Striped

Finished a "Noro Stripe" scarf for Mark today.  I've seen so many of these around the blogs I read, I fancied having a go myself and bought the yarn last weekend.  Having done one, I've now cast one another for myself - pinks and greens of course.

Update on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 8:41AM by Gill Thomas

I know what Jordi means in her comment about Noro yarn being kind of scratchy.  I've only knitted the Kureyon yarn previously and that's certainly true of that.  But the scarf is knitted in Noro Silk Garden and though it's still not anything like cashmere or alpaca, after a quick soak in - erm - Soak - it's much softer and not really scratchy at all.

Buttons

My button box is of only moderate size so it was especially surprising to find not only one perfect match of a button, but two!  The photo doesn't show the colour to best effect - you'll have to believe me when I say that the irridescent shine picks up the black and deep turquoise perfectly.

What's more, I found a willing (and able) model.

 

 Thanks, Henry.

Good grief, she knits

Such a dark and dreary day today and my generally cheerful and sunny mood is threatened by all manner of challenges including one transaction with a railway ticket clerk which lasts fifteen minutes and during which time he utters just three words to me: "sixty five pounds". Nothing more.

Since I spent the rest of the morning trying to finish some work I've been doing which will qualify me as a professional something-or-other, I feel that I have earned a reward in the form of an afternoon of fun.  I think colour will be involved.  Yay!!

 (picture of blankets on the fence, taken the Sunday before last in Sintra and reminding me of warm sunny days in Canyon Road Santa Fe!)

Not only that, but the knitting mojo has returned...sort of. 

Last September, in New York with Jordi, I found this gorgeous yarn in Purl.  So expensive, I felt I had to limit myself to two skeins and had no idea what I'd do with it (simply pet it from time to time, maybe?)  When I opened the Interweave Knits Holiday Gift special and spotted this neck warmer, knitted from two skeins of the same yarn, I thought it was meant to be.  On this dull day, the actual colour is impossible to show - it's called Lapis but is really a deep turquoise blue.

Hardly a BAP (thanks Della) but nevertheless, a step in the right creative direction. 

And the label is inspiration in itself.

Reduced

Checking in for our flight just half an hour ago, we noticed how everyone seemed to have rather more bags than they'd brought.  The topic of conversation is how much has been saved rather than spent!  When we arrived on Friday, everything in my favourite shop was reduced by 25%.  In spite of such temptation, there wasn't much there to my fancy and I left with just a single pair of jeans.  But browsing in there yesterday, I spotted a jacket I'd not seen before and asked the assistant if the reductions were still in place.  Sadly not, she said, the ticket price applied - not megabucks, but nevertheless, more than I wanted to pay.

This morning, we dropped in again, spotting a new notice by the door "Up to 50% off".  Sure enough, there was the jacket, now on the rail with "take an extra 30% off" above it - and a red line through the price reducing it by almost half before that.  Just 24 hours and the jacket I fancied had been reduced by more than 60% - and because I have a frequent shopper card there (!) I got an additional 5%.

Crazy.

I especially love the Starbucks holiday theme this year.

 Though I haven't noticed a knitting theme going on in the UK yet?

Perhaps it started on the 1 December?

 

Knitting advice

I arrived in Ross armed with two abandoned lace projects and left with just one.  The other is now a few balls of yarn.

Friends, eh? 

Actually, they were right to cheer me on as I ripped out the mistake-ridden Ene shawl for they knew that those mistakes would bug me no end.  We all agreed that other peoples mistakes don't matter one jot, but our own work has to be rather better than that.  On Sue's advice, I'll use the yarn to knit a straight scarf/wrap with shorter rows to build my confidence.  Most probably it'll be the Print o the Wave pattern or something similar.  For now, huge triangular shawls are just so last year!

Sue K (yes, two Sues) had brought some yummy yarn destined to be - errrmmmm, a triangular shawl?  W Sue brought several fantastic lace projects on the needles and a copy of Nancy Bush's latest book for us to drool over.  Having generously shared some valuable experience for not only getting that lace right but for getting beads in as well, she's now expecting to see progress.  Hmmm.

Sadly, Bailey's doesn't allow photographs, or else you'd see the great visual treat that can be recycled glass, brown paper, linen, string and other such goodies.  As we enjoyed our lunch, we caught sight of more little details, things hanging from wooden spoons, scarves with sweet buttons and labels, wooden apples and little dolls sitting on the rafters which reminded us of some childrens TV programme or other (Was she called Lucia?) Suffice to say, none of us left empty handed.