Red tulips

After 28 years, we don't always remember to be romantic so I was touched this morning to walk into the kitchen and find a pot of red tulips on the kitchen table, along with a card full of loving sentiment.



The sky is full of dramatic clouds which promise more rain and the possibility of thunder. It will be gray and cloudy tomorrow as well which in my book is perfect beading weather. A group of beaders is descending on my studio to learn Dancing Light. I think it's bound to be a fun day.

Yesterday I promised knitting photos....I did make the decision to rip back so there are only 3 rows for you to see here, but you can appreciate the gorgeous hand dyed yarn with it's vibrant pink and orange. This is jeweled cowl a free Ravelry download. It is a large cowl, worked in the round with an open weave of beaded stitches which shift every row so that the design ends up being diagonal. Fortunately there are only 15 beads every other round of 200 stitches. This pattern calls for them to be placed on the stitch with a teeny tiny crochet hook rather then being pre-strung. This orients the bead with the hole vertical as opposed to strung beads which are oriented horizontally on the ladder between stitches.



It is really good mindless knitting, the kind you can do comfortably after a long day of book related work. It's what I need right now,

And speaking of book, just to be clear, yesterdays photo was not a piece from my next book Beads in Motion published by Lark....those I'm keeping mostly under wraps (although if you see me out and about I could be wearing one, test marketing you know). Yesterdays piece was for a Kalmbach book featuring Swarovski crystals, due out next year, summer I think....