alpaca love

today, my friend and i went to alpacapalooza! i've been wanting to go for months, ever since i first learned of the festival from a fridge magnet on my office refridgerator for a previous alpacapalooza. i think the festival lived up to the enormous hype i'd built up in my mind - there were SO many adorable little alpacas, and tons of alpaca yarn for sale too. i was well behaved and didn't buy any yarn (or alpacas for that matter, though i was tempted), but i definitely fondled a lot of yarn, watched some being spun, petted some alpacas, and even got a kiss from one! we decided we definitely want an alpaca farm one day - i want a fluffy tan alpaca, to be named butterscotch. :) here are some pictures from our day.

















(sorry for so many pictures...i couldn't pick just a few)

ooh! i also got some exciting mail yesterday. a month or so ago, i commented on kristie's blog that i loved the green yarn she was using for a pair of socks. she responded that it was one of the few australian sock yarns that she thought was really good, and would i like to do a sock yarn swap? knowing what an awesome swap partner she is, i was quick to agree. and she sent me the best stuff! the yarn is gorgeous and so soft, and lots of lovely shades of green - i like how it is labeled as 'cheerfully handpainted'! and then she also sent me a cute brooch that i've already worn twice, a little fabric pouch, a sweet little roll of trim (i'm so excited to find something to use this with!), and a cd of australian bands. i love it all! thanks kristie!

fake it 'til you make it

i'm sure you've all been sitting on the edges of your seats, waiting to find out if the sock fit my bro's foot, right?! well he called me yesterday to say that in fact, it's way, way not going to fit. at this point, i'm ok with it. i think i've recovered. but i'm not feeling the urge to start over right away...he's moving to vancouver in august for grad school, and i've promised to have them done by then...that seems fair, right? he probably wouldn't be wearing them now anyway since it's warming up. but when i do start over, i think i will go up a needle size (or rather, switch to the addi turbo size 1s that i recently bought, which are bigger than the inox size 1s i was using), and i think i might use a different heel flap. i think the pattern has a dutch heel flap, and it looks cool, but i feel like even with a bigger sock, this heel isn't going to fit right. so that's my plan, and i'm sticking to it....when i feel like it, that is!

moving on...last week i had a miserable cold and i still am suffering from insane sinus pressure. no fun! it's left me absolutely exhausted in the evenings, and completely uninterested in knitting. still, i managed to knit one half of my fake-a-gamo bag last week. i'm making the bag in a pretty yellow called buttercream, and if all goes to plan, this will be my first yellow-green-pink project for the next two months of project spectrum. i am way excited to be starting the new colors...i have a lot i'd like to get done in those two months. i have an orangina that i started last july that it would be nice to finish (it's a lovely fennel green), i have two sock yarns that would make perfect green and pink project spectrum socks, and i also plan to make some endpaper mitts as a birthday present. plus i do have some gray and white projects to finish as well!



anyway, back to the bag, it's such a fast and fun knit! i love the part where you double-wrap the stitches, then drop the double wrap on the next round and knit all 11 of the stitches together. it's such a cool trick. i'm using cotton fleece instead of the called for classic elite provence, and as a result it's knitted up quite a bit smaller than the pattern's called-for dimensions. i think i'm ok with that though, and i think this is going to look pretty cute when it's all done. i'm going to line it with this fabric, and i still haven't decided on handles. but the big question is, curlicues or no curlicues?

winning the battle...

...but unfortunately, not the war.

here we have one completed, giant boy sock. awesome! i'm half way done with what turned into a pretty boring project.



but here's where this story gets sad. when i finished the sock, i was so excited, and quickly coerced my husband into trying it on for me. he kind of grumbled a little, then obliged, taking off his sock and shoe and pulling on the new sock. and he tugged and pulled and kind of twisted, and finally sort of managed to get the sock on his foot, but clearly, it was a bit too small. the heel is fitting weird, and the sock just looks, well, stretched. and the sad part? my husband wears size 12s. these socks, for my brother, were supposed to fit a size 13. my excitement very quickly turned to panic and just....aaaaaiggggghhh! how could this happen? it's not a gauge issue, and i used a sock size card to figure out how long to make it. where did i go wrong?!

so my brother hasn't actually tried it on yet. we're seeing him on sunday (for his birthday dinner...i am officially not getting these socks done in time), and i'm going to have him try it on. maybe my husband just has really fat feet (sorry honey!). but if not, and if they don't fit, then what? i've never ripped back a sock before. i don't think i'd know what to do. it can't be that hard - these are just plain stockinette afterall, but when i make a mistake in my knitting, i have to admit, i usually will either ignore it or just start over. that's terrible, isn't it? so i'm looking at this as a potential learning experience. i don't want to start over!

wish me luck (or wish for my brother's foot to fit...)!

yay, yarn!

thanks everyone for all the well-wishes on the home-buying front. it's pretty exciting! though this is a prime case for my true worry-wort self to show through.

so today has been so good! i wish all saturdays were like this. we started out by spending a few hours with our realtor looking at places, then i've just spent the rest of the day relaxing and getting free yarn! i went to my favorite yarn store to spend the final $10 on my punch card ( i got two balls of jamieson's shetland spindrift for some more stranded mittens or fingerless gloves) and with my filled card, i got a few skeins of cotton fleece to make fakeagamo. free yarn=free purse!

when i got home, i had a package waiting for me from my friend aruni. aruni and i both frequent a music message board, but on this board she and i and a few others have secured a tiny little corner where we can talk about knitting. and we all decided to do a little secret pal swap type thing. so aruni was my swap person, and she sent me the best stuff!

aruni (who has a blog by the way...go check it out!) lives in nyc, and she sent me some gorgeous silk/cotton blend yarn from school products, in a great burgundy color. she also sent me some noro aurora that i'm really excited about, and some habu textiles silk/mohair blend that i'm seeing as a cute little lacy scarf. and she also knitted me a dishcloth! i really scored. thanks aruni!





and on top of all that, i get to go to the theater tonight to see this play. hope you all have a good weekend too!

bits and pieces

i'm finally working on the foot part of the first of my brother's socks! i don't know why these are taking so long...i mean, i thought the long part would be the size 13 foot part, not the leg, right? needless to say, i don't think these will be done for my brother's birthday on the 26th...hopefully it won't be too long after that though. also, hopefully the stockinette will even out a little with some blocking. i'm not feeling too jazzed about these at the moment



i've also been working on clementine...this is such a fun knit! it's easy, and i think it's shaping up nicely. i'm about 10 rows from being done with the increasing of the first half. i don't know if this is a common feature of lace shawls or not, but this shawl is knit in two identical pieces, then kitchenered together at the end. i'm a little freaked out by the prospect of so much kitchener stitch...that will be about 70 stitches, which right now seems daunting. i've done it before, and it's not technically hard, but it still scares me!



other than that, i haven't been working on much these days. we're in the process of shopping for our first house (more likely condo or townhouse), so that is taking up a lot of my free time at the moment. it's exciting but scary - wish us luck!

cocktail coasters

i promise i'm knitting...really! but i've been wanting to make these for a while, and receiving some cool new fabric in the mail this week seemed like the perfect excuse to finally do something about it. so no knitting for now, but instead some cute new coasters for the living room:



my sewing machine and this project just did not want to play nice together. i don't know what the problem was, but it seemed that i spent more time re-threading the machine and un-stucking jammed up threads than i did actually sewing these. so if you look closely (please don't), you'll see that their construction is pretty sloppy. but if you look big picture, i think the results are pretty great: i LOVE these fabrics and colors together. i think i'll give these a test spin and have a big ol' icy adult beverage to celebrate!

trekking to shoreline

this weekend i bought...more sock yarn and another sock book! two things i definitely don't need, but i oh-so-wanted them, so there you go. they are mine!



first up was some trekking xxl in shade 100. i believe this shade is somewhat famous, and i can see why - it's so cool and stripey, and the colors are perfect. on friday i braved the horrible rain and made my way over to village yarn and tea in shoreline to check out the store and also to say hello to yarn pirate, who was having a trunk sale there that night. though the shop is a bit out of my way to go there regularly, i'm glad i got to see the place and try out a new yarn store - i tend to only buy yarn from one or two shops here in seattle, and sometimes i forget that there are actually lots of great places here. i picked up some yarn pirate (not for me!), and then somehow that trekking found it's way into my hands and just wouldn't let me put it down. it was love at first sight - i'm having dreams of rainbow stripey loveliness, possibly in the form of another pair of ribbed socks from knitting vintage socks. and as the predominant color here seems to be green, i think these may have to be made for april/may project spectrum - we'll see!

and then there is the new interweave sock book, favorite socks. i went to get it a week or so ago at weaving works and was told that they couldn't keep it on the shelves. but they put me on a hold list for when they got more copies in, and saturday i finally picked up my copy. i don't think i love all of the patterns, but i do love a lot of them. i'm thinking the padded footlets will be one of the first i make - they sound so cozy and cushiony, and they look pretty quick to make as well. i'm all about the slipper sock, so i think i'll get a lot of use out of these. and meida's socks, and the embossed leave socks, are beautiful too. and the bonus of buying this book is that it has put me ten tiny little dollars away from filling my punch card at weaving works! i guess that means i've spent quite a lot of money at weaving works over the past couple of months, but never mind...i get free yarn next time i go!

no knitting of consequence to show off...later this week i'll have a turned heel to show on my brother's socks (which are taking forever), as well as the clementine shawlette that i've started, and some quilted coasters that are going to be so cute!

i'll just leave you all with a little taste of the springtime that seems to be settling in here...today it was easily 60 degrees outside, and when i was walking home tonight, i found this beautiful tree, filling the air with the smell of flowers. yay!

fo: purl beret

this weekend i somehow injured my lower back (while i was sleeping no less!) so i spent much of the weekend on the couch, leaning on either a heating pad or a frozen bag of edamame, knitting away. nothing really makes you feel like you're starting to get old (i'm 27!) like not being able to fully stand upright, or having trouble putting on pants. but besides all that, i did get a lot done on my brother's socks, and i finished my beret!

it was really touch and go with this project - if you'll recall, i had a few false starts, and then once i really got into it, i realized that i might not have enough yarn. in one of the earlier incarnations of this hat, i was knitting with the recommended size 3 needles, and it seemed too small. so i frogged and moved up to size 4s, and in doing so, i think (well, i know) i used more yarn than the pattern really called for. and since this was koigu, and it was of course the last of the color when i bought it from my lys a few months back, i felt i had very little chance of getting the exact same yarn. so i just hoped for the best!

the pattern calls for knitting the hat 4" from the start before decreasing, with the option to make a floppier hat by knitting 4.5-5" instead. i was hoping for a floppier hat, both because i prefer the look and also because my head and hair are both big, so i thought a little extra room would be nice! but since i was afraid of running out of yarn, i stuck to just over 4". now i wish i'd been a little more daring, as i did end up having probably five yards of yarn left - enough for that extra inch. oh well. the hat is a little small but i think it looks pretty cute anyway.





the specs:

pattern: purl beret - i've yet to try one of their patterns that i haven't loved.
yarn: koigu kpm, and i've lost the little tag so i can't tell you what the color number is, but we'll just call it blue. or maybe...sapphire blue, just to be a little more exciting. as the pattern pointed out, the decreases really stand out and look great with the variations in this handpainted yarn.
needles: clover size 4 16"-circulars and dpns.

ooh! i also made blueberry bran muffins this weekend. they are yummy in a very healthy tasting kind of way...and with peanut butter and honey, they are just plain yummy.

project spectrum around the house

i feel like i haven't blogged in ages! my dad was in town since thursday for a long weekend, and even though i took friday and today off work (no holiday off for me...), i feel completely exhausted. it's hard work being a hostess! but my dad, my brother, our spouses and i had a pretty good weekend: we went here, and here, and here, and managed to occupy ourselves in various ways for the rest of the weekend.

so with all that going on, my knitting projects haven't gotten a lot of attention. i re-started my beret, and started nancy bush's gentleman's winter socks for my brother, for his birthday. i'm using yarn pirate's new semi-solid yarn, in fog. it's beautiful, and just right for this month's project spectrum. but like i said...for my brother, and his size 13 feet! these are going to take a while. here's a really, really dark picture of my progress so far:



since i don't have much else to show you, i thought i'd look for the blue, gray, and white around my house, and i found quite a lot! sorry...most of these pictures are 'artfully' blurry. it's such a dark, dreary day today that i have no chance of getting anything better unfortunately.

some fabric from superbuzzy that i'm going to use for some coasters and other fun stuff:



our telephone (which we almost never use, in this age of cell phones, but still it looks nice):



i made this string of origami lights last year. the little balls are called water bombs. some of them are blue:



a blue melmac tray that i found at an antique store in tucson last summer:



a little owl crumb sweeper!



one half of my hello kitty/dear daniel book ends:



and some blue, white and gray buttons from my button collection:



that's all for now...hopefully i'll have some real knitting to show and some better quality pictures later in the week!

also...i just installed halo scan for my comments, because i'm tired of not being able to reply to comments with blogger! which is exciting, but i just realized that in doing so, i deleted all my old blogger comments, which makes me kind of sad.

i quilted!

remember, oh, about a month ago when i mentioned that i had started a log cabin quilted throw pillow? well, it sort of languished on a living room chair for several weeks after that, until this weekend when i decided to finish it. i was pretty much done sewing the pieces of the top together, but i still had to do the actual quilting part. i've never quilted anything before, and though this piece is about as easy as it comes, i was still so scared to take the sewing machine to my beautiful, carefully sewn together piece! the quilting is one big concentric circle of lines, and i had to stop after each line and kind of take a deep breath and convince myself that everything was going to be okay. and it really was okay!

front:



back:



the pattern is lisa congdon's, from the crafter's companion, a book that i am really enjoying. the fabric was just lots of little things i've picked up, both vintage bits as well as goodies from purl and superbuzzy. i like how this pattern allows you to really use up scraps of fabric, and it was fun (though sort of stressful!) putting the colors together. i deviated from the pattern slightly in a few places - i didn't use pre-quilted fabric pieces for the back, but opted instead to just sew some batting to a large square of fabric i had lying around. i also omitted the ribbon ties on the back - i added them, but they weren't really laying right, so i took them off.

i love how the end result looks, and i think i will make a mismatched pair for it. and now i'm setting my sights a little higher for my next quilting project...maybe even an actual quilt!

oh yes...and a second finished object as well: i finished the pair of fetching(s?) that i made for a friend - i gave them to her yesterday, and i think they were well received. nevermind that a few of the cables are cabled the wrong direction, but it's pretty hard to tell. oops!



these are made with rowan classic yarns cashsoft dk, in poppy. i made the last pair of fetching with this yarn too - it's so smooth and soft and squishy!

blue, gray, white...it's project spectrum!

so this first set of colors for project spectrum hasn't gotten of to a great start...as i mentioned the other day, i started a navy blue beret as my first project...well, i'm on my second attempt at knitting the beret after some drunken, post-book club knitting last week, and let's just say it's not going to be the last attempt either. i was in denial at first, but i think before i get any further with the hat i need to face the fact that it's knitting up a lot smaller than the pattern (like maybe baby beret size). i think i'm going to try going up to size 4 needles instead of the 3s. i feel like this should have been a project that i whipped up in like a day, but hey...i've got a month and a half left to finish it!

in the meantime, i've deviated from the color scheme in favor of another pair of fetching for a birthday gift, this time in a gorgeous poppy red. so like i said...project spectrum isn't off to a real rip-roaring start here around my house, but if all goes to plan (and i'm sure it won't), by the end of the two months we'll have a white trellis baby sweater, a white clementine shawlette, and some gray nancy bush 'gentleman's plain winter socks,' in addition to the beret. i think i'll also be making some little quilted coasters in shades of navy and turquoise, with a little brown thrown in.

i'm excited for this first round of colors - i love the combination, though they don't seem to be shades that i knit with often. and blue, gray and white just seem so february, don't they?

since i don't really have any knitting to show, here's some project spectrum photography of a more general nature: gray and white geese in the pond outside my office.

saturday knitting

yesterday i had the best knitting day! i started out by hitting the yarn store nearest my apartment, one i don't particularly care for, but it is the only local place that sells str. so i picked up some watermelon tourmaline, with the intent of making a scarf similar to maritza's. i am obsessed with that scarf! i still need to get the farmhouse half of the yarn combo, but the scarf will be mine! then i stopped at my favorite yarn shop and got a few random items (including some addi turbos...guess who's going to give magic loop a go for her next pair of socks?!), then i rounded out my yarn store tour by going to hilltop for their spinning demo. i got to meet georgia finally, and also sarah, and lots of other nice gals! and i think i might sign up for their spinning class in march - seeing the demo inspired me and got me excited to try spinning!

after coming home and relaxing a bit after all that yarn store excitement, i went to a knitting night that my friend shannon invited me to, which was lots of fun. giant pieces of cheesecake, hoegaarden, people talking about knitting as excitedly as i do, getting to work on my first project spectrum item (a navy koigu beret)...these are the makings of a good time in my book.



i need more saturdays like this one!

fo: lichen ribbed socks

i finished my second complete pair of socks! hooray! and i love them so. my jaywalkers will always have sentimental value as my first pair, but these...these i will actually wear, and wear often.



you might recall that i started these way back in november. i knit the first sock almost entirely during the week we spent in the uk, and then when i got back to seattle, i never quite got around to starting the second sock during the holidays. january came around and i was finally able to start the second sock. i significantly picked up the pace on this pair: the first sock took basically a week, and this one probably took a week and a half? two weeks? not a world record by any standards, but still an improvement over last time.



so the pattern is nancy bush's lichen ribbed socks from knitting vintage socks. the only thing i didn't like about this pattern is the welsh heel - it has a weird seam down the center of the heel that i just don't find appealing. but since you can't really see the heel when wearing them, it's hardly a problem. the pattern was so easy to follow, and i love how the finished socks fit - the three-point star toes look a little weird, but fit great. i will be knitting many more of nancy's sock patterns, for sure.

and the yarn! this is yarntini's cherry cordial self-striping sock yarn. it was my first experience using self-striping yarn and i think i'm hooked. plus, my stripes match up! i stupidly started decreasing for the toe about three rows too late on the second sock, so the very tip of the toe has slightly mismatched stripes, but i'm just going to call it even.

madrona stash enhancement

yesterday i went to madrona and had lots of fun in the marketplace! i think i did pretty well - i can comfort myself with the fact that my friend spent way more money than i, and i came home with some dreamy stuff! i even spotted a yarn harlot while i was there, so i think the day was a success.

one of my new year's knitting resolutions is to try out a more complicated lace project than i've done before (which isn't saying much - orangina is about as complicated as i've gotten). so to get me started on that, i picked up some handmaiden sea silk. i loooooooove this yarn. i keep petting it. they were running low on this stuff by the time i got there, and they only had a few colors left. i almost wish i'd chosen the red now, because i'm a little scared that a lace shawl in white is going to look too bridal, but we'll see. regardless, i am in love with this yarn.



apparently i plan on making TWO lace pieces this year, because i also picked up some of this italian cashwool yarn as well. it's by zegna baruffa, which i'd never heard of before, and it actually doesn't have any cashmere in it at all - it's 100 percent extra fine merino. it is the skinniest yarn i've ever seen, and so soft. and a bargain at $13 a skein! i think i'll have to use two strands of this stuff together, but i loved the color and think it will make another pretty shawl. now i just need to pick out some good shawl patterns! the frog tree stuff shown with it is to make the beret from the winter interweave knits issue. i am such a sucker for that shade of green. other than that, i just picked up a few issues of knitscene, which i'm excited about. i was good and skipped the str table and some nature's palette sock yarn. go me!



and finally, i didn't buy this at madrona, but i bought it recently and it deserves showing off. it's some blue skies alpaca royal in the color 'spanish leather.' it's so soft, and the color is perfect. i'm not sure what to do with it yet - i was thinking some full-length arm warmers but when i shared that idea with one of my friends, they said they thought that wouldn't be very practical or wearable, so now i'm kind of undecided. i want to do something special with it. any ideas?



and here's where spike decided to join the photo shoot...



i'll have pictures of my finished socks later this week - i just have the toe left to do so they should be done very soon!

fo: not-so-green greenaway fingerless gloves

on friday evening, i was overcome with the NEED (yes, NEED!) to make some fingerless gloves out of some malabrigo that i had kicking about. so i put aside my sock (which is past the heel! it won't be long now til i can wear them) and picked up the malabrigo and some size 6 dpns, and whipped these babies up. the whole thing only took a few hours, spread out over the weekend, and before i knew it i had some fingerless gloves. i have to say, even though i love the yarn, and i like the pattern in theory, something about these just aren't right to me. i feel like they are a bit of a let-down, a bit too easy maybe, or perhaps it's just that there aren't any real bells or whistles here to be excited about. i don't know. i will certainly wear them - my living room gets cold cold cold in the winter, and my fingers often get stiff while knitting in such conditions. so they'll get a lot of use i'm sure. and i actually might even make some more - i have a lot of this malabrigo left, and i think some fingerless gloves would make some nice birthday/no occasion gifts for some people, so maybe it's just a matter of tinkering with the pattern a little to make them more exciting? i don't know.

i can say this...i'm not done with the fingerless glove, that's for sure. this project didn't really satisfy my craving for them, so i think there will be several other pairs made in the coming months. please don't get bored when i post a picture of yet another pair! i know i will be making eunny's endpaper mitts soon, and i have some gorgeous baby alpaca that i think will turn into full-arm fingerless gloves. plus, the gifts i already mentioned. perhaps this is my Year of the Fingleress Glove?

anyway, here are the specs on this first pair (please ignore my grubby pjs!)



pattern: greenaway fingerless gloves, by purl bee
yarn: malabrigo, in red mahogany, about half of one ball
needles: brittany birch dpns, size 6

also...is it totally bad form to gush about the fact that i won a blog contest?! i WON! i'm so excited! and not just any blog contest...yarntini's! she emailed me last week to tell me i had won her last contest, and my goodies arrived on friday. she spoiled me big time. not only did i get some of her gorgeous sock yarn in a new colorway (pomtini!), she also sent me what is actually one of my favorite chocolates (dark chocolate with crystallized ginger), a pretty journal, and some yummy smelling sachets which have already been put to good use in my closet and underwear drawer. thanks again jessie!

madrona fiber arts fest

anyone going to the madrona fiber arts winter retreat next weekend? i'm getting really exited about it - it will be my first yarn fest, and it's only a week away! i decided not to take any of the classes (though i may change my mind before next weekend - i think there are still spots available), but my friend and i are going to go on saturday and check out the marketplace. if you are going on saturday, let me know - i'll keep an eye out for you!

snow days

seattle seems to be getting the rest of the country's cold winter weather. we had yet more snow last night and this morning! it means that i got to work from home again, which is nice. and the snow is pretty, but geez! i'm ready for some normal seattle winter weather: wet and mild. bring on the rain and mid-40s temps!

still, look how pretty this is. it's my office park, taken on monday. note the frozen-over duck pond. where do the ducks go when that happens?!



i don't have a whole lot of interest on the knitting front. i started my second lichen ribbed sock, in the yarntini cherry cordial. this yarn is sooo lovely. it's so vibrant, and i love the gradual change in colors, and the stripes. i'm happy to say that so far, my stripes on this sock are lining up exactly with those of the first. i can't wait to wear these!



actually, i've been spending a lot of my free time lately working on this:



it's a log cabin quilted throw pillow, design my lisa congdon. a while back, i got this book, and this pattern is one of the projects in the book. i am by no means a strong sewer; i'm still fairly terrified of my sewing machine. but i decided that this year i would get better, and i thought that lisa's pillow pattern would be a good learning project. i'm about to start the quilting part - we'll see how that goes! - but i'm really enjoying the sewing part this far. i can see myself making many of these pillows as gifts! it's a fun way to use a lot of different fabrics, both vintage pieces that i've found over time and new fabrics that i've been dying to put to good use.

pictures of both projects when they're done!

fo: cashmere cowl

yay! my first finished project of 2007. i finished this sunday evening (it's just been too dark to take a picture), and i think i like it. perhaps slightly less than i thought i would, but it's still really nice. i think maybe if i make another, i will make it a little wider, and maybe a little longer - i wish it was a little drapey-er than it is, though my finished dimensions match those of the pattern. it should be the perfect size though to fit nicely under a cardigan or coat, and it really is very cozy. and i can't overstate how nice this yarn is - so wonderfully soft, and the color, with its subtle variations in shade, is lovely.

i have quite a bit of the yarn left - any ideas on what to do with it? it's fingering weight, and the project would need to be fairly small, as i don't have that much left - probably about 200 yards of the original 400, maybe a little less? it seems a waste to let it languish in my yarn stash, doing nothing, when it's so beautiful and deserves to be seen!





pattern: purl bee's cashmere cowl
yarn: jade sapphire's 100% mongolian 2-ply cashmere, color: tourmaline
needles: denise needles, size 8

even though i loved using the cashmere, my mom showed me this article and it made me sad. i don't know what to think - is it bad to buy cashmere yarn? the article refers to cheaply manufactured sweaters, but i would guess cashmere yarn contributes to the problem, though the demand is surely not as great. does anyone know anything else about this? i'm really curious now.

anyway...enough of that. in better news, i have a new camera! ever since i started my blog, i've become painfully aware of how crappy my camera is. i've had the same tiny 2 mp camera for like four years now. this new one is much nicer. hopefully you'll see an improvement in the quality of my images here, though i realize that a nice camera can't completely make up for lack of photography skills!

now that the cowl is done, i've just got my baby blanket that i'm working on. i definitely need a project to do when i'm sick to death of double-knitting white stockinette, so i think i will either cast on for the second lichen ribbed sock that i started in november, or else start these (yes, i am on a total purl bee kick!), with some pretty malabrigo.

p.s. i'm home today because it snowed so much here last night. exciting!

fo: my so called scarf

so now that kristie has received my scarf that i sent her for our swap, i can show it off here! i decided to go for the ubiquitous my so called scarf, both because i was curious about trying that stitch pattern and also because i just think it looks so cool! it was a fun scarf to make. you can memorize the pattern almost effortlessly after two pattern repeats, and it's one of those patterns that is super easy yet gets exclamations of how hard that must be by all who see you working on it. it was also my first time using manos del uruguay. it definitely won't be my last! the color i chose is SO beautiful. you won't be able to tell so much in my photo, but it's red swirling into baby blue swirling into plum into maroon into sage green. i saw it and was in love.

so, i think i mentioned before that i conveniently forgot to take a picture of the completed scarf before sending it off to kristie. that was smart. but luckily, i did take a picture of the scarf halfway through. this picture is pretty poor (in fact i'm embarrassed to even post it), and you can only see a little bit of the scarf here, but i can assure you that the rest of the scarf is about five feet more of the same, only much less blurry.



pattern: my so called scarf
yarn: manos del uruguay, color: bramble
needles: some random size 11s i had lying around. i have no idea where they came from!

the only downside to this yarn with this scarf is the fact that the yarn has some really skinny bits. this caused some seriously uneven edges in places. i really don't know if there's a way to get around that, but if there is, i don't know it. i did give it a light steam blocking and that helped some. hopefully you won't be able to tell when the scarf is all wound up around a neck!

nothing else to report really. i have a few inches left of my cowl. i'll spare you another picture, since it looks exactly the same as the last picture, only longer. oh! and i started a baby blanket for one of my friends, who is having her first baby in february. which gives me about a month to finish it. i'm not too optimistic that i'll make that deadline, but hopefully i can rise to the occasion and have it ready by the time the baby arrives.