A Flight of Butterflies

Still many days until the butterflies return, but how about a few beaded ones to brighten a wintery day?

The first three shown are from an ebook, Brick-stitch Beaded Butterflies by Karen Parker --

a Crimson Callicore:   

a Blue Morpho:

and lightly tacked down on my straw hat -- an Apollo butterfly:

So far, as you can see, I've only managed to put the Apollo to good use.  The Blue Morpho has always been meant to be transformed into a necklace -- but I have been stuck in a design rut as to how to finish it off.  My first thought was a silk ribbon, but then doubts crept in and there it sits.

The Crimson Callicore may end up as an ornament on a clutch, similar to how I used the last butterfly -- an anonymous figment of my imagination:

This one has been embroidered onto a backing of wool felt and sewn on to the flap of a little raw silk clutch I made. I'm sure I had some type of pattern (at least for the shaping) but I no longer remember where it might be from. 

I have beads to make a couple more -- there's something very relaxing and meditative about making them -- but I'd really like to find a better way of admiring them than atop a thread cabinet in the sewing room. Still, they do spark joy!

The miracle of blocking

I'm in the midst of knitting up a lace scarf - Star and Pine, by Anne Hanson - which is done in two separate pieces and then grafted together in the middle.  Yarn is a lovely blend of Blue Faced Leicester, silk and cashmere from Yarn Hollow in the White Pine colorway. It was one of the November projects from Knitspot's Fall in Full Color 2013 - and yes, it's taken me a good bit of time to get around to it!

It's taking me a while to finish up the second half, so I decided to do a little blocking of the first half to get a better idea of what to expect of the finished size.  If ever there's a type of knitting that transforms with blocking it's lace.

The first (out of focus) pic shows just how crumpled up and hard to visualize the pattern that unblocked lace can be.  In the second pic I have soaked (in Eucalan) and spun out the scarf half and pinned it out on a couple of foam blocks.  Mine aren't "official" blocking squares, but some I picked up at Costco many years ago.  Work just fine for blocking. The process would have been easier if I had been able to find my blocking wires -- I would have run a wire through each edge point instead of laboriously pinning everything, but can't find them since our move. Sigh. When I block the other half I'll probably run a sturdy crochet cotton cord through the points if the wires still haven't appeared. It won't be as easy as using the more rigid wires, but will be easier, and probably more even, than pinning.

And here's a closer look:

It transitions from tree shapes to a different pattern as it approaches the back neck.  I suspect they appeared star shaped to the designer (hence the pattern name), but they look more flower like to me. Regardless, I think it will be a lovely scarf when I finish!