In the wings...

So while I was working on the bore that was the previous post, I had in the wings two delicious hanks of Madeline Tosh Sock in Whiskey Barrel.  I found it for a guy I worked with who wanted a scarf that was made up of browns, greys and blues.  I didn't think I was going to find anything with that combo, but when I stopped by my LYS - Rose's Fine Yarns - there it was, sitting on the shelf.  Gorgeous and the perfect fit. I bought it and there it has sat, waiting patiently (not like me).

The other reason I have been dying to work on this project, besides getting to use a yarn I have been wanting to try almost since I started knitting, is that this would be the first one  where I would get to use my spiffy new stitch markers my awesome sister got me for my anniversary this year.  Aren't they fantastic?  :)

 I have since cast on for another linen stitch scarf with this yarn, and these markers are an absolute delight to use - thin, snagless  and with no gapping between stitches at all!  They are by Craft Cat Knitty Bits on Etsy.  Looking through her stuff makes me want to start a stitch marker collection; I almost want one of everything on there. Oh hey... I haven't seen the little heart ones before...

Phew!

Glad I finally got this one finished up.  As much as I love doing linen stitch and as lovely as this one turned out when it was done, it was boring as STINK to do!  All one color of tightly woven stitches, row after row after well you get the idea.  Plus I was working with a deadline so I didn't have the luxury of taking a break to work on another project.

Impatience

Argh!  The agony!

A true fiberphile will understand my pain - a perfect, gorgeous, delicious yarn that is just screaming to be knit, formed into something even more beautiful.  But you have to WAIT.  There are other obligations, projects with deadlines, promises to be kept.  Then, and only then, can that yarn be addressed.

You see this?

THIS is the source of my anguish. Madeline Tosh Sock yarn in Whiskey Barrel. A yarn that I have been wanting to try since I started knitting, in a colorway that is simply stunning.

I have an order for a linen stitch scarf from a guy at work that will be done in Berocco Ultra Alpaca Fine in the same charcoal as I used in my Dad's. That led to another guy at work ordering one, but he wanted his in browns and greys and blues.  Where on earth was I going to find that combination?

I had popped into my LYS, Rose's Fine Yarns, to pick up a couple more Brittany crochet hooks for my sister and of course, had to take a wander through the rest of the store.  And there it was, sitting innocently on the shelf with the other colors.  I texted the gent at work, not willing to go ahead and spend $60 without checking with him first.  Moments before the store closed, the text came in telling me to go ahead, so I ran in and snagged it.

And so there it sits.  In my project bag.  Wound.  Waiting. Taunting.

Sigh.

A Knitter's First Pattern

I feel like I have reached something of a milestone in my knitting.  Up to this point, I have followed patterns, sometimes altered them a bit for my own purposes, that sort of thing. But I had never written my own pattern.

Until now! (trumpets blowing)

Ha ha, now seriously, I have nothing on any of the glorious patterns available in copious amounts by the many talented knitters out there, but maybe this is a step towards being a little part of that.

Maybe in the future I will be seized by some bug of creativity that will result in a new pattern, but this one was done out of necessity. I wanted to knit something for the husband of the lovely lady I was planning on giving the pink linen stitch scarf so I could give them both something. I had four skeins of delicious black Fresco that I was itching to use.  I wanted to do a textured pattern, one that would be subtle and masculine.  There was a thought of a diamond sort of pattern rattling around in my head, but after several days of poking about on Ravelry, I couldn't find anything that was what I was looking for.

I knew I had some graph paper about somewhere.

Doodle, scratch, erase, puzzle, mark up again, erase, fiddle.  Rewrite, puzzle, fiddle some more.

It took me a while to hash out a simple pattern but after testing it I finally came up with a basic diamond pattern that turned out exactly the way I wanted.  :) Hard to see in the picture, but trust me, it worked.  :P

Raising an Eyebrow

For a long time I have wanted to make something for my Mom, pretty much as soon as I learned to crochet, and then even more so once I learned to knit. Finding an appropriate pattern, however, is a different matter.  I thought I had found what I wanted to do - a gorgeous Irish hiking shawl with lots of pretty details and cables.  But when I went to buy the yarn for it, something about it just wasn't working so I decided to rethink it.  I found the Cane Bay Wrap by Blue Sky Alpacas and purchased the pattern, the first pattern I ever actually paid money for.  I then went to the Needle Emporium with my sister and found gorgeous Cascade 220 Worsted in a rich, dark blue-green called Regency.

Nope.  That wasn't going to work either.  I don't know if it was the pattern itself, or the combination of that yarn with that pattern, but it didn't work.  Perhaps the wrap needed a lighter color, I'm not sure.  I still love the look of it and will save it for the future, but it wasn't happening for this project.  Back to the drawing board.  Or Ravelry, as the case may be.  After some scrounging around, I found Raised Eyebrow by Alice's Embrace. It was a simple repeat and looked interesting.

I ended up adapting the pattern a bit since I wanted a shawl or wide scarf, not a blanket.  I also wanted a lacier look so I knitted normally, not with the yarn held double as the pattern called for.  I knit along happily, discovering partway that I wasn't going to have enough yarn.  I had purchased enough for the Cane Bay Wrap, and this was going to be bigger.  I immediately called up Needle Emporium and they happened to have one skein left in the same dye lot that they shipped off right quick.  Such great service!

Addicted to Linen

This was the second linen stitch scarf I just completed as a gift for my Dad.  I was so pleased with the way the pink one turned out that I decided to give it another go with different yarn.  The pink one in the previous post was done in Cascade 220 fingering, a wonderful Peruvian wool.  For my Dad I chose three colors rather than five - two paler greys in Classic Elite Fresco, which is a blend of wool, alpaca and angora, and one charcoal grey in Berocco Ultra Alpaca Fine, which is a blend of Peruvian wool, nylon for strength, and super fine alpaca.

Instead of doing a random pull for colors, this time I did alternating - one row of the charcoal, one of pale, one of charcoal, one of medium.  I knit every row with this one as I did the pink scarf, an easier way to  do this pattern in my books, and one that creates that little fringe.

I wish I would have taken a picture of the back because it turned out completely different from the front.  On the front, it looked paler, with long rows running down the length of the scarf.  On the back, however, more of the charcoal showed up and the rows went across the width.

I love working with these tiny, fingering weight yarns.  They make such an appealing, drapey fabric, and feel more like cloth than something knit.  But knit they are, and this one ended up having close to 50 000 tiny stitches.

Catching Up

Apologies to those who follow this blog as I have been a little delinquent of late.  This has been because all of the projects that I have been working on recently have been gifts.  I didn't want to risk them seeing them online before I had the chance to give them their items in person, so I didn't post anything.  Now I have given out the gifts, I can post their photos.

The first one was this linen stitch scarf:

It was a fun project to do and I am thrilled with the way it turned out.  I chose five colors, put them all in a bag and pulled them out one at a time, knitting one row with each color.  Once I had used all five colors, I would throw them all back in the back and start over.  I prefer this method of knitting a linen stitch scarf because you don't have to worry about all those pesky purl rows and it creates a fringe as you go.

I must admit that I was rather tickled when the lovely lady I gave it to wasn't 100% sure that it was something I had hand-knitted as opposed to something store-bought.  :)

Tent Sale!

So I hit up the Needle Emporium's tent sale today. I had been really looking forward to it, but I wasn't sure quite what to expect. It was held at the Ancaster Fairgrounds, in one of the exhibition halls. I pulled up and the parking lot was full.  Oh boy.

In I go...and was immediately a little thrown. For one, there was a LOT of people, and not the kind of yarn I was expecting.

At the store, it's a lot of high-end, natural fiber yarns, much of it hand dyed.  As I did a walk-through to get the lay of the land, I noticed a lot of this stuff was product lines I have never seen at the store. Synthetic fibers, weird blends and *gasp* ruffle yarns!   Where did this stuff come from??

I couldn't believe it. I didn't drive an hour for this, did I? Sigh. 

The  I found this...

It is Hachito Hand-painted Superwash Merino, 192 yds per ball, regilar $11.95, here for $3.50. Yoink! Then I discovered a box of mostly one offs of Cascade 220 worsted. It required some digging, as I found was going to be key, but I finally found 3 skeins of this lovely oatmeal color.

I wandered through the section of full bags and didn't see anything I was interested in, but on another pass through the main area I found a 350 yd skein of Pear Tree 100% Australian Merino in this delicious color called Nut - 

Pear Tree is normally $24.50 and I got it for $7. Close to that find I scrounged around in another box and found 2 skeins of Colinette Art, a wool-bamboo blend that usually sells for $23, another one I grabbed for $7.

On another pass by the corner of full bags, I noticed a lady sorting her purchases out on the floor, something a lot of people were doing, and beside her was a bag of this beautiful, rosy coral-colored yarn. I asked if it was hers, and she said, "No, it's yours!" I popped the bag open and found it to be a wonderfully soft fingering weight superfine merino, normally $12.65 per ball, selling for $35 for the bag of 10!

It's definitely more pink than the orangey color it looks in the picture.  I also found a few other bits and pieces, including a pretty skein of sock weight yarn in blues, turquoises and lime green, several skeins of Rowan Kid Silk Trio in pretty colors and a yak-merino blend of dark teal and grey.  I was finding that the longer I lingered, the more I was finding stuff.  I would go by a spot and new items would be there. I'm not sure if it was people putting stuff back, staff continuing to put new product out, or both.  Regardless, I found a skein of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine in black and, as I was heading to the counting table, I noticed this gorgeous bag that wasn't there before...

It is a discontinued Jordana Paige knitting purse, so I'm not sure what it sold for originally, but most of her products range between $55-$135. I didn't take a proper look at it until I got home, but I figured for $30 I would nab it. However, it put me over my budget and sadly,  I had to go sort through my bag and decide which choices I wanted for sure and which I would have to put back. I decided to keep the bag and was glad I did, because when I got home, it turned out to be better than I thought.

It came with a set of Clover 3.75mm bamboo straights and a sharpened pencil in the expandable section that has all sorts of sections for knitting tools.  The little loop I have the needles through is actually a snap loop meant to thread your yarn through as you are working with it so it doesn't tangle. The other two loops at the bottom of the picture are to hold needles.

All in all, a great sale, and not counting the bag since I'm not sure how much it was originally,  I spent $94 on almost $300 worth of yarn. Unfortunately,  I was not able to find anything for the two projects I was specifically shopping for. I suppose that just gives me extra purpose for my trip at the end of July, besides introducing my sister to the loveliness that is The Needle Emporium. :)

Infinity and beyond

This one was by special request, another version of the Fino Circle Scarf done in Manos del Uruguay. This color, that my sister is modeling, is called Amethyst Earring. Once agin, lovely stuff to work with. 

Head and shoulders...wrists and arms?

My list of orders is slowly dwindling as I finish pieces.  A couple of my latest pieces are two sets of wrist and arm warmers ordered by my sister. The first one is Garter Cable Wristlets done in Classic Elite Fresco, an absolutely fabulous dk weight yarn.  It is a lovely pattern, but has a ridiculous amount of cables! Unfortunately the camera disliked the black so the detail is difficult to see.

The second set was Rise & Shine Arm Warmers done in Cascade 220, Charcoal Grey. This is obviously a much simpler pattern, but seaming was still awful.

The Subconscious Knitter

For me, knitting is all about the feel. The texture of the yarn, the weight of the needles, the drape of the finished fabric. And while casting on for my latest project, I realized I subconsciously match my needles to my yarn.

My latest scarf is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in a blend of magenta, hot pink and bright, creamsicle orange. It is made of a superfine, machine washable merino with a bit of nylon for strength. It is very soft but has a distinctly modern feel to it and I found myself casting the stitches onto my new Hiya Hiya circulars - light, stainless steel needles. It got me thinking...

When I am knitting with what I consider a luxury yarn - silk blends, handspun, alpaca - I prefer my KnitPicks wooden needles, either straights or circulars.

Mid-grade yarns like wool and wool blends tend to go onto my KnitPicks aluminum needles.

Acrylics go on my cheap Walmart steel needles.

I guess it's a subconscious effort to make the experience as copacetic as possible, because if the yarn doesn't feel right on the needles, it just won't work.

Knitting with Earrings!

Um....what?

It was a trick I stumbled on the other day when I was working on a pair of fingerless mitts for my sister.  See?

I have rubber stitch markers but they were making me crazy, always in the way and just plain irritating.  I thought, I need to get some of those pretty hanging stitch markers I've seen on Pinterest.  Then I thought - why don't I just use earrings?

Worked perfectly!  The right kind is essential as you need ones with a closed loop and with a smooth enough clasp that it doesn't catch on your yarn.  But these worked beautifully and are pretty too.  I have several pairs that I don't wear anymore that will work well and now they are in my knitting kit instead of my jewelry box. 

Yarn Mania

Oh dear.  Shopping sprees.  Yarn shopping sprees.  We need to stop.  But there is so much loveliness to be had...

I got my sister addicted to WEBS, the glorious yarn website with so many goodies.  She had browsed about and found some yarn she wanted to buy, but wasn't sure about putting in an order.  So I looked to see if there was anything I wanted.  What a silly idea, of course there was stuff I wanted.  And then she found more that she wanted.  This was the result:

I blush when I tell you this is only the top layer.  There are 2 more flat layers underneath this.  Hee hee!  Some of it was so soft I wanted to just pet it.  And there, right smack in the middle is that spooky, color-changing Jade.

Oh look!  I just got another email about their new clearance items....

The Importance of Lighting the Sequel

Oh WEBS, you are going to be the death of me.  My sister and I went on kind of a yarn buying rampage (more about that in another post) and now I have far more yarn than I know what to do with.  Not like that will prevent me from buying more, but that's besides the point.

Part of the order was a bunch of fingering weight yarn to make linen stitch scarves.  Generally scarves made from this stitch are made with many colors to make the effect seen here. That was what I was going for, but my sister decided she wanted hers in a solid green color.  She ordered a color called Jade.  The box came in and I sent her the picture:

This was not the color she wanted.  She has enough in turquoise already and wasn't looking for more.  She had hoped it would be closer to the picture that was shown on the website and was a bit disappointed, but knew it would still look lovely when it was done.  I tucked it away in the bin with the rest of the order and went on to other projects.

A few days later I was rooting about in the bin for a particular yarn when I saw a pretty green yarn I didn't remember ordering.  What is this?  I pulled it out and looked at the tag.  It was the Jade!  I immediately took a second picture:

Seriously?!  It doesn't even look like the same yarn!  This was more the color she was looking for and was happy when I forwarded her the picture.  So weird.

Alpaca Grief

My little cousin is pregnant and any knitter knows...that means I have a project!  I was excited for this one.  I went off to The Needle Emporium to find my yarn after speaking secretly to my cousin's mom - she would like a dove grey blanket and loves cable knit stuff.  Easy enough. She is a girl who likes things of a better quality so I didn't want to use a basic acrylic yarn that I knew I could find scads of at Walmart and Michaels. I found a lovely grey color in the Berocco Ultra Alpaca and knew the pattern I was going to use.

Well.  You know what they say about the best laid plans.

It didn't work.  Several rows and a few cables in to the pattern I was all set to go gung ho with and it became painfully clear it just wasn't working.  I don't know if it was the pattern or the yarn or me or what, but it wasn't going to happen so I ripped it all out, rewound my yarn and hopped online in search of a new pattern to use.  I found the Red Cable Blanket and thought, hey, that looks perfect.

Well. I was wrong.

Turns out the pattern was missing a crucial step.  Or it was written in a confusing way. Pattern reads, repeat rows 1 and 2 for 8 rows and then every 8th row, do a cable row.  Which in my way of reading, if you are repeating rows 1 and 2 for 8 rows, you are doing the cable row after the 8th row, not on it. That being the case, that would mean you are starting the pattern repeat on the wrong side, so you actually have to do another row 2 after the cable row to put you back on track. I rewrote it thusly...

CO 146
Row 1 - (K2, P2, K6, P2), K2
Row 2 - (P2, K2, P6, K2)
Repeat  3 more times, total 8 rows
Row 9 - (K2, P2, CBL, P2)
Row 10 - same as row 2
CBL = sl 3 to cable needle, hold to front, K3, K3 from cable needle.

It worked!  There wasn't a whole lot of info on the site beyond that, such as yardage and all such, so off I went, cabling away, measuring as I went.  Knit, knit, knit.  I don't find cabling particularly difficult but man I was sick of it by the end of this blanket.  Finally finished, I bound off and set to blocking it.  Blocking finished a day later, removed the pins....

Oh. Oh no.

It was flat.  Limp.  Nicely drapey, but it was a cable blanket and that was not the objective.  I didn't realize just how much alpaca stretches and this just looked ironed.  Flat and ironed and not what I expected at all.  But what could I do?  It still looked nice, so I folded it up and set it aside, disappointed but knowing that my cousin will still appreciate the gift.

It bugged me, though.  Every time I glanced at it, it bugged me.  There has to be a way to undo my overblocking I thought.  Back to the internet I went.  Searched, and searched and searched.  There are countless articles about how to block knitting, but nothing about how to unblock it.

What's a knitter to do but experiment?  I figured, I don't really have much to lose at this point, so back in the blocking bucket it went and I let it soak really well this time, for over half an hour.  I pushed all the excess water out and laid it out carefully on the blocking mats, and row by row, cable by cable, I gently "smooshed" it back to more of the shape I wanted.  Then all I could do was wait. It took 2 days to dry this time since it was so wet to start with but I was definitely happier with the look of the cables and ribs afterwards:

Before

After

As you see from the top picture, it was very flat, the cables almost looking sharp and embossed, and the ribs were very far apart, stretching the stitches open around the cables.  The bottom picture is more what I was going for, softer looking with a bit of "puff" to the cables.  Not exactly, but better.

There is a catch though.  Of course there is!  Now that it wasn't stretched as wide, the proportions are off.  It's longer than it should be.  That irritates and disappoints me, but not a whole lot to be done about it now.  In the future if I ever redo this pattern, I would definitely cast on a lot more stitches than this pattern called for.  And I would do a swatch.  This was my first time blocking such a large item and I was shocked at how much the look, feel and size changed with this particular yarn.  Swatches using different blocking methods and strengths would have prevented me a lot of alpaca grief.

Fino Take 2

I gave the finished Fino Circle Scarf to my friend and she loves it!  Here are some pics of her beautiful self modelling it for me.

                                           

Bittersweet

A friend of mine really wanted a cowl made so she had me bring over my ginormous pattern binder (wish has  since blossomed to 2 ginormous pattern binders) to browse through.  She couldn't decide, so she picked two.  This one was the second one I did, using the Bittersweet Cowl by Megan Goodacre.  It sent us back to The Needle Emporium to pick up the yarn she had seen when we had been there previously. She purchased Cascade Eco Cloud in a kind of mushroomy color.  Here is the result...

I will never deliberately use this yarn again.  Looks nice but man did it ever feel weird.  Being chainette it was like working with a tiny little cord, which I disliked, and it took four days to dry when being blocked.  FOUR DAYS! No, thanks, I don't have that kind of patience! Despite that, however, I do like the finished result.

What a difference a needle makes

A little while ago I had a conversation with my sister about gauge.  She is a crocheter and was curious how the material of a knitting needle affects gauge after I pinned a graphic about it on Pinterest.  I find there can be a huge difference in the way different needles will knit up so I thought I would do a few swatches to show it.

In the picture, all three of the swatches were knitted on the same day, with the same yarn which was a worsted weight acrylic (incidentally it was the first yarn I ever bought).  I used a 6mm needle for all of them because that is the size I have the most variety in.

The top swatch was knitted first with my bamboo set which I find very grabby and tight, good for very soft yarns, which this is most definitely not. The swatch measures 5.5x6.5 and has 4 stitches per inch.

The middle swatch was done with my aluminum needles, which I usually use with acrylic because they slide so much better.  It measures 5.5x6.75 - so the rows are the same but it is a quarter inch wider with a gauge of 3.5 stitches per inch.

The bottom one was done last with my KnitPicks wooden needles.  These are my absolute favorite and were a gift from my sister because she knows knitting contributes to my sanity (although there is never a guarantee with these things).  :)  I find I can use these compressed, laminated birch needles with just about any yarn and they are simply delightful with my fancier sock yarns I am currently obsessed with.  This swatch meaures 5.5x7, so again, the same row height, but a full half inch wider than the bamboo, with a gauge of only 3 stitches per inch.

This may seem like an insignificant difference, and it often is when you are making things in which gauge doesn't matter as much, such as blankets and scarves.  It does alter the look though, with the bamboo creating a tighter fabric and the wood being more "airy".  That being said, if you are doing anything that requires a specific gauge, you have to be a lot more careful.  This is why gauge swatches are VITAL for doing any project that requires fit such as clothing.  

Think of it this way...You are knitting a pattern that calls for 100 cast on stitches for a 20-inch wide panel, based on 5 stitches per inch.  But you knit 5.5 stitches per inch, which means your finished piece would be only 18 inches wide.  If you are doing a front and back panel to seam together, that is a difference of 4 inches and your gorgeous sweater is too small.

Something else to keep in mind is that the pattern is really just a guide.  They are written by people and people are different.  The person who wrote the pattern might have been a tight knitter knitting on bamboo, and you might be a loose knitter who prefers wooden needles. Or you are substituting one brand of yarn for another, and like clothing sizes, weight grading doesn't always mean exactly the same thing between yarn makers. For example, some "sock weights" are rated at 7 stitches per inch, others are 8 - a full stitch difference can make a huge difference in sizing. You may also find that you knit differently with alpaca vs. wool vs. blend.  It's all about making that swatch first and going from there.

Fino Circle Scarf (with seaming success!)

This project was a triumph for me - I can seam!!

Made using the Fino Circle Scarf pattern, it is knit in one long panel and then seamed at the end.  I hate seaming.  I have never been able to get a nice, clean seam.  But then I found a link to a tutorial for seaming the two bound-off edges together at NewStitchADay.com.  It turned out great and once it was blocked, you can hardly even tell where it was joined.

This is a lovely pattern to knit and this yarn further deepened my yarn snobbery.  It is extrafine merino with silk and is wonderful to work with.  The pattern itself is a basic stockinette, one that uses the natural curl to its advantage. Being such a basic pattern, I was afraid it would get boring, but watching the colors subtly shift made it more interesting.  Plus, it ended up being the perfect project for working on while watching TV since there wasn't any complicated pattern repeats to concentrate on.  The photo above actually shows the infinity scarf doubled, as left  as is, it is 36" on each side, a little too long to be just worn straight.

The Importance of Lighting

I have been astounded by the difference that lighting can make in yarn colors.  At The Needle Emporium, they have been smart to use natural lighting so the hues are as accurate as possible.  On my first trip I purchased Manos del Uruguay Fino in Peacock Plume to make the Fino Circle Scarf.  In store it looked like this:

I wanted to take some pictures to show the progress and was shocked at how much the color changed.  The top photo in the collage below was taken under florescent lighting, no flash. The middle picture was under florescent lighting with flash and the bottom photo is the one above which was taken in natural light.  What a huge difference and one that could make a project look completely NOT like what was intended!

Yarn Snobbery

I admit it.  I have become a yarn snob.

It's is entirely the fault of The Needle Emporium located in Ancaster, ON.  It was a yarn store that I had intended on visiting for quite a while and so finally a friend and I decided to head up there to buy the yarn that she needed for the two scarves that she ordered from me.  Their website is pretty extensive so I emailed them ahead of time so I would know what to expect.  Most online retailers carry a lot more online than they do in their brick and mortar stores, so I figured that it would be the same in this case.  I was surprised when the owner emailed me back and said that they actually have a LOT more in-store than online.  She told me that the store was in an old house and that every room was filled with yarn.

I knew I was in trouble.  Little did I know just how much.

My friend and I found the old stone building easily in the small town of Ancaster and pulled into the tiny parking lot, full of anticipation.  We went in and I immediately hyperventilated.

So.  Much. YARN!!!

This place is by far THE best yarn store I have ever been to.  Wall to wall, floor to ceiling yarn in every shade and color combination you could possibly imagine.  Buckets, baskets, shelves, hooks, cubbies, all filled to the brim with a rainbow of fibers.  Merino, cashmere, angora, silk, alpaca, yak, all organized beautifully for easy shopping.

When you first walk in the door, the walls on either side of the entryway are lace yarns.  Go in to the right and there is a section of accessories and my personal favorite area of the store - sock yarn. I was completely overwhelmed by the incredible, dazzling array of colors, lightweight yarns all begging to be touched.  Julie, the owner, even has custom Lorna's Laces yarns that she has specially made in smaller gram-weight hanks for their linen-stitch scarf kits they specialize in.  If you go back past the door, the room to your left is the DK/Light worsted room and across from it is the regular worsted.  Across the end is the chunky room where I found my long-sought-after hand-painted baby alpaca yarn that I made into this:

And with that I was a full-on yarn snob.  Once I felt the quality and saw the beauty of these yarns, I knew I couldn't go back.  I'm doomed.

I ended up purchasing yarn for several projects - the blue is for my friend's infinity scarf (which accidentally turned out to be the exact yarn for the pattern), the grey for my cousin's baby blanket, black for a scarf for my dad and the hand-painted alpaca for me.

Ingrid's Cowl

I finally finished this long-promised cowl for my friend Ingrid.  I apparently told her I would make her a scarf a year and a half ago when a group of us went to Canada's Wonderland. This past summer, we ended up at a bbq together and she saw the caramel colored brioche cowl I was wearing and asked, "So, when am I getting my scarf?"  Ummmmm.....scarf?

The nice thing was she was the quickest decision-maker ever.  What would you like? I asked.  I like what you are wearing.  Fair enough; color?  Purple.  Easy.

This one is made of a full skein of Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn in Purple (real original color name there).  I think I cast on 38 stitches and did the whole thing in straight brioche stitch.  By the end of it I was just about ready to scream and was very happy I was done.  I wasn't very happy with the seam, but seaming is my nemesis.