Creative Festival / Lace / Flowers

My friend, Meike, and I went to the Creative Festival yesterday. This is an annual craft show with a lot of quilting and sewing and a little yarn and knitting. I even saw some drop spindles which I am dying to try out.

One booth had a lot of fine lace perhaps knit out of alpaca which I was drooling over. It made me want to put in the time and effort to learn some lace patterns. I have some kidsilk haze in my stash that would make a lushous lace scarf. I saw the branching out scarf on knitty and thought that might make a good first lace project. What is a good first lace pattern?

I did start the Meadow Flowers Shawl (p. 22) from Knitter's Stash (ISBN: 1-931499-66-7) which you can see above. It starts at the bottom and increases to make the triangle, which leaves the project moving along quickly at the beginning and increasingly slower. This might not be a good pattern for me because n0w I have quite a few stitches on my needles, and I am intimidated by them. That is why I am thinking that a narrow scarf might make a better learning project than this one.

On another topic entirely, not even knitting related, I got blooms on my amaryllis! Every plant I try to grow that doesn't die from my lack of green thumb, will be eaten by the cats (esp. Dexter, see profile for picture.) So, someone suggested I try an amaryllis, that they were great for people who have trouble growing plants. Dexter did gnaw on it at first, but I guess it didn't taste very good, because he leave it alone now. Voila! I have some organic shapes and some lively color to brighten up my house. I have some other bulbs (I believe they are hyacinths) that I am going to start on next.