An amusing little cartoon I found on another blogger's site. heheh .... however, back to the Lyra . I'm amazed at the poor quality of knitting on the Lyra in the picture below. The centre is sloppy and the ladders are very pronounced. I'm hoping my Lyra will not have these flaws. I'm also knitting the square version, and it will be stretched on an oak frame and hung in my dining room. My Lyra is cobalt blue, the wall is white, and I collect milk glass and cobalt blue glass, so the colour combination should be pretty dynamic by the time it's done! 

This is a scan of the Lyra picture that was in the folio. It clearly shows the binding and distortion on the third set of leaves, and I'm hoping to avoid that with either a needle size change or the addition of a couple of extra repeats of the mesh in those rows. I'm not even close to that yet, so I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. 

Ahh yes, the handwritten directions, from the chart, but NOT a run-on sentence, but a little verse that will make one round of beautiful knitting. This is an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, folded into quarters, and I can usually get two rounds written onto a quarter sheet. Last Saturday, we sat outside and I knit, using clothes pins to clip the written pattern to the right armrest of my lawn chair. Worked out perfectly! No long chart splayed out in front of me, with rulers and line markers, no bleeding eyeballs ;-) ... and lots of knitting! 

Here she is ... Lyra on the sticks. The real colour is not what you see here. I'm going to watch Canadian Idol tonight and knit a couple of rounds, while my kitty takes up residence on my lap, and Innu (the Malamute puppy) asleep on the floor beside me. 

Here is the belly button from the wrong side. This picture makes it much easier to understand the written explanation (maybe?). The thick white cotton is Bernat Crafter's Cotton, and that'll be cut off when I finish the centre. The fine white thread is Size 20, and obviously the strand of blue wool is my project thread. It's very fine 2-strand pure wool, and a real pleasure to knit with. The only problem is that the light source needs to be very strong, as knitting with a dark thread strains these old eyes much more than with the fine white thread.  

The belly button on the Lyra, with the right side facing. I tried to tweak the pic so the belly button would be easier to see, but the light of my scanner does obliterate some of the detail. Lyra is on my circular needle, and it's stuffed with several skeins of Size 20 white thread, just to bring out the pattern. 

Getting better all the time!

Yehaaaaaa (this is not to be mistaken for a connection to any religious group ;-) ... I got the Knitted Lace Ring HTML code installed and it works!

See, Eric, I can do some of this stuff even though you're still in France!

Coming up soon? Pics of my Lyra, on the needles, with the belly button, and then with the finished centre. Also, details of my "chaotic life", as seen through the camera lens.

Judge not, folks.