She sells seashells

Well, they're not for sale; it's not even my pattern. But I finished my domino shells project and even blocked it. (This is becoming a habit!) The silk and alpaca yarns responded to the blocking really beautifully.



I'm very pleased with it. I'm sure that you can see that I ran out of yarn up at the top, but I'm happy with how I handled it, although it would have been fun to make the partial shells that the real pattern called for.

Another first for me, is that it makes a twinset with my Chequers cardigan.



Of course, the tank is knit out of yarn leftover from the cardigan; how many other twinsets originate that way?

Three or so years ago, Vera gave me a ball of yarn with very silly pompoms. I puzzled over what to do with it, since the pompoms are so big that they couldn't be drawn through loops in either crochet or knit. It occurred to me recently that I could carry it along within single crochet, just as the unused yarn is hidden in tapestry crochet. So I decided to make a bathmat.



You will be unsurprised, I'm sure, to hear that I bought the white cotton yarn I'm using. But I was surprised to find that, not only does Bernat make an organic cotton yarn, sold at big box stores near you, but also that I could order it through Amazon. I had to do it, just because I could.

I spent a week in Eureka with my best friend and her family, and we went to a really great store in Arcata, called Daisy Drygoods. It had scads of vintage knit and crochet patterns (along with trim, buttons, vintage clothing and fabric) and I scored a beautiful 1947 Fleisher pattern book.





Although they're all knit at 7 or 8 sts/in, I'm sorely tempted.