Casablanca w beads

I've restarted Casablanca again. I was looking for beads for Mystery Stole 4 and saw some beads that I thought would look really good with the yarn I had picked out. When I got home, I decided that they'd look even better with the yarn for Casablanca. So, I frogged it back to where the first bead would be placed. And since I was frogging anyway, I decided to redo the pattern again a bit. The major change is to make the hour glasses at the beginning look like hour glasses (instead of vines, as in my first attempt). Then I also added a wine glass for Rick's.

It looks a lot better with beads (glass seed beads, size 6/0, Kirschberg turquoise/green mix). However, I discovered that Knit Picks isn't selling the color yarn I need for the stole any more -- Palette Nutmeg. So, I'm trying out buying yarn from someone on Ravelry. (I need 2 skeins -- for a total of 6.) The yarn is going to be shipped today.

In another vein, when we lived in NJ, we stained our mailbox a brownish cedar color. Then we ended up painting our house to match the mailbox. We recently got some new furniture for our living room. It matches our cats.

Now, getting back to knitting..... I'm again trying to make lace curtains -- this time for over the kitchen sink. I'm using the pattern from Secret of the Stole 3 -- starting at row 87. (I had started on some lace curtains for my DD's room with a different yarn. But, that was before we moved.)

I'm also making a pullover for DS2 using Homespun (that had previously been made into a shawl that looked more like a blanket and so was frogged). The pullover looks nice so far. In fact, I've gotten some compliments on the yarn. -- I had to frog and start over twice in order to get the neck as snug as he liked. To get it snug but yet able to fit over the head, I cast on 50 sts using a knitted cast on and then did 6 rounds of k1p1 ribbing -- using size 10 needles. (DS2 is taller than I am.)

By the way, I read online (Yahoo! Sockamaniac group, I think) that size 10 mercerized cotton can be used for socks. .... sounds interesting ....