Various bits and pieces

I realise my blogging has been sporadic at best lately.  I'm not in a very good place right now due to one thing or another (mainly one thing) but I won't bore you with that.  Suffice to say my mojo is largely missing right now.  I have not been idle though, gentle readers, perish the thought!  I have been doing some bits and bobs of yarnery and stitchery that consists of following designs by other people thereby utilising their mojo while mine is off wandering.
I learned to knit and crochet when I was a child and have done most kinds of both crafts.  One branch of knitting eluded me though... lace. I can crochet lace no problem but have never got around to even trying knitted lace (i.e. shetland/orenburg/estonian).  My first attempt to rectify this lack was made 4 years ago during my chemo/radiotherapy treatments.  Needless to say it did not go well! Trying to focus on new and complicated techiques while your brain is fried by chemical and radiation poisoning is not really a good idea.  So, on clearing out some dark corners of storage cupboards I came across the patterns and yarn and decided to try again.  Here is where I have got so far:

This is one a third pattern repeats of the edging, and there are 49 repeats in total for just the edging.  It's taken me over a week to get this far, so I figure at least a year just to comlete the edge.  I think I'm doing ok, although I think the vine pattern may have gone adrift a couple of times by the look of it! It is intended to be the Magikal Earth Shawl by Sandy Terp and this is how the finished article should look

 
I have a long way to go!  In the meantime I found the level of focus and concentration needed for lace knitting was so high that I needed something simple to fit in between, so I took up the crochet hook and did a simple shrug for DD which I completed just yesterday

Finally I did get around to some papercrafting.  I decided I needed somewhere to keep cards I had made.  I had intended to use an empty cereal packet  but DD had a tidy session and threw them all away! I therefore scoured the net and found a tutorial from Inking Idaho which almost fit the bill. I wanted something a bit bigger though so I started with some 12 x 12 cardstock then covered it with some old K & Co papers from my stash

So, lots of little bits and pieces keeping me out of mischief.  Hopefully my mojo will come home soon and I can get really inky and messy!
Hope everyone is keeping well x