A warm sense of accomplishment with hands still attatched!

As a result of constant and rapid knitting, the super scarf for DS's teacher has been completed. It is blocked and drying on the living room floor! Woo hoo! Finsihed it at Starbucks knit night. It looks fantastic and was easily blocked without much stretching to the exact size I wanted it. 7 inches wide by 58 inches long (okay it turned out 2 inches longer than I planned. Sheesh).
I am fairly certain I will NEVER make anything in Frog Tree Dark Grey Charcoal ever again. It was SO hard to see the stitches it was like going blind the whole time, and I don't even have problems seeing in a dimly lit room or semi darkness.
I can only imagine the torture that other more visually challenged persons must face with this. Here is a close up, you can vaguely see the chevron design. It is perfectly subtle for a conservative and professional man such is DS's teacher. I hope that he will enjoy it.

And to celebrate its completion I also made a little Minutia, #12. From left overs of my Regia Kaffe Fassett socks. With a little pulling and cutting of the leftovers of the 2 balls of yarn I had, I have perfectly matching fronts and backs, as well as sleeves. Most satisfying. It was hilarious that I made a tiny 2.5" tall sweater and had 12 ends to weave in. I don't have any wire to make the amazingly cute hangers so I will have to run to the store tomorrow. Darn another reason to shop... Just as a side bar, I have to say I can't compete with Melissa's rapid production of Minutia. She is a tiny sweater machine! Each one, a tiny marvel of knitting perfection!

Did you ever knit until you thought your hands would fall off and you would go blind? I changed my mind on the Teacher's scarf design for the 4th time ripped back the 9 inches of scarf I already had knit and cast on again. This was Friday night. I then realized I had 6 days to complete, block and wrap said scarf for delivery at school Friday morning. Um. Minor panic ensued. I now have 24 inches of scarf, I figure I am probably 2/3 of the way there. I am not sure. How long do they make men's scarves?

I am back on track again. I think.

My mysteriously lost Knitpicks order was reordered and finally shipped to me and I can FINALLY resume work on my embossed leaves sock. Somehow the gauge or yarn is different on the second sock and it was pooling so, so badly and you all know how obsessed I am with my socks matching. So Melissa, suggested I reduce by a couple of stitches and I decreased by 2 stitches. Miraculously the pooling disappeared, with just 2 stitches. Amazing. I am just hoping it doesn't return when I have to add the 2 stitches back in up at the ankle.

I took advantage of Commuknity's 20% of sale and purchased 4 skeins of Frog Tree Sport weight Alpaca in dark grey. This is already on the needles, becoming a scarf for DS's teacher. I am having a difficult time generating a pattern that shows up. The yarn has lots of lighter gray hairs waving out of it and it really obscures the stitch definition. I had a nice, reversible, manly pattern worked out in just knit and purl. But when I applied it to the yarn, the design was completely indiscernible, even after I had worked up 8 inches! Ugh! So I ripped it back and have been experimenting. I think I am going to stick with a 2 cable pattern with the cables running up the sides and garter stitch border. The lack of definition frustrates me though and makes me feel like I am going slightly blind. I tried a reversible cable scarf I found on the internet but it pulls in so much I would have to make the scarf like 80 stitches wide to have a reasonable width (about 8 inches wide) and imagine how much yarn that would use!

Also purchased at Commuknity was another skein of Claudia Handpainted Silk Lace in this fantabulous peacock color way. It is SO bright and beautiful and was purchased spontaneously, who could pass it was so lovely and 20% off. In the hopes that I will someday compelte the Ice Queen wimple, I purchased a ball of Kid Silk Night in Starlight. It is already has a little sparkle it it and it will look nice with some clear beads with metallic centers that I bought last week. Since I am now working on 3 projects I will have to finish up at least 2 (particularly the gift scarf!) before I cast on for that. Also spontaneously purchased was this ball of Melody that was up by the register. Damn tricky last minute buys. But look how pretty it is!!

Aha Guilty! I did not confess all of my recent purchases. I also bought, last Saturday at Purlesence 2 colors of Panda Cotton and 2 skeins of the humorously named Panda Silk (a whole 5% silk in there!) which I think I will probably make into another swallowtail shawl with beads like the Harlot did.