Epic Lace Knit 2007-2008 has drawn to a close, and I think I’ve dragged the coverage out just about long enough. The fat lady has sung: the bride warmed her shoulders with her lilac lace during the wedding supper, and called it the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen and required that everyone admire it during her speech of welcome on the dance floor. That’ll do for me! So let’s say our goodbyes to the Mediterranean Ivy Lace:

I have the prettiest new sister ever, don’t I?

Final specs:

Mediterranean Lace by Maureen Egan Emlet, from A Gathering of Lace

Modified as a rectangular stole by working the ivy lace chart for the “wings” only, 16 repetitions. If you’re planning to knit this, note that 17 reps would have been a better number for picking up multiples of 42 sts for the edging. I would have run out of yarn, though. Speaking of yarn:

Most of 3 skeins (~1500 yards) ArtYarns Cashmere 1, in a color I call Pale Lilac. It isn’t listed on their website anymore, so it may be discontinued.

US#2 Addi Lacepoints for the body; US#0 regular blunt Addis, 48″, for the edging. Curse their stumpiness. I’d rather be cast into Tartarus than pick up 1200 stitches with them again.

Cast on in August 2007; finished in May 2008. I could’ve produced a baby in that time, folks. (And honestly, Marika would have been just as excited. But it wouldn’t have been as soft and pretty, and now I can sleep at night besides!)

So what’s next? I’ve just started the lace portion of my Indigo Ripples skirt. I think I’m going to like the fit a lot – I lengthened the stockinet upper part by a couple of inches for modesty, as I want to be able to wear this thing to school without scandalizing my colleagues or scarring the children. And yesterday I basted together my quilt sandwich and began hand quilting it. I’m going to do a mixture of hand quilting around some of the large flowers and machine quilting long vertical lines as given in the instructions. We’ll see how it turns out! But I’ve had to put the crafting on hold today. I’m blogging while I watch the conclusion of the Giro d’Italia, but then I need to get back to my major task of the weekend: I’m the faculty reader for a young man who has produced a 480-page historical fiction/biography entitled Aeneas of Rome as his graduation project. That’s graduation from the eighth grade, you understand. He’s been working with a classical scholar and a college English professor. The chapters open with quotes in Latin and Greek, with his own translations. The kid is going places. But he has to present his work to the faculty for review on Tuesday, so I’ve got my work cut out for me!

I don’t have photos of the Mediterranean Ivy Stole in action yet, and I know that’s what you’re waiting for. Ye olde husband convinced me to take the garment bag with all of our wedding finery home so he could travel less encumbered down to DC after the nuptials. This pushed me over the number of bags permitted on the airplane, so I swapped him for the camera bag. And like a fool, I didn’t confiscate the card before I handed it over. So, a distraction: How about I show you — three years late — some pictures of my wedding lace?

Since I like to trot it out again whenever the occasion allows, I wore it on the rehearsal night. It was very windy here by the water at the Wainwright House. See?

For those who haven’t been reading here for three years, this is the Baltic Sea Stole by Faina Letoutchaia. I used Madil Kid Seta (KidSilk Haze’s more modest cousin), every last inch of four balls. I also used some modifications to the chart graciously provided by Kate Gilbert, who knit one of these for her own wedding in a stunning magenta. Credit for the photos goes to my father. Thanks, Daddy!

And now, just to be a tease:

Let’s just say the stole felt right at home draped over the antiques in a beautiful bayside mansion.

5.18.08 5:58pm: Endless crochet bind-off row ENDED! This post made possible by play-off hockey, the prolonged human interest stories leading up to the Preakness Stakes, Master and Commander, the Giro d’Italia, a couple of rides on the MAX train while hunting wedding presents for my brother (who isn’t getting a lace stole), and Shakespeare in Love. I plumb forgot to call my parents on their 34th anniversary. But in case you missed the ice-cold reward:

Hendrick’s gin and tonic with hefty spears of cucumber = best summer drink ever.

My nemesis is now pinned to the carpet in an empty house (awaiting remodel to become classrooms) at school, safe from the predations of Mingus the cat and Lark the puppy. We’ve gone from this:

… to this:

Somebody bring me the finest muffins and bagels in the land.

Debby’s comment on the last post gave me the right analogy as I head into a weekend of insanity: Mr. G flies east on Sunday night to begin Best Manly duties for my brother, so there’s packing and cleaning and organization to do; an herb garden to plant with our neighbors; dog care to orchestrate; wedding gifts to plan and buy; absence from my job in the face of a huge looming project completion to prepare for; a fundraising run for Room to Read to participate in. Oh, and the Ivy stole to finish.

Four more rounds to knit on the edging, and then the beastly crochet chain to finish it all off. Debby and I share a love of knitting while watching professional cycling, so when she told me to dig into my suitcase, I knew exactly what she meant. Commentator Phil Liggett loves to say, when a rider hits the slopes of a tough climb at the end of a grueling day in the saddle, “He’s digging deep into his suitcase of courage now!” So into the suitcase I go, my friends. I should have some pictures of this life-sucking beauty for you by the end of the weekend.

Meanwhile, the weather couldn’t be less conducive to knitting. We’re taking aim at 97 degrees today (that’s 36 degrees for you Celsius folk, and much hotter than usual for May in Portland). The kids at school have been lobbying all week for their favorite hot-weather PE game, Drip-Drip-Drop. It’s like Duck-Duck-Goose, except that instead of tapping your friends on the head as you make the circle, you’re sprinkling – and then dumping – water on them. It sounds much more appealing than picking up the cashmere (thank goodness it’s laceweight – if Saxton and Marika lived in the southern hemisphere I could be knitting a Wedding Anorak or something). I got up extra early this morning to water the more tender plants and to sew the hem of my new sundress so I’d have appropriate garb to weather the stickiness while I knit like mad this evening.

So look out, world: I am turning a pedal in anger now! Bring on the mask of pain! I will not crack!