sophy's knits, notes, etc.

this past weekend, erica and jeremy got married. but, a couple of weekends before that, hilary and i threw a bridal shower tea party for erica.

as you've probably realized, erica, hilary, and brenda are my dearest friends and partners in knitting mischief; when there's silliness and yarn involved, they're in the picture somewhere! so, i was really excited to plan and throw a party just for erica, and i could not have done it without hilary's superior organizational skills.

what's this? ...another shawl.

keeping in line with our knitting preoccupation, hilary and i decided to knit shawls for the bride in her wedding colors of blue and brown. i already had a pale blue lace weight yarn, so hilary chose a malabrigo sock yarn in a really luscious brown. you can read hilary's account of the day's events and see her lovely textured shawl and more fun photos.

closeup of ishbel and erica's neck!

pattern :: ishbel shawl by ysolda teague!
yarn :: malabrigo lace yarn, #32 jewel blue, 1 skein.
needles :: US 5 (3.75 mm).
start-to-end :: june 4 - 27, 2009.
modifications :: i used smaller needles and was concerned about the finished size; to make the shawl a bit larger i knitted: large stockinette and small lace (charts A, B, A, C, D, E). [ravelry]

it really was a day of fun. we stuffed ourselves with fruit, pastries (hilary makes fantastic lemon bars!), and delicious mini-sandwiches (cucumber with cream cheese, tuna salad, and watercress with goat cheese). we drank lots of home-brewed iced teas. we made origami stars. (ahh. high school memories.) and took lots of photos of erica!

erica and her handlebar mustache. this is why erica is so awesome!

of course, the prep for the party involved lots of other little crafty activities; and for my part, i ended up doing a lot of it at the last minute. i actually didn't finish ishbel until around 10PM the night before. after soaking and blocking the shawl, i finished sewing more ribbon roses (i wasn't happy with some i made weeks ago) and glued the lot onto little boxes for the party favors. now, for my own wedding favors 5 years ago, i made about 500 of these and swore i would not do them again; but they're quick to make and so pretty... i couldn't resist; of course, this time around i only needed to make about 15.

little boxes for the party favors: macarons from miette.

the last thing i needed to do, if i was going to do it, was paint these giant wood block letters. hilary and i had picked out some brown acrylic paint for this, but i really debated whether it was necessary. around 11PM, since the boys weren't yet home from their bachelor partying, i painted them. it started out as thin stripes to decorate one of the edges. the stripes got thicker. and wider. until eventually:

i think they turned out really nice!

i hope erica has fun memories of the day; i know i enjoyed meeting her non-knitting and fencing friends, whom i'd heard about from her many accounts of their activities.

...and now that her wedding day has come and gone, we need another crafting salon — i volunteer mrs. jeremy martin to host this one.

congratulations, erica and jeremy!