Mimosa in progress

a n w hug.jpgAre these two not the cutest ever? This is my niece and nephew, finally able to relax after a crazy week of touring Southern California after being awakened by the reverse 911 service in San Diego County. Mr. W lives with his yiayia in Rancho Bernardo and, along with his mom, dad, and yiayia were told to evacuate last Monday morning. They headed for Ms. A’s place in Poway. Shortly after arriving, Ms. A’s home was ordered to evacuate. By 7:30 AM, the whole clan was on the road, heading for Long Beach where yiayia’s friend has a home. I was already at work, so couldn’t offer shelter, and after a while, they ended up with another relative in Thousand Oaks for a couple days.
And all this only a month after being uprooted from his home in WA and moving in with yiayia. It must have been really confusing for the two of them. Now they are back to their homes, safe and happy, thank the great maker.
mimosa-1.JPGMeanwhile, back at the ranch… I started working on Mimosa. So far, I love it. It’s made with Euroflax Linen in a rich emerald color, and I am using green beads with a silver center. I tried for a while to find just the right iridescent frosted-glass beads, but I never did, so I chose these.
mimosa-3.JPGIt’s actually the most annoying part of working this shawl. You have to string all the beads in advance, then, as you work, push them down the yarn for a few meters at a time. It gets a bit tedious.
mimosa-4.JPGHere’s one of the balls before using it. The recipe tells you how many beads you’ll need for each ball, with the caveat that you may need more or less, depending on your knitting. I just strung all the beads and tagged each ball with it’s number so I would use them in the right order.
I am really looking forward to finishing, I am on ball 4 of 5 right now, and this crazy thing has you cast on 599 stitches, so I am working towards shorter and shorter rows. I like that. I can’t wait to see it all blocked and neat, since it’s getting bigger and more squished as I shove it into my knitting bag.
I still want to play with the palette yarns I picked up from KnitPicks, following the Seattle Feral’s ideas, and I also started on a pair of socks from Cat Bordhi’s new book but I don’t like them and will be ripping so there’s nothing to show here today on that project.