The good news is, The chapel veil/shawlette is finished. The bad news is, it will not publish completely until July 15. That is when Issue 2 of Spindle and Wheel will publish.

There has been some minor disagreements on the content of the next issue, maybe you guys can clear it up for us. I wrote an article on how to get a web-based business started, what to do, and not do for the best chances of success. I thought that you readers would find this information helpful for your own sites to sell your handmade products. Beau feels it is off topic. I can see his point, and he can see mine, so we aren’t really sure what to do now. What do you think?

Now for the best part, a picture of the completed shawlette-

I’m sorry I don’t have it modeled, it really looks quite elegant on, but I can’t take a picture of it on me, and so you will have to wait a bit.

This is a perfect first lace project, it only has a few stitches, yarn over, knit and purl, knit two together and slip on knit one passover. There are also a couple of knit three togethers and slip 1 knit two together pass overs.

All in all, it used about 2 ounces at around 60 to 70 yards per ounce (about sport or fingering) and knitted up extremely fast. The pattern never changes, and so once you get that figured out, you can go on auto knitter and do just fine. This is good for me since I can’t count past about 2. At any rate, the full pattern will be published in Issue 2, but if you want to start early, drop me an email, and I’ll send it. allena at spindleandwheel dot com.

Ok, so maybe posting about our vacation is a little off topic for the Spindle And Wheel blog, but we’ve been asked to blog so that you can get to know us a bit better - so here it is

Along with sheep and fiber and what not, another of our big interests obsessions in life is our horses.  We took the horses down to Eminence, Missouri on the Jacks Fork river and camped for a week.  We left our four kids with Grandma and Grandpa who have our undying thanks, as this is the first vacation we have EVER taken without kids (we never did get a honeymoon).

The horses logged many miles to their dismay and I’ve got to say the scenery is absolutely gorgeous.  We had some good days with the horses - days when they were willing if not eager to do what we asked of them and go where they were told.  I was amazed when my horse crossed a river - he’d never seen a river before - without hesitation.  He seemed to really enjoy it, he even stopped an stuck his head in the water up to his ears and splashed around.  We also  had some bad days with the horses - the first day in particular they were a bit freaked out by all of the other horses and trucks driving around.  They were also a little “buddy sour” which just means they really wanted to stick together and not be separated.  Then there was the day that my horse decided he had forgotten what “whoa” meant - don’t get me started on that!  Overall though, it was a great time.

Now, even though we were camping, this was no primitive affair.  We went to Cross Country Trail Ride, which for a truly bargain price included three meals a day, plus nightly entertainment and all kinds of other fun.   I gotta say that camping without having to cook or clean up after meals is not a bad way to go.  The food was simple but tasty and plentiful.  The entertainment was really good - they have a “house band” that played most nights, and even got some big name talent in one night (Trick Pony for those of you who know country music).

All in all, we’re feeling refreshed if not rested.  In fact, we’re exhausted and sore.  But we’re definitely ready to get back to work!  It’ll kind of be a vacation from our vacation

Tomorrow (6/9/07) we are heading off for a weeks vacation.  There won’t be any internet so if you’re waiting for a response from us, we’re not snubbing you we’re just not here.

So I was bad today, I rode my horse around instead of working on the shawl or tutorials. I did get the pictures finished for the hand carding tutorial, and I did also get more rows done on the shawl. I also have some pictures of it.

Here is a detail of the short rows. The method makes a very nice effect that looks a bit like a dropped stitch garter pattern.

Here it is on the needles, at row 9

I took this one back lit to show the nice pattern, which is not so obvious in the first photos.

So I did manage since yesterday to knit up another 12 rows, but I was hoping to get more than that. I am planning on a horseback vacation with my husband, my horse, and his horse. NO KIDS, YAY! So I told myself I really needed to work with the horse, and get some exercise to prepare. Ain’t rationalization great?

So to make up for not getting so much done, I took it off the needles and sort of blocked it out a bit.

As you can see, the edges are scalloping nicely, and although it is not quite as I envisioned, I am pretty pleased with it. I am now up to row 21 in pattern. It is quite big already, big enough for a chapel veil, but I like mine a little larger. The blocking isn’t that great, and the pattern is consistent, but I couldn’t get it to mind me, so it still looks a little weird, but that will correct itself during the blocking.