WHALE WATCHING

A finish YEAH !!!!!!!!!!!!!  I have mentioned previously that I am participating in the annual Camp Loopy event with The Loopy Ewe.  Each month in the summer - Sheri the owner gives us a different challenge and criteria  - For June I chose Blue Whale by Stephen West - I used a "new to me" yarn - Dragonfly Fibers Djinni Sock in a beautiful colorway called Water Sprite.  Last night I finished with 5 days to spare.  YIPPEE!

Not a glamorous photo but shows the interesting shape of Blue Whale.  It was an enjoyable pattern to knit.  Easy but not boring.

You can see the colorway here a bit better - it has a seed stitch border around the whole edge of the shawl and the body is broken up into sections of stockinette, reverse stockinette and seed stitch.  The yarn was nice but in typical fashion - I wanted to move on in the Camp Loopy 2 challenge and try a yarn I have always wanted to try.

I'm  back to a typical "mel" color as my friends would say.  This is Swans Island 100% organic merino fingering.  Swans Island is in Maine - they have a very interesting story and concept - I would encourage you to read about their company.  This is early thyme and is a lovely bright crisp green.  The challenge on this CL project was that you choose a project that is "popular" on Ravelry - had to have at least 1000 projects or 1000 que'd projects and it also had to be a minimum of 500 yards.  I chose a Rose Beck pattern called And So Are You from her Roses are Red Violets are Blue series of shawls.  I can't wait to get started on this beauty.  I think a pattern like this needs a solid or semi solid yarn - not every pattern is suited to the beautiful overdyed yarns.

So last post I told you all about the wonderful workshop with Polly Minick - promised to show you one of the lovely kits I got from Polly.  Here is a minaturized version of her huge mermaid.  I love the canvas.

Here is a close up of the beautiful blues for the mermaid which just captured me from first glance.  I plan to make a few subtle changes but I'll let them be a surprise.  Who knows when I will ever get around to starting this sea creature but I have her stashed and that is most important.  I have another much bigger rug kit stashed from the workshop.  It is a much bigger sea creature therefore a much bigger canvas.  There is not a photo of it in the kit so I decided to make you wait a while longer to see that one.

Two posts in a week - what's the world coming to !  Just had to share my Whale with you and my excitement to have completed the first Camp Loopy with days to spare.  Hope everyone is having a wonderful summer so far.  June is drifting away - I might not be back to wish you all a Happy 4th of July - hope you have your patriotic stitching/hooking/knitting/quilting all lined up for the patriotic season.