Trunk Show Loot!

But first, the irises started to open yesterday.

I love the faint, slightly lemon-y smell that irises have, and hurried to take a picture before the Japanese beetles start chewing on them.

It's a pleasure to have a camera that does the flowers justice.

And now, on to the trunk show loot.

I bought three more of the nice 4-0 needles Kathy Kirchner sells, but cropped them out of the photo. Just think slender shiny needles and you'll have the idea.

After sighing over many of Kathy's knitting and lace knitting books, I finally bought Marianne Kinzel's Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting.

The thread is more of the irresistible Valdani thread: two balls of the size 35/3, and some more of the hand-dyed perle cottons.

The colors are M40 and M45 in the top row, and M34, M60, M18, P7 (blues), and M72 in the bottom row. She had boxes of this thread -- there were many more I wished I could buy!

And then one of those ideas you find fully-fledged in your head: a way to block a knitted bookmark, if you happen to have a potholder loom and a pair of fine knitting needles.

I finished this bookmark quite a while ago, and it has been waiting for blocking. Suddenly yesterday I knew exactly how to block it, and it worked too well not to share.

I'm afraid the brown linen shows up all the defects of my knitting technique (see the difference between the two edges?) but from a *safe distance it looks fine.

*safe = far enough away not to be stabbed by the knitter with 5-0's.