Alhambra

I have a new favorite yarn: Malabrigo Sock. It's soft, versatile, squooshy, washable, and comes in an amazingly gorgeous array of colors. I recently finished knitting Alhambra out of Malabrigo Sock in Archangel. It was a great pairing of pattern and yarn. The pattern was dynamic, yet easy to memorize and really played-up the colors in the yarn. I may have taken too many a lot of pictures of this lovely scarf using my new lens (35mm Nikon DX F1.8). :D

Also, I've been busy casting-on for a couple new projects. I fell in love with the Whisper Cardigan in the most recent Interweave Knits so I acquired some lovely green Malabrigo Lace in Verde Esparanza (Green Hope). It's striping on the sleeve which is an unexpected development. I'm pretty sure I like it though.

And a guess green is TEH color right now because I'm also making another slouchy hat for Paul in Juniper Heather in Knitpicks Shadow (double stranded). Huh. Go green!

Happy knitting everyone!

Yarn Dyeing!

Today I went to a (highly anticipated) yarn dyeing class at the Stitch Cafe! It was some serious fun. I used Sterling yarn as my base which has 2% silver in it so it has these awesome sparkly bits that glitter in the light. I wussed out and chose a safe color to dye: purple & pink. BUT! I'd like to think it's a very complex semi-solid dye job. Anyway, I story of dye is best told in photos.

The colors I mixed: Greypurple, Pinkpurple, Rosepink, Fushia.

Halfway through dyeing the second side.

After the first cook.

Gloria's hands... no gloves for her!

I heart utility sinks. I want one. No... I need one.

The doodle pad.

Rinsing. Not much bleeding! Sweet.

Drying in the sun.

**View the whole slide show from the day HERE!**

Malibrigo Madness.

Recently it's been all Malbrigo yarn around here. I've been stashing Malbrigo for awhile now. I just love love love how soft and squooshy the yarn is... plus the colors are fabulous. And I just got my grubby mitts on some Malbrigo sock in Archangel. Goooooorgeouuuuus.

I couldn't resist! I cast-on for an Alhambra scarf with haste! Then, after I finished my spiral boot socks*, I cast-on for a Merino Malbrigo hat. I started with the Koolhaas pattern, but the skein of Cuarzo I have is too varigated and it obscured all those lovely cables. So I switched to Felicity.

I love it! The colors pooled so perfectly for the first part of the hat. It almost looks like stripes, but it's actually a lazy spiral. Awesome!

It was a super quick knit too... only a couple evenings of knitting. Highly recommended. Happy knitting!
*Spiral Boot Socks are having a few slouching problems currently. Tsk tsk. Bad posture never flattered anyone. Unfortunately, when I blocked them, they grew a bit. So I have to buy some Rainbow Elastic to remedy the problem. I'll take some pics when they are completely finished.

Trying something new.

I'm going to try something different. I started a new blog on Wordpress. I've been thinking about switching Knit Along the Way from Blogger to Wordpress for awhile. The main thing that's holding me back is template flexibility. Blogger is way more customizable (for free anyway). I like to post large photos and I've, so far, been unable to change the column or photo sizes in the Wordpress templates. I have to do a little more research. For the time being, I'm going to try out Wordpress with a photoblog. Without further ado, go check out my new blog... Let Me Show You a Story: a year in photos.

Also, I added a Flickr badge down at the bottom of the page. My sister mentioned that she missed that from my old blog layout. Stay tuned for some knitting. :)

Finished Lady.

I finished something big and fabulous: my Lady Eleanor stole. I love her and I've worn her pretty much every day since I finished her. She was blocked during the inauguration of President Obama.

I loved knitting this stole. The silk garden was lovely as ever. Despite all the knots and veggie matter that I had to pluck from the strands, this yarn is pretty awesome. The colors in the colorway are so pretty. I love all of them. And entrelac is so addicting! The squares just speed by, especially when you get the hang of knitting backwards. The fringe took two nights to finish... don't underestimate the fringe! It really makes the shawl. Ok... I had Eric take some shots while we were visiting Ruby, Alice, and Tom last weekend. Enjoy.

Here's a Story...

Well! The holidays are over. I'm a little slow getting back into the routine, but it's hard to come back to reality after such a long vacation. Christmas Gift Knitting this year was a big hit! I managed to take a series of photos of the WIP/FOs before I left for the East Coast.

Quite Brady-esque, dontcha think?

As you can see from the mosaic, I got quite a lot done before leaving on a jet plane, but I still had plenty to finish. There was still 80% of a hat (on US3 needles *eep*), 1 Fetching mitt, and a full pair of man mittens to knit. Not to mention the earrings I wanted to add to the cowl gifts. So did I get everything finished in time??? Oh! the suspense...

Yay! Happy, warm people all around!

I did it!!! I managed to finish everything. PHEW! I've gotta cut back on my gift recipients next year, or start even earlier. It was so fun to see everyone enjoy their gifts! It was really hard this year because I really wanted to keep the majority of the things I knit. The navy/yellow/purple hat for my sister, the squooshy oatmeal hat for brother-in-law, the Fetching mitts, the earrings! It's very satisfying to share my work though. I might even be able to whip up a pattern for the nautical hat I made my sister. It'll be more like a recipe than a pattern though... We'll see.

I have lots more photos to share from my vacation. I'll post more later after I have the energy to process them.

Ok, now back to selfish knitting... Lady Eleanor, here I come!

Beep.

Hi. I can't come to the blog right now. I'm too busy knitting. If you'd like to leave your name, number, and some brief encouragement that all the unknit yarn in the picture below will get knit in the appropriate time frame, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Which will probably be next year. Have a great day!

Awesomely Random.

1. Sorry I haven't blogged in a while! I needed a break. But I'm back! Here's some complete randomness to get caught-up.
2. First (second?), I must say, migraines completely suck.
3. The trip to ski in Salt Lake City over Thanksgiving was AWESOME. I got to knit a bunch AND hang out with my brother. Lets see what the two combined look like:

4. It's really darn windy out here... *wince* That can only mean one thing: red flag conditions... freakin' fire season.
5. I started a few more Christmas gift designs. Here are the sneak peeks:

6. I bought a new car! Go, economy, go! She is the cutest car ever! And now, I have to think of a name. Because a car this cute, definitely requires a name.

7. I had to re-pot Ophelia the Orchid. She was in a mixed arrangement with... SOIL. *gasp* This could not stand if Ophelia was to live so she moved to a new home:

8. Last, but not least, I won Lolly's little contest about guilty pleasures! How exciting! Thank you so much Lolly!

Last Day of November...

30 Days Of Blogging. Check!

Pittsburgh Zoo.

Flashback to Utah.

These are photos from the roadtrip Eric and I took to Utah in April. That was a fun trip. Hopefully, I'm hitting the Utah slopes today, like in the third photo!

Happy Thanksgiving!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

I am thankful for so many things...
Now it's time to eat turkey!

So close!!!

I realized last night that my month of consistent blogging is in major peril. So far this month, I've blogged for 25 days straight (!?!?) which is quite a feat for me. I have NEVER, in my four years of blogging, been a regular blogger. But I have to admit... this blogging thing? It's pretty fun. I actually have plenty to say and even if I don't, I have manymanymany photos to throw up on this little corner of the interwebs.

But I'm going on vacation starting this evening. Eric and I are driving up to Utah to ski and I'm not sure I'm going to have internet access. So I must coast out of my month of blogging. I will be scheduling some photos to go up, but it feels like cheating to just schedule photo posts for the last 5 days of the month. Oh well. Hopefully, I'll stick with blogging at a more regular pace than once a month. :) Have an awesome holiday weekend! See ya in December!!!

Hijack.

I'm hijacking my own blog to show my sister some yarn color combos. Regular posting will resume tomorrow. :) Ok... in no particular order.

Option 1: Pros = all the same yarn / Cons = purple color is so-so

Option 2: Pros = nice color combo / Cons = all different yarns

Option 3: Pros = all the same yarn, bright purple / Cons = navy is not very dark

Option 4: Pros = cheapest / Cons = not so sure about the purple

What do you think Kaylee?