Spread your wings

A bread update- I've continued using my bread maker several times a week, and I've been tweaking the recipe. I've been adding rosemary, yum! I reduced the yeast a little more, and here's my last loaf:

I also made a sourdough starter today; that'll take a few more days before it can be used. I'm not a huge sourdough fan, but the rosemary bread that I've bought at the store is made from a sourdough base, so I figure that I'll give it a try. I love rosemary bread! I used to hate rosemary, but I've discovered that it was the texture of the whole leaves that I don't like, so I buy crushed rosemary and it's delicious.

As promised, here are some pictures of the flying elephants:






I started a new knitting project, a lace shawl. I've attempted lace before, but it proved to be too difficult and I ended up putting it aside. This is a different pattern, the Swallowtail Shawl (Rav link), and so far I'm enjoying it for the most part. The part I don't really like is having to re-knit parts of most of the rows because I screw them up one- or two- or three- or four times. It's a six-row repeat, with only the odd rows being part of the lace pattern, and I've done six out of fourteen repeats. Here it is:


Of course, since it's lace, it looks pretty crumpled right now. That's normal for lace, and it'll straighten out when I finish it and block it. I held it up to admire how much I'd done, and noticed this:


See it there, about midway up on the left side? No? Take a closer look:


That's half a row that I messed up, see how the pattern is shifted? (It's also a little messed up on the right side, but less noticeably.) But it's also three repeats back, which is a lot of rows, and since it's lace, I can't just drop stitches and fix it that way. Now I have to decide if it's a small enough error that I can ignore it and just keep going, or if I want to rip out the last three repeats and fix that row. For perspective, the shawl is something for me, and the part that that row is in is by the middle of the back neck, so not terribly noticeable; as I usually wear my hair down, it would be covered. Still, I am a bit of a perfectionist, and I'm still debating what I want to do.

Please vote in my poll at the top of the page!