Messing Around Lace-knitting a Heart

For Christmas, I got Marianne Kinzel's "First Book of Modern Lace Knitting", one of the many good books in print from Dover. I want a heart for a bookmark I'll be making, so I modified the chart with three hearts in the back.

I guess this is a swatch. I'm using some old unlabelled tatting thread in either size 20 or 30, and size 00 needles from Susan Bates. (I wish the tips of these needles were more consistent!)

It's a nice little heart. The knitted lace ground is pretty, but the "slip 1, k2tog, psso" is slow going in this size. I am thinking about switching to a simpler ground, maybe even right in the middle of the swatch.

But I got distracted, what with a new Eileen Ivers CD playing and a Lego X-Pod being shown to me, and made a mistake I have to tink back on. So the knitting is in a time-out! Until it can behave.

In other news, yesterday I got an email that a hint I sent in to Don Aslett (Clutter's Last Stand, Not for Packrats Only, Lose 200 Lbs. This Weekend) won me a copy of his new book!

This is good news, given the influx of Christmas clutter. My house, and especially my studio (=the room where I weave, knit, tat, and store my stash), is much better than the days when I called my studio "that nest where I keep my loom". But I am feeling inspired to pass things I'm not using along to people who will use them.

And that brings me to Freecycle (tm).

I got stuff for Christmas. I have stuff I'm not using, in good, or great, or at least usable condition. I need to post that stuff on my local Freecycle! And what a great place (here on the blog) to note my progress or lack thereof. Watch this space for updates.