Lace addiction

In the middle of all of the Christmas knitting, I had the strong desire to pick up the needles and cast on for the Majestic Mountains stole. I had everything ready for it. I already had tons of beads from when I went a little nuts in the bead store for the MS3. (There were so many pretty kinds to choose from! I couldn't leave those pretty silver beads there! And what about the green? They had to come home with me!) The yarn was already ready in my stash because it was left over from MS3. But I was a stronger person and said "NO! I must finish these presents!" So I ignored the siren call of the lace and beads (a deadly combination) and tried to put it out of my mind. Then last Sunday rolled around and I couldn't stand it any longer. . . .

I cast on in the morning and by that evening I had already finished one set of charts (there are 8 charts total).


By Thursday, I had almost finished the second chart.


By Saturday, I had started and finished the third chart and I was into the mountains!


Each of the mountains have little snow tipped peaks for which I am using silver-lined seed beads. There are a few pine trees in this middle section and I am using green seed beads for them. You probably can't see it but there are beads at each intersection of the diamonds. I used the silver-lined beads for those so that it would look like little flecks of snow.


The middle section of mountains and pine trees are going so much faster than the diamonds at the beginning. I think it helps that there are large sections of stockinette and because I have to pay attention to the counting for the mountains. They keep changing where they are and I sometimes have to put a bead on the tops. The diamonds look good but can become deadly boring after 2.5 chart repeats of them. It's the same pattern over and over. I'll have to fortify myself before I get to the diamonds at the other end of the stole.

I'm planning on having this stole done by May so I can give it as a gift. Hopefully the rest of it will go just as quickly! Now it is reaching the dangerous time of a project where you start looking for other things to cast on. . . .

In other news, I've started an etsy shop to sell niddy noddies that my friend is making.

I still have to tweak the shop and its profile but a couple of hours after posting it we already had 14 views! I'm planning on adding a couple of other noddies today and tomorrow. So if you need one, you know where to look!