Bead Still My Heart

Today was the second (and final) part of my knitting with beads class. Can I say Laura Col is an amazing teacher and her and her husband are incredibly generous people?! At both class sessions we were treated to wonderful treats including a nummy food, a wooden bead spinner and other beading paraphernalia to get those rascally beads in line (and on the yarn), and today a needle holder hand made by Laura's husband. It is gorgeous and will hold a crochet hook or shorter dpns.  Check it out!

Here are the beaded fingerless gloves that I started in the class.  I am using Hand Jive Knits Nature's Palette Fingering in Hydrangea (it is a light purple gray) and I am using and iridescent gray bead.  Here is my beginning:

While I was at it, I thought I would give an update on a couple other WIPs.  First is my new winter hat. The pattern is called Rose Red (rav link), but I am calling it my Blue Pine Rose.  It is a pretty quick knit and I have only worked on it here and there over the past week and I am already about half way done.

I also have almost 3 hanks of 10 finished on the Lace Cable Shawl I am making for a sample at Paradise Fibers. This is a close-up so you can see the lace and cables.

I also have another project in the works for an upcoming swap that I will not share because I do not want to spoil the surprise.  We will also ignore more currently hibernating projects because I don't want to talk about it and my inability to find the incentive to complete them.

I also want to share this picture I snapped from our backdoor this morning. Every morning I let Charlie outside when I wake up and get on with my morning rituals.  Typically, Charlie lets me know when he is ready to come back it by getting a little scratch on the back door.  This morning it was seeming to take longer than normal for him to let me know it was time for him to come back in so I checked on him and caught him sunbathing with no intention of coming in any time soon.

I love this picture with the carpet of leaves that dropped during our rain storm yesterday and the glow of the sun on everything.