What? She's swatching?? Again???

Yeah - this new shawl (well actually it's a stole) design is turning out to be a little more complicated than it was first imagined to be.

I got the centre (using the swatched pattern I showed you earlier) finished up late last night.(you may notice I've changed yarn - I had to rip out a couple more times and I didn't want to wreck my Fluffy Cat - so I dug out some Cherry Tree Hill I had in the stash - it's studier and can handle a lot more frogging, I'll save the Fluffy Cat for somethign really special!)

I spent tonight charting out the next step in the pattern and kinda blew myself away with how intricate it is. It wasn't that long ago that I declared that I would never even knit a charted pattern, let alone actually chart one. Heck, it was only a few years ago that I declared I would never knit lace - period!

Anyway, after charting and talking to Mom, we decided it would be a good idea to swatch part of the chart so I can get an idea of the size before I go crazy and start knitting it onto the stole.Mom's going to start test knitting the pattern soon.

On other non-swatching fronts - on the weekend Dave and I took a day trip to his cottage on Long Point.

On the way there I made him take a little detour to Lens Mills in Port Dover where I picked up some supplies to whip up a couple more Summerlins for a couple of special girls I know.
I ended up spending a little more than I planned, but my splurge is going to become two truly pretty little dresses. For the yarn, I chose Patons Bamboo Baby - bamboo is so much softer than cotton, but still provides a nice cool fabric.

The fabric is fairly high-end quilting cotton, but it was so pretty I just had to get it - the pictures don't do it justice and the one on the left is much more purpley in person - closer to the yarn.

Boy- it's going to be a busy summer!