SailingKnitter

Deep down in my collection of my "someday" patterns stashed on the boat, there has been this "Shetland-Style Lace Bonnet" pattern by Margaret Stove. Lovingly ripped from the pages of  the Interweave Piecework Magazine (Mar/Apr 1994 & Jul/Aug 1994 for errata) it has tickled me each time I've enjoyed an afternoon of rifling through my treasures.

Finally! We have a little girl to be born early next year to our family! My niece is having her first baby and it's a girl. There in my yarn stash was a ball of my hand-dyed sock weight wool yarn in mottled shades of lavender. Perfect.

The pattern is written in line-by-line, i.e. stitch by stitch fashion and ya'll know by now that I prefer charts. No, I didn't send away for the charts when I stored the pattern, nor did I ask for the matching booties pattern. No worries, I plodded along.

Oh my! There were stitch gymnastics in this design that I had never come across before! Thankfully, the instructions were clear and I continued on, counting, counting. Unfortunately, this is the type of knitting project that requires intense concentration. So much so that I had to ask Jonesy not to talk to me. That's kinda hard to do when we are both sitting on the sailboat facing each other and only a few feet apart. We are both used to just blurting out our thoughts at any time. But, Jonesy has lived with me long enough (36 years!) that he has learned when I need quiet knitting time.

After a dinghy trip to town and a walk down to the fabric shop to buy some ribbon, I was able to finish the set today. The color in the booties alone photo are closer to the correct shades. The improvised booties? Yep, that will be a new pattern for the Holiday Mystery Gifts Yahoo group next year which has already been sent to the test knitters.