Pink and White and Blue

Knitting

Some finishing and some starting here. I did the tricky bit of the summer pudding Looped Bracelet,

and then I finished it. I made the tabs a bit longer this time.

I've started another one, with 10 stitches instead of 12. It's Koigu so 10 stitches should be a little daintier. Lynne has added some more bracelet patterns on her website. I've started Waves twice and am having a which-is-the-back problem, but someone on Ravelry has done it. There's a new Lynne Barr Ravelry group here.

I finished the latest Pinwheel blanket, the stripy green one, but I keep forgetting to photograph it. I finished the white Swallowtail and it looks like a piece of ectoplasm. I'll block it soon.

I've been swatching for some lace but I haven't blocked those yet so they'll have to wait.

And, before I knew it, I'd started this. It's another Swallowtail Shawl.

It's Ella Rae Merino Lace in a very beachy blue. Wendy of Wendy Knits made her Exonumist's Shawl from this yarn and I fell instantly and heavily for the colour. There are patches of a sort of pebbley colour, which I think is why it makes me think of beaches. I tried to wind the wool with my nostepinne but between my inexperience and the incredible bounciness of the yarn, I ended up with an enormous fankle which I had to rewind twice. I still love it though.

I found this knitting clock on John Naughton's blog. It's the work of Siren Elise Wilhelmsen and it takes a year to knit a two-metre scarf. I think we've all done that.

If you want to know more about it, look here.

Staring
I got the set of Yves St-Laurent docos, His Life and Times and 5 Avenue Marceau - thanks very much for the recommendation, Gretchen.
The first has a lot of talking, which is good, and the second has lots of fabric and talking and smoking, which is even better. I had no idea that being a muse was such hard work: it involves lots of cajoling and suggesting and enthusing, and long hours.

By chance a few days later I came across some more YSL visual goodies. When I'm not looking at knitting on Tinternet, one of my other vices is reading the Real Estalker, a real estate blog which concerns itself with the 'homes', never 'houses', of actors and other celebs. It's funny and well written. Just after I'd watched the YSL docos, what should I find but a post about YSL's properties. It starts by describing his pad in the 7eme (where else?) but also has links to the house in Tangiers, and the jaw-dropping Chateau Gabriel in Deauville, where the helipad has been disguised as a landscape feature.

And there's a post about the pied-a-terre in 5th Avenue, NYC. It all adds up to an awful lot of frocks. And maquillage. And scent. And shoes.