Fiber Optic Merino Cashmere Silk heavy lace, 615 yards x 2. It would be short with a fingering weight and a US 5 needle (needs 1432 yards) but with a US 4 needle, should be OK.

Red dragonfly, chartreuse pond weed, gold lilies.

Do this one fast for the Summer Solstice KAL. It will test the 3 panel version in the process.

The yarn is here. It looks like I can use US3 needles and 8/0 beads. That makes bead selection much easier. It also means I won’t be short yarn.

Wound the first skein using my U-Nitt ball winder. Ready to cast on and test the needle size and the workability of 8/0 beads.

I’m trialing the Verna-x Beadle needle for the beading. Very nice! See my project for this needle for more information.

Bead choices:
Center Water lily: T8-634 : Silverlined Gold AB from Whimbeads.
Inner Body: Miyuki 8-10 SL Flame Red from Earthfaire
Outer Body: Miyuki 8-10F SL Frosted Flame Red from Be Dazzled
Seaweed: Miyuki 8-18F Matte S/L Chartreuse from Caravan
Wings: 8-254D From Be Dazzled. A rainbow red that pretty well goes with the Flame red ones above.
Eyes: 8-454…no name, no manufacturer on the tube, but it looks good. Miyuki or Toho, in any case.
Outer water lily: T8-634: Silverlined Gold AB from Whimbeads.

Did Judy’s Magic Cast On to avoid having to graft the edging at the end. Worked great, as usual. This yarn is very, very soft, and very pleasant to knit. This will be a dense shawl on US 3 needles, but I think it will work.

The water lily center is progressing nicely.

I’ve now begun the dragonfly and the pond weed.

The dragonfly section of the pattern is done, so now I can move ahead with this one and not worry so much.

Found a few errors in the pattern. Fixed them.

I’m getting eager to finish this one. There is gonna be a whole lot of knitting going on. I’m starting to suspect I’ll run short of yarn, though. May have to cut the outer water lily short somehow. When I reach the 50% mark I can check to see if I have used more or less than half of the yarn.

I need to redesign the dragonfly and pond weed area. That is likely to cause a frog back of 30 rows.

OK, redesign done, frog back done, now knitting forward.

I spent the afternoon updating the pattern to get the “gotcha’s” fixed. Now I’m ready to start the wings. I’ll be working with 4 colors of beads in ever row until the eyes start. Then it goes up to 5 colors, but just for a little while. Lots of opportunity for error!

Did the lower edges of the wings this morning. It took 2 hours, as that is a very heavily beaded row, and it sets the location for everything to follow in the wings, so it had to be exactly right. Plus, there were some fixes for 2 rows below. All ready to wing it now!

I’m getting close enough to 50% done to see that I will have plenty of yarn. There will be yarn left over.

Need to frog back 6 rows and change the positions of some beads.

This will be my “yellow jersey” for the Tour de Fleece, so I’m including the Tour de Fleece start photo.

The halfway point at last. And I see a missing bead 8 rows back. I’ll sew it in later. Mutter!

Back wings done, front wings begun. Need to make photos.

Hey, according to the photo, those wings are going to be good! So is the body.

I’m now just past the area where I was working 5 colors of beads in each row. Down to 4 colors.

I’m now reworking the eyes. Tinking back just the eyes, and installing new improved ones. They look a lot better, but this yarn is so soft that tinking is difficult. And I just flipped my bead loader off the table, scattering beads all over the floor. But it will get done. So far 2 hours into those eyes, and there are 2 more hours to go. Then forward to finish the dragonfly.

The eye transplant took 5 hours, and lots of gnashing of teeth! But it is done now, and I’m moving forward.

Into the outer water lily now.

Bound off on July 15. It is now in the water soaking for blocking. I should be able to get photos tomorrow.

Just holding it up, it looks very good. I think I have a great one here!

Now to go on to sample it in other colorways, including The Unique Sheep’s Midsummer Pond. Brilliant yellow is not everybody’s favorite color. :-}

There was plenty of yarn left over.

I like how it came out. The dragonflies look like dragonflies this time. I like the outer edge, and I like the center.