win.

Can you believe in spite of my depression, I have signed up for 3 more KALs. One is through the Yahoo group EZasPi. I love EZs Pi shawls and this one is designed by Liz Lovick of the Orkney Islands. Angie was kind enough to dig through her stash and found a lace weight Shetland yarn, she spun last year. It's a gorgeous yarn to knit with and here is my swatch with different sized needles and a pic of a ball of the yarn with the thickness compared to a US penny. It's 2 ply and has about 42 give or take a few WPI (wraps per inch). She gave me several skeins and is spinning more of it for me since she has roving left from the same sheep. Even though every one nowadays loves all these wild hand-dyed yarns, I still love to knit with the natural colors best.

Bottom part knit with 3,25 mm needles, middle portion with 3.5 mm and top part with 4 mm needles. I think I'm going to stick with the 4 mm ones. The pattern is the cat's paw.

And here is a comparison of the thickness of the yarn to a penny. Isn't it sweet.

The KAL starts at the end of this month.

"Knit On!"