Yarny Specimen.

I gave my tiny Thermal swatch a soak.

Bubble bath.

(Progress on the Urban Aran continues to crawl.)

I love my crayons.

It's a good thing I gave it a wash too, 'cause it grew 0.25"/2"... Important things to know for a form-fitting sweater.

Oh man.

I have become obsessed with a sweater: Thermal from knitty.com.

Obsession.

However, I already have a sweater on the needles that I really want to get finished.

Obstacle.

So I'm attempting to harness my desire to knit Thermal into determination to finish Urban Aran... As you can see I have cracked slightly and could not stop myself from swatching. Wouldn't you know it, I have gauge on the first try. With yarn from my stash. In one of my fav color combinations: aqua and burgundy. Hmmmm... How long will my resolve last???

Purple is great.

It was super warm in SoCal today; 80F. And the second Warm Swell finished drying. Just in time... cause I was getting cold...

Specs:
Yarn: elann.com Sierra, Rowan Felted Tweed, knitpicks.com Andean Treasure
Amount: 110grams
Pattern: Swell + mods
Needles: US5
Started: February 4th, 2007
Finished: February 10th, 2007

Decreases on the top. With two tassels.

I used short rows to make the earflaps this time. It worked pretty well. I think the earflaps lie flatter using this technique. However, correct placement is very important. The first time I completed the earflaps they were nowhere near the natural anatomic position of my ears. Ooops. I got it right the second time.

Earflaps en profile.

And the waves on this hat aren't the only purple things around here these days.

So pritty!

Eric sent me beautiful purple flowers for Valentine's Day! Thanks honey! :D

I'm back!

On Monday, I returned home from a vacation in Colorado. Eric and I met in the middle of the country and spent a fun couple of days exploring the Denver area. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Before I left for Denver, I raced to finish the second Warm Swell hat. I made a couple of crazy mistakes on this hat, including losing 8 stitches on the one earflap resulting in one earflap being smaller than the other. Hopefully, you won't be able to tell in the final product.

Done with the color work.

The first day in Denver, Eric and I headed up to Fort Collins and visited the New Belgium brewery. It was a fun tour.

Goofy mirror.

Then we headed west of Denver to ski at Winter Park... I had to learn how to ski all over again, but it was super fun! Oh and Eric likes his hat! He declares that it is very warm. Success!

That's my boy. Mmmhm.

I did finish the second Warm Swell hat on Saturday night... It's blocking now... More pictures to come.

Self portrait in the little car mirror.

There were some very beautiful clouds while driving back to Golden, CO.

Beautiful glowing clouds.

On Monday waiting for my plane back to LAX, I started the Swallowtail Shawl.

Pinned down.

It was a fun vacation, but too short as always. Until next time...

I'm one sick booger.

Ugh. The sore throat that I had been babying for 4 days turned into a full blown head cold on Sunday. I feel like I'm 4 miles underwater; my nose is stingy and leaky and my sinuses feel like they are being squeeeeeezed. Ouch. But that's not what I'm here to blog about. (I am such a whiny sick person... I can't help it!)

I finished Warm Swell! It turned out pretty well. It was sort of fiddly to get the lining and earflaps all figured out. But the wave colorwork, I LOVE. And it's really warm. I wish I would have moved the waves down about 6 rows so that they fell fully inside of the hem, but ooooh well. Here are some pictures!

Specs:
Yarn: elann.com Sierra, Bebbie Bliss Cashmerino, knitpicks.com Andean Treasure
Amount: 110grams
Pattern: Swell + mods
Needles: US5
Started: January 21st, 2007
Finished: February 2nd, 2007

Swirled decreases plus twisty tassel.

Warm waves.

Now I'm making another coordinating hat with a different (hopefully smarter) construction. We'll see if it works.