As you may know, Henry is a yarn snob. He only fondles fibres with 100% natural content. Therefore, I believed my cowl being knit with Nashua Ivy (50% alpaca, 45% merino, 5% synthetic) was safe. I thought wrong:

Fortunately he didn’t try to kneed or lick or roll in it… but he certainly likes it more than anything acrylic! The pattern (for the knitters out there) is the Herringbone Cowl from Hungry Knitter. [Click for my project page on Ravelry].

Hope everyone is having a nice Whiskers on Wednesday. Henry is napping obviously!

I have a lot of Mirasol yarn in my stash, and I often pet it and wonder what it will become one day. I have four skeins (in two different colours) of Mirasol Miski, and one skein of Mirasol Hacho. Then last night, I finally cracked open the Mirasol Sulka and cast on.

OMG it feels like a dream! And keeping even tension, it looks like a dream! Although it feels lightly under-spun like it has no twist, so it often ends up splitty… but still OMG purrrr. Speaking of purring, Henry helped me photograph the progress on my cowl:

The pattern is the Quickie Cowl and the yarn is Cascade Luna. The red of the Luna is quite true in this picture, at least on my monitor. Okay so this isn’t the most up-to-date photo, but Henry and I were too tired to take another. Basically I just kept knitting until my yarn nearly ran out, and all that’s left is to mattress stitch up the sides. We’re planning a knitting photoshoot this weekend… so hopefully I’ll have some lovely photographs.

I trekked out to Burnaby yesterday to meet Chelle and her precious ball winder for a Knitting Meetup. It was really nice, I wound all three balls of the Cascade Luna and then cast on for the Quickie Cowl. And then, I made progress!

Usually I am such a process knitter and don’t get much knitting actually done.

I can’t count how many times I’ve driven down this one road of the Fraser Highway in Langley (a nearby city about 45 minutes away) searching aimlessly for Knitopia. I’m not joking, that’s actually the name of the store that I could never find. I knew that it was down one of the side streets of the one-way section of the Fraser Highway. It’s one of those folksy-arty blocks where they want to decrease road traffic.

Finally, when I heard that Knitopia was moving back to White Rock (20-30 minutes away), I made the effort to find Knitopia. It happened to be the same weekend as the Langley Arts Alive Festival. Unfortunately I left my camera at home, so this photo is from the website. It was neat; the shops were all open and there were lots of artisans on the street.

Knitopia (ravelry link) was chock-full of good stuff, but there were several lines and distributors that the owner wasn’t taking with her back to White Rock. One of the brands was Cascade, and a couple lines I’d never seen before. And, it was only $2.50 per skein! So here is the yarn I bought:

I want this Luna to become a cowl for me. Chelle knit a really pretty one (ironically also red, but that’s beside the point) and I just like how simple it is. It’s the Quickie Cowl by Fawn Pea (rav link).

For this, I’d really like to knit the Branching Out scarf from Knitty Spring 2005… but I don’t know if I have the patience for that much lace, even though it’s more of a DK weight.

Don’t tell my sister I showed you my knitting! She knows I’m knitting, and her birthday is on Sunday the 19th… But SHHHH don’t tell her!

If you’d like to know what pattern it is and whatnot, and you promise not to let my sister log into your Ravelry… check the project page.

And for the record, knitting in the round makes life soooo much easier. Maybe I shouldn’t knit flat things ever again… although there are so many cute cardis and shrugs I want to make…. hmmm dilemma!

P.S. Here are some photos from the last couple times we’ve gone PicKnitting with the Terminal City Yarn Wranglers:

I have actually made progress on my Keyhole Scarflette that I’m making. And it seems whenever I explain the scarf to people and show them the scarf, they have a strange compulsion with poking things through the keyhole! I guess once the scarflette is done and people can stick the scarf end through, it will stop. The problem with this scarf was the pattern, it’s construction was completely over-the-top, so I’ve been kinda winging it.

Myself at Steeps Teahouse. Thank you Chelle for your photography skills!

Evan, my best friend, at Starbucks with my scarflette.

1. Please don’t tell anyone how self-conscious I am about my appearance (body-type).
2. Can you think properly in the morning?
3. The color turquoise makes me want to jump up and down!
4. I have a craving for kisses from someone 3,000 km away… *sigh*.
5. If my life had a pause button, I’d pause it in February last year when we were living in Greater London, together.
6. Eyes are the “windows to the soul” BLEH. Actually, eyes are gorgeous and glittery and full of emotion.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finally finishing my e-portfolio, tomorrow my plans include scoping out a new haunt for Sunday VKM knitting and Sunday, I want to be productive for Day 3 of my 4-day weekend and hopefully finish my Cooca package!

Last weekend during Superbowl, this is what I started knitting. I like the picture but I don’t like how the scarf is constructed… so I’m just kinda winging it! So far we’re just plodding along.

And here is another lovely tease of the Blah Buster Buddy… I won’t be able to reveal the finished product until I’m sure that it has been received by my downstream partner!

Speaking of the Cocoa Swap… I still need to go buy mini marshmallows to do the next contest! Fortunately I have until the 14th.

I am joining Dewey’s Knit-Along (in memory of Dewey) and hosted by Robin. It’s one of the mini-challenges that Robin concocted for Dewey’s Book Challenge, but you can join in the knit-along without doing the reading challenge. I’m terrible with reading challenges, but I thought I would tag my next Knitting Project as my Dewey Knit-Along item.

So, with the same yarn I used for my mom’s hat, I am knitting her a scarflette. More specifically, the Ribbed Mini-Scarf [ravlink] by Celeste Glassel. I figure that my mom already has some really fancy, pretty silk scarf/pashmina things for work, but she needs a more practical scarf to wear with her hat. Also, it’s not as big/long/time-consuming as a regular sized scarf.

P.S. I’m being booted out* of the house for Superbowl tomorrow so I hope to find a coffeeshop to sit, knit, and surf the net. * Note: but who really wants to be in a house with grown men yelling and belching and farting and smoking?

Today my sister and I went to the yarn store! She is learning to weave and so I helped her choose yarn for her class. I picked out some lovely Cascade 220 and Cascade Heathers 220 for her. She wanted a soft wool, but something with merino is out of her price range (for the yardage she’ll need). I just looked up the stock colours, and I think this is what we picked in the end [see image right]. A heathered bluey-turquoise-green and a navy blue to make it pop. I think she is planning to use the navy for the warp and the heathered one for the weft. I learned weaving terms!

In other news, I’ve gotten a couple crafty gifts recently that I’d like to share! Some lovely leftover Malabrigo from Chelle (as she’s allergic to animal fibre) and some lace trim and sequins from Ginger, who was cleaning out her closet and thought of me when she found those. She said I should sew the lace to some panties!

And I forgot to share this photo from last weekend when I went knitting with Julia (left) and Chelle (right). They’re both making sweaters, Chelle has made tons before (and they’re gorgeous) but this will be Julia’s first! The yarn Julia is using is a little more purple than the photo, and Chelle is wearing a her lovely Porom [ravlink], which I totally want to make now too!

I also took a picture of my mom’s hat while we were knitting. It’s coming along nicely as you can see… I guestimate another inche before the decreases. Did I mention it’s the Fetching-Inspired Hat [ravlink]?

But the hat has been put on the backburner for the Blah Buster Buddy… now I don’t want to give anything away since it’s a small group of swappers this round, so here is a sneak peek at my Cocoa Swap Buddy…

Anyway, that’s all for now here at Yarn Central. Can you believe I’ve actually been knitting? I wish I was a faster knitter, but my hands get tired, and I’m typing at work all day with my fingers… it just gets too much. So, before my fingers get tired from typing this blog post, I’m gonna go work on the Cocoa Buddy.

So, as I mentioned in my 2008 wrap-up / welcome 2009 post, I didn’t knit my mom the lace stole. However, whenever I wear my knitting hat, earwarmers, or scarf… she likes to say, “ooh, I’d look good in that!” So here is the progress on the fetching-inspired hat:

The photo was taken at The Grind coffee shop earlier today. I joined in for the Terminal City Yarn Wranglers (Ravelry) knitting group. It’s about time I dragged my ass out of bed before noon and made it down there, especially since I’m one of the organizers of the group! Haha. And before I came to write this blog post, I went and measured my mom’s head, and then my head (to compare). She was like, “are you measuring me for a hat?” and I told her no, I was calculating her brain power based on the circumference of her cranium… I think I threw her off the scent!

Yesterday I decided to head to my LYS, Three Bags Full, for their New Year Sale. It was absolute madness in there! The line-up started at the door, wound all the way around the store, and bottlenecked at the cash register. There is only one register (common for an LYS, but during a sale?) and all the yarn is entered manually (ikes!). I waited for like 40 minutes holding some 40% off Cascade Eco Wool thinking, “I don’t really neeeeed this… is it worth my time to be here for at least another hour?” So I left. I’ve spoken to some other people (on Ravelry) and they all agree that the savings (sometimes only 15% or 20%) were not worth 3 hours in a line-up. Although I must say that the staff were absolutely amazing. Constantly restocking, checking dye lots for customers, and because we couldn’t get out of the store-wide lineup, they were shuttling around saying, “can I get you anything?”